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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hidden Children, by Robert W. Chambers
+
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+Title: The Hidden Children
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: January, 2004  [EBook #4984]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 7, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE HIDDEN CHILDREN ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Jim Weiler, xooqi.com.
+
+
+
+                           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.
+  _________________________________________________________________
+
+  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'élite."
+
+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'élite 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 curoius.
+
+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'élite; 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 aud 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 Vlaie 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 limation 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 cérémonie, n'est-ce pas?"
+
+And we sauntered dawn 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 Lans, 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-Hawk knelt, bent his bow, and the blazing arrow soared
+whistling with flame, and fell behind the rock on the shelf.
+
+Arrow after arrow followed, whizzing upward and dropping accurately;
+but the wet mosses of the cliff extinguished the flashes.
+
+As the last arrow fell, flared a moment, then merely smoked, an
+insulting laugh came from aloft, and my Indians uttered fierce
+exclamations and cuddled their rifle-stocks close to their cheeks,
+fairly trembling for a shot.
+
+"Dogs of Oneidas!" called the Erie. "Go howl for your dead pig of a
+Stockbridge slave."
+
+"The Mole wears his scalp with Tharon!" retorted the Grey-Feather,
+choking with fury. "But Tahoontowhee's hatchet is still sticking in
+the Senecas' heads!"
+
+"For which the Night-Hawk shall burn at the Seneca stake, sobbing his
+death-song!" shouted the Erie, so fiercely that for a moment we lay
+silent, hoping that by some ungovernable movement he might expose
+himself.
+
+"Taunt him!" I whispered; and the Mohican said with a derisive laugh:
+
+"Four scalp-tufts from the mangy Cats of Amochol trim my
+hatchet-sheath. When the young men ask me what this sparse and sickly
+fur may be, I shall strip it off and cast it at their feet, saying it
+is but Erie filth to spit upon."
+
+"Liar of a conquered nation!" roared the Erie, "for every priest of
+Amochol who fell by Otsego under your cowardly butcher's knife, a
+Siwanois Sagamore shall burn three days, and yet live to die the
+fourth! The day that August dies, so shall the Sagamore die at the
+Festival of Dreams in Catharines-town!"
+
+"I shall remember," said I in a low voice to the Sagamore, "that the
+Onon-hou-aroria is to be celebrated in Catharines-town on the last day
+of August."
+
+He nodded, then:
+
+"A Mohican Sagamore insults a dirty priest of Amochol! I do you honour
+by offering you battle, with knife, with hatchet, with rifle, with
+naked hands! Choose, spawn of Atensi-- still-born kitten of Iuskeha,
+choose! Not one soul except myself will raise hand against you. By
+Tharon, I swear it! Choose! And the victor passes freely and whither
+he wills!"
+
+The Erie mocked him from his high perch:
+
+"Squirrels talk! Long since has your Tharon been hurled headlong into
+Biskoonah by Atensi and her flaming grandson!"
+
+At this awful blasphemy, the Mohican fairly blanched so that under his
+paint his skin grew ashy for a moment.
+
+The Grey-Feather shouted:
+
+"Lying and degraded priest! Mowawak Cannibal of a Sinako Cat! It is
+Atensi herself who burns with Iuskeha in Biskoonah; and the
+sacrilegious fires lick your altars!"
+
+The Erie laughed horribly:
+
+"Where is your fool of a stripling called Loskiel? Is he there with
+you? Or did my hatchet fetch him such a clip that he died of fright
+and a bullet in his belly?"
+
+"He is unharmed," replied the Mohican, tauntingly. "A squaw shoots
+better than a Cat!"
+
+"A lie! I saw my rifle blow a hole in his body!"
+
+"Hatchet and rifle failed. The Ensign, Loskiel, laughed, asking what
+forest-flies were buzzing at his ear. Loskiel spits on Cats, and
+brushes their flying hatchets from his ears as others brush
+mosquitos!"
+
+"Let him speak, then, to prove it!" shouted the Erie, incredulously.
+
+But I remained silent.
+
+Then the Erie's ferocious laugh rang out from the cliff.
+
+"Now, you Mohican slave and you Oneida dogs, you shall know the power
+of Amochol. For what was done to Loskiel and to the Praying Mole, will
+be done to you all on the last day of this month, when the Dream Feast
+is held at Catharines-town! You shall die. And others shall die-- not
+as you, but on the red altar of the Great Sachem Amochol! Strangled,
+disemboweled, sacrificed to clothe Atensi!"
+
+The Grey-Feather, unable any longer to retain his self-control, was
+getting to his feet, staring wildly up at the cliff; but the Mohican
+drew him back into his form and held him there with powerful grip.
+
+"Listen," he hissed, "to what this warlock blabbs."
+
+The Erie laughed, evidently awaiting a retort. None came, and he
+laughed again triumphantly.
+
+"Amochol's arm is long, O you Oneida dogs who howl outside the Long
+House gates! Amochol's eyes are like the white-crested eagle's eyes,
+seeing everything, and his ears are like the red buck's ears, so that
+nothing stirs unheard by him.
+
+"Phantoms arise and walk at night; Amochol sees. Under earth and
+water, demons are breathing; Amochol hears. Then we Eries listen, too,
+and make the altar fires burn hotter. For the ghosts of the night and
+the demons that stir must be fed."
+
+He waited again, doubtless expecting some exclamation of protest
+against his monstrous profession. After a moment he went on:
+
+"Spectres and demons must be fed-- but not on the foul flesh of dogs
+like you! We cut your throats to feed the Flying Heads."
+
+He paused; and as no reply was forthcoming, the sorcerer laughed
+scornfully.
+
+"Your blood becomes water! You cringe at the power of Amochol. But the
+red altar is not for you. Listen, dogs! Had I not found it necessary
+to slay your stripling, Loskiel, he had been burned and strangled an
+that altar!... And there is another at Otsego who shall die strangled
+on the altar of Amochol-- the maiden called Lois! Long have we
+followed her. Long is the arm of the Red Priest-- when his White
+Sorceress dreams for him!
+
+"And now you know, you Mohican mongrel, why Amochol was at Otsego. His
+arm reaches even into the barracks of Clinton! Because to Atensi the
+sacrifice of these two would be grateful-- the maiden Lois and your
+Loskiel. Only the pure and guarded pleasure her. And these two are
+Hidden Children. One has died. The other shall not escape us. She
+shall die strangled by Amochol upon his own altar!"
+
+I sat up, sick with horror and surprise, and stared at the Mohican for
+an explanation. He and the Oneidas were now looking at me very gravely
+and in silence. And after a moment my head dropped.
+
+I knew well enough what the brutal Erie meant by "Hidden Children."
+But that I was one I never dreamed, nor had it occurred to me that
+Lois was one, in spite of her strange history. For among the Iroquois
+and their adopted captives there are both girls and boys who are
+spoken of as "Hidden Persons" or "Hidden Children." They are called
+Ta-neh-u-weh-too, which means, "hidden in the husks," like ears of
+corn.
+
+And the reason is this: a mother, for one cause or another, or perhaps
+for none at all, decides to make of her unborn baby a Hidden Child.
+And so, when born, the child is instantly given to distant
+foster-parents, and by them hidden; and remains so concealed until
+adolescence. And, being considered from birth pure and unpolluted, a
+girl and a boy thus hidden are expected to marry, return to their
+people when informed by their foster-parents of the truth, and bring a
+fresh, innocent, and uncontaminated strain into their clan and tribe.
+
+What the Erie said seemed to stun me. What did this foul creature know
+of me? What knowledge had this murdering beast of Lois? And Amochol--
+what in God's name did the Red Sorcerer know of us, or of our history?
+
+Even the horrid threat against Lois seemed so fantastic, so unreal, so
+meaningless, that at the moment. it did not impress me even with its
+unspeakable wickedness.
+
+The Sagamore touched my arm as though with awe and pity, and I lifted
+my head.
+
+"Is this true, brother?" he asked gently.
+
+"I do not know if it is," I said, dazed.
+
+"Then-- it is the truth."
+
+"Why do you say that, Mayaro?"
+
+"I know it, now. I suspected it when your eyes first fell on the
+Ghost-bear rearing on my breast. I thought I knew you, there at Major
+Lockwood's house in Poundridge. It was your name, Loskiel, and your
+knowledge of your red brothers, that stirred my suspicions. And when I
+learned that Guy Johnson had sheltered you, then I was surer still."
+
+"Who, then, am I?" I asked, bewildered.
+
+The three Indians were staring at me as though that murderer aloft on
+his eyrie did not exist. I, too, had forgotten him for the moment; and
+it was only the loud explosion of his smooth-bore that shocked us to
+the instant necessity of the situation.
+
+The bullet screamed through the leaves above us; we clapped our rifles
+to our cheeks, striving to glimpse him. Nothing moved on the rocky
+shelf.
+
+"He fired to signal his friends," whispered the Mohican. "He must
+believe them to be within hearing distance."
+
+I set my teeth and stared savagely at the cliff.
+
+"If that is so," said I, "we must leave him here and pull foot."
+
+There was a tense silence, then, as we rose, an infuriated yell burst
+from the Oneidas, and in their impotence they fired blindly at the
+cliff, awaking a very hell of echo.
+
+Through the clattering confusion of the double discharge, the demoniac
+laughter of the Erie rang, and my Oneidas, retreating, hurled back
+insult and anathema, promising to return and annihilate every living
+sorcerer in the Dark Empire, including Amochol himself.
+
+"Ha-e!" he shouted after us, giving the evil spirits' cry. "Ha-e!
+Ha-ee!" From his shelf he cast a painted stick after us, which came
+hurtling down and landed in the water. And he screamed as he heard us
+threshing over the shallows: "Koue! Askennon eskatoniot!"
+
+The thing he had cast after us was floating, slowly turning round and
+round in the water; and it seemed to be a stick something thicker than
+an arrow and as long, and painted in concentric rings of black,
+vermillion, and yellow.
+
+Then, as we gave it wide berth, to our astonishment it suddenly
+crinkled up and was alive, and lifted a tiny, evil head from the
+water, running out at us a snake's tongue that flickered.
+
+That this was magic my Indians never doubted. They gave the thing one
+horrified glance, turned, and fairly leaped through the water till the
+shallow flood roared as though a herd of deer were passing over.
+
+As for me, I ran, too, and felt curiously weak and shaken; though I
+suspected that this wriggling thing now swimming back to shore was the
+poison snake of the Ksaurora, and no Antouhonoran witchcraft at all,
+as I had seen skins of the brilliant and oddly marked little serpent
+at Guy Park, whither some wandering Southern Tuscaroras had brought
+them.
+
+But the bestial creature of the cliff had now so inspired us all with
+loathing that it was as though our very breath was poisoned; and in
+swift and silent file we pushed forward, as if the very region-- land,
+water, the air itself-- had become impure, and we must rid ourselves
+of the place itself to breathe.
+
+No war-party burning to distinguish itself ever travelled more
+swiftly. Sooner than I expected, we crossed the small creek which
+joins the river from the east, opposite the Old England District, and
+saw the ruins of Unadilla across the water.
+
+Here was a known ford; and we crossed to Old Unadilla, where that
+pretty river and the Butternut run south into the broadening
+Susquehanna.
+
+At this place we halted to eat; and I was of two minds whether to go
+by the West Branch of the Delaware, by Owaga and Ingaren across the
+Stanwix Treaty Line to Wyalusing, and from thence up the river to the
+Chemung and Tioga Point; or to risk the Chenango country and travel
+southwest by Owego, and so cutting off that great southern loop that
+the Susquehanna makes through the country of the Esaurora.
+
+But when I asked the opinion of my Indians, they were of one mind
+against my two, saying that to follow the river was the easiest,
+swiftest, and safest course to Tioga Point.
+
+They knew better than did I. This side of Tioga the Oneidas knew the
+ground as well as the Siwanois; but beyond, toward Catharines-town,
+only my Siwanois knew. Indeed, if my Oneidas remained with me at all
+beyond Tioga I might deem myself lucky, in such dread and detestation
+did they hold that gloomy region where the Wyoming Witch brooded her
+deadly crew, and where the Toad Woman, her horrible sister, fed the
+secret and midnight fires of hell with the Red Priest, Amochol.
+
+A grey hawk was circling above us mewing. Truly, our nerves had been
+somewhat shattered, for as we rose and resumed pack and sack, a
+distant partridge drumming on his log startled us all; and it was as
+though we had thought to hear the witch-drums rolling at the
+Onon-hou-aroria, and the hawk mewing seemed like the Sorcerers calling
+"Hiou! Hiou! Hiou!" And the Unadilla made a clatter over its stones
+like the False-Faces rattling their wooden masks.
+
+"Eheu!" sighed the pines above us as we sped on; and ever I thought of
+Okwencha and the Dead Hunter. And the upward roar of a partridge covey
+bursting in thunder through the river willows was like the flight of
+the hideous Flying Heads.
+
+On we went, every sound and movement of the forest seeming to spur us
+forward and add flight-feathers to our speeding feet. For in my
+Indians, ascendant now, was the dull horror of the supernatural; and
+as for me my hatred of the Sorcerers was tightening every nerve to the
+point of breaking.
+
+As I travelled that trail through the strange, eternal twilight of the
+great trees, I vowed to myself that Amochol should die; that the
+Sagamore and I would guide a thousand rifles to his pagan altar and
+lay this foul priesthood prone upon it as the last sacrifice.
+
+Then I recalled the Black-Snake's threat against Lois; and shuddered;
+then the astounding reason he had given for the Red Priest's design
+upon us both set me dully wondering again.
+
+Fear that his emissaries might penetrate our lines stirred me; and I
+remembered the moccasins she had received, and the messages sewed
+within them. If a red messenger had found her every year and had left
+at her door, unseen, a pair of moccasins, why might not an invisible
+assassin find her, too? Already, within our very encampment, she had
+received another pair of moccasins and a message entirely different
+from the customary one.
+
+Whoever had brought it had come and gone unseen.
+
+Distressed, perplexed, half sick with fear for her, I plodded on
+behind the Mohican, striving to drive from me the sombre thoughts
+assailing me, trying to reassure myself with the knowledge that she
+was safe at Otsego with her new friends, and that very shortly now she
+would be still safer in Albany, and under the shrewd and kindly eye of
+Mr. Hake.
+
+The sun had set; the pallid daylight lingering along the forest edges
+by the river grew sickly and died. And after a little the Mohican
+halted on a hillock, and we cart our packs from us and peered around.
+
+The forms of rocks took dim shape all about us, huge slabs and benches
+of stone, from which great bushes of laurel and rhododendron spread,
+forming beyond us an entangled and impenetrable jungle.
+
+And under these we crawled and lay, listening for snakes. But there
+seemed to be none there, though our rocky fastness was a very likely
+place. And after we had eaten and emptied our canteens, the two
+Oneidas went out on guard to the eastern limit of the rocks; and the
+Sagamore and I lay on our sides, facing each other in the dark. And
+for a while we lay there, neither of us speaking. Finally I said under
+my breath:
+
+"Then I am one of the Hidden People."
+
+"Yes, brother," he replied very gently.
+
+"Tell me why you believe this to be true. Tell me all you know."
+
+For a little while the Mohican lay there very silent, and I did not
+stir. And presently he said:
+
+"It was in '57, Loskiel, when I first laid eyes on you."
+
+"What!"
+
+"I am more than twice your age. You were then three years old."
+
+In my astonishment it occurred to me that instead of twenty-two I was
+now twenty-five years of age, if what the Mohican said were true.
+
+"Listen, Loskiel, blood-brother of mine, for you shall hear the truth
+now-- the truth which Guy Johnson never told you.
+
+"It was in '57; Munro lay at Fort William Henry; Webb at Fort Edward;
+and Montcalm came down from the lakes with his white-coats and Hurons
+and shook his sword at Munro and spat upon Webb.
+
+"Then came Sir William Johnson to Webb with half a thousand Iroquois.
+And because Sir William was the only white man we Delawares trusted,
+and in spite of his Iroquois, three Mohicans offered their services--
+the Great Serpent, young Uncas, and I, Mayaro, Sagamore of the
+Siwanois."
+
+He paused, then with infinite contempt:
+
+"Webb was a coward. Nor could Sir William kick him forward. He lay
+shivering behind the guns at Edward; and Fort William Henry fell. And
+the white-coats could do nothing with their Hurons; the prisoners fell
+under their knives and hatchets-- soldiers, women, little children.
+
+"When Montcalm had gone, Webb let us loose. And, following the trail
+of murder, in a thicket among the rocks we came upon a young woman
+with a child, very weak from privation. Guy Johnson and I discovered
+them-- he a mere youth at that time.
+
+"And the young woman told him how it had been with her-- that her
+husband and herself had been taken by the St. Regis three years
+before-- that they had slain her husband but had offered her no
+violence; that her child had been born a few weeks later and that the
+St. Regis chief who took her had permitted her to make of it a Hidden
+Person.
+
+"For three years the fierce St. Regis chief wooed her, offering her
+the first place in his lodge. For three years she refused him, living
+in a bush-hut alone with her child, outside the St. Regis village, fed
+by them, and her solitude respected. Then Munro came and his soldiers
+scattered the St. Regis and took her and her baby to the fort. And the
+St. Regis chief sent word that he would kill her if she ever married."
+
+So painfully intent was I on his every low-spoken word that I scarce
+dared breathe as the story of my mother slowly unfolded.
+
+"Guy Johnson and I took the young woman and her child to Edward," he
+said. "Her name was Marie Loskiel, and she told us that she was the
+widow of a Scotch fur trader, one Ian Loskiel, of Saint Sacrament."
+
+There was another silence, as though he were not willing to continue.
+Then in a quiet voice I bade him speak; and he spoke, very gravely:
+
+"Your mother's religion and Guy Johnson's were different. If that were
+the reason she would not marry him I do not know. Only that when he
+went away, leaving her at Edward, they both wept. I was standing by
+his stirrup; I saw him-- and her.
+
+"And-- he rode away, Loskiel.... Why she tried to follow him the next
+spring, I do not know.... Perhaps she found that love was stronger
+than religion.... And after all the only difference seemed to be that
+she prayed to the mother of the God he prayed to.... We spoke of it
+together, the Great Serpent, young Uncas, and I. And Uncas told us
+this. But the Serpent and I could make nothing of it.
+
+"And while Guy Johnson was at Edward, only he and I and your mother
+ever saw or touched you.... And ever you were tracing with your baby
+fingers the great Ghost Bear rearing on my breast----"
+
+"Ah!" I exclaimed sharply. "That is what I have struggled to
+remember!"
+
+He drew a deep, unsteady breath:
+
+"Do you better understand our blood-brotherhood now, Loskiel?"
+
+"I understand-- profoundly."
+
+"That is well. That is as it should be, O my blood-brother, pure from
+birth, and at adolescence undefiled. Of such Hidden Ones were the
+White-Plumed Sagamores. Of such was Tamanund, the Silver-Plumed; and
+the great Uncas, with his snowy-winged and feathered head-- Hidden
+People, Loskiel-- without stain, without reproach.
+
+"And as it was to be recorded on the eternal wampum, you were found at
+Guy Johnson's landing place asleep beside a stranded St. Regis canoe;
+and your dead mother lay beside you with a half ounce ball through her
+heart. The St. Regis chief had spoken."
+
+"Why do you think he slew her?" I whispered.
+
+"Strike flint. It is safe here."
+
+I drew myself to my elbow, struck fire and blew the tinder to a glow.
+
+"This is yours," he said. And laid in my hand a tiny, lacquered folder
+striped with the pattern of a Scotch tartan.
+
+Wondering, I opened it. Within was a bit of wool in which still
+remained three rusted needles. And across the inside cover was written
+in faded ink:
+
+"Marie Loskiel. "
+
+"How came you by this?" I stammered, the quick tears blinding me.
+
+"I took it from the St. Regis hunter whom Tahoontowhee slew."
+
+"Was he my mother's murderer!"
+
+"Who knows?" said the Sagamore softly. "Yet, this needle-book is a
+poor thing for an Indian to treasure-- and carry in a pouch around his
+neck for twenty years."
+
+The glow-worm spark in my tinder grew dull and went out. For a long
+while I lay there, thinking, awed by the ways of God-- so certain, so
+inscrutable. And understood how at the last all things must be
+revealed-- even the momentary and lightest impulse, and every deepest
+and most secret thought.
+
+Lying there, I asked of the Master of Life His compassion on us all,
+and said my tremulous and silent thanks to Him for the dear, sad
+secret that His mercy had revealed.
+
+And, my lips resting on my mother's needle-book, I thought of Lois,
+and how like mine in a measure was her strange history, not yet fully
+revealed.
+
+"Sagamore, my elder brother?" I said at last.
+
+"Mayaro listens."
+
+"How is it then with Lois de Contrecoeur that you already knew she was
+of the Hidden Children?"
+
+"I knew it when I first laid eyes on her, Loskiel."
+
+"By what sign?"
+
+"The moccasins. She lay under a cow-shed asleep in her red cloak, her
+head on her arms. Beside her the kerchief tied around her bundle lay
+unknotted, revealing the moccasins that lay within. I saw, and knew.
+And for that reason have I been her friend."
+
+"You told her this?"
+
+"Why should I tell her?"
+
+There was no answer to this. An Indian is an Indian.
+
+I said after a moment:
+
+"What mark is there on the moccasins that you knew them?"
+
+"The wings, worked in white wampum. A mother makes a pair with wings
+each year for her Hidden One, so that they will bring her little child
+to her one day, swiftly and surely as the swallow that returns with
+spring."
+
+"Has she told you of these moccasins-- how every year a pair of them
+is left for her, no matter where she may be lodged?"
+
+"She has told me. She has shown me the letter on bark which was found
+with her; the relics of her father; this last pair of moccasins, and
+the new message written within. And she asked me to guide her to
+Catharines-town. And I have refused.
+
+"No, Loskiel, I have never doubted that she was of the Hidden People.
+And for that reason have I been patient and kind when she has beset me
+with her pleading that I show to her the trail to Catharines-town.
+
+"But I will not. For although in rifle dress she might go with us--
+nay, nor do I even doubt that she might endure the war-path as well as
+any stripling eager for honour and his first scalp taken-- I will not
+have her blood upon my hands.
+
+"For if she stir thither-- if she venture within the Great Shadow--
+the ghouls of Amochol will know it. And they will take her and slay
+her on their altar, spite of us all-- spite of you and me and your
+generals and colonels, and all your troops and riflemen-- spite of
+your whole army and its mighty armament, I say it-- I, a Siwanois
+Mohican of the Enchanted Clan. A Sagamore has spoken."
+
+Chill after chill crept over me so that I shook as I lay there in the
+darkness "Who is this maiden, Lois?" I asked.
+
+"Do you not guess, Loskiel?"
+
+"Vaguely."
+
+"Then listen, brother. Her grandfather was the great Jean Coeur who
+married the white daughter of the Chevalier de Clauzun. Her mother was
+Mlle. Jeanne Coeur; her father the young Vicomte de Contrecoeur, of
+the Regiment de la Reine-- not that stupid Captain Contrecoeur of the
+regiment of Languedoc, who, had it depended on him, would never have
+ventured to attack Braddock at all.
+
+"This is true, because I knew them both-- both of these Contrecoeur
+captains. And the picture she showed to me was that of the officer in
+the Regiment de la Reine.
+
+"I saw that regiment die almost to a man. I saw Dieskau fall; I saw
+that gay young officer, de Contrecoeur, who had nicknamed himself Jean
+Coeur, laugh at our Iroquois as he stood almost alone-- almost the
+last man living, among his fallen white-coats.
+
+"And I saw him dead, Loskiel-- the smile still on his dead lips, and
+his eyes still open and clear and seeming to laugh up at the white
+clouds sailing, which he could not see.
+
+"That was the man she showed me painted on polished bone."
+
+"And-- her mother?" I asked.
+
+"I can only guess, Loskiel, for I never saw her. But I believe she
+must have been with the army. Somehow, Sir William's Senecas got hold
+of her and took her to Catharines-town. And if the little Lois was
+born there or at Yndaia, or perhaps among the Lakes before the mother
+was made prisoner, I do not know. Only this I gather, that when the
+Cats of Amochol heard there was a child, they demanded it for a
+sacrifice. And there must have been some Seneca there-- doubtless some
+adopted Seneca of a birth more civilized-- who told the mother, and
+who was persuaded by her to make of it a Hidden One.
+
+"How long it lay concealed, and in whose care, how can I know? But it
+is certain that Amochol learned that it had been hidden, and sent his
+Cat-People out to prowl and watch. Then, doubtless did the mother send
+it from her by the faithful one whose bark letter was found by the new
+foster-parents when they found the little Lois.
+
+"And this is how it has happened, brother. And that the Cat-People now
+know she is alive, and who she is, does not amaze me. For they are
+sorcerers, and if one of them did not steal after the messenger when
+he left Yndaia with the poor mother's yearly gift of moccasins, then
+it was discovered by witchcraft."
+
+"For Amochol never forgets. And whom the Red Priest chooses for his
+altar sooner or later will surely die there, unless the Sorcerer dies
+first and his Cat-People are slain and skinned, and the vile altar is
+destroyed among the ashes of its accursed fire!"
+
+"Then, with the help of an outraged God, these righteous things shall
+come to pass!" I said between clenched teeth.
+
+The Sagamore sat with his crested head bowed. And if he were in
+ghostly communication with the Mighty Dead I do not know, for I heard
+him breathe the name of Tamanund, and then remain silent as though
+listening for an answer.
+
+I had been asleep but a few moments, it seemed to me, when the
+Grey-Feather awoke me for my turn at guard duty; and the Mohican and I
+rose from our blankets, reprimed our rifles, crept out from under the
+laurel and across the shadowy rock-strewn knoll to our posts.
+
+The rocky slope below us was almost clear to the river, save for a
+bush or two.
+
+Nothing stirred, no animals, not a leaf. And after a while the
+profound stillness began to affect me, partly because the day had been
+one to try my nerves, partly because the silence was uncanny, even to
+me. And I knew how dread of the supernatural had already tampered with
+the steadiness of my red comrades-- men who were otherwise utterly
+fearless; and I dreaded the effect on the Mohican, whose mind now was
+surcharged with hideous and goblin superstitions.
+
+In the night silence of a forest, always there are faint sounds to be
+heard which, if emphasizing the stillness, somehow soften it too.
+Leaves fall, unseen, whispering downward from high trees, and settling
+among their dead fellows with a faintly comfortable rustle. Small
+animals move in the dark, passing and repassing warily; one hears the
+high feathered ruffling and the plaint of sleepy birds; breezes play
+with the young leaves; water murmurs.
+
+But here there was no single sound to mitigate the stillness; and, had
+I dared in my mossy nest behind the rocks, I would have contrived same
+slight stirring sound, merely to make the silence more endurable.
+
+I could see the river, but could not hear it. From where I lay, close
+to the ground, the trees stood out in shadowy clusters 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 tasselled 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, pricked up against the vaguely
+lustrous 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 multitude 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-butterfly, 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 passed 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 passed 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 damned 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 passed in the barbaric magnificence of paint and feather and
+shining 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 passed.
+
+
+And it was a terrible and an infamous sight to me, who had known these
+men under other circumstances to see the remnant of the landed gentry
+of Tryon County now riding the wilderness like very vagabonds, squired
+by a grotesque horde of bloody renegades.
+
+To what a doleful pass 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 Duchess 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 harassed and haggard horsemen
+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.
+
+Signs of their occupation became more frequent every minute now; there
+were batteaux and rafts being unloaded at landing places, heavily
+guarded by Continental soldiery; canoes at carrying places, brush huts
+erected along the trail, felled trees, bushes cut and lying in piles,
+roads being widened and cleared, and men everywhere going cheerily
+about their various affairs.
+
+We encountered the cattle-guard near to a natural meadow along a tiny
+binikill, and they gave us an account of how Brant had fallen upon
+Minisink and had slain more than a hundred of our people along the
+Delaware and Neversink. And I saw my Indians listening with grim
+countenances while their eyes glowed like coals. As soon as we forded
+the river, we passed a part of Colonel Proctor's artillery, parleyed
+in a clearing, where a fine block-fort was being erected; and there
+were many regimental wagons and officers' horses and batt-horses and
+cattle to be seen there, and great piles of stores in barrels, sacks,
+skins, and willow baskets.
+
+As we passed the tents of a foot regiment, the 3rd New Hampshire Line,
+one of their six Ensigns, Bradbury Richards, recognized me and came
+across the road to shake my hand, and to inform me that a small scout
+was to go out to reconnoitre the Indian town of Chemung; and that we
+would doubtless march thither on the morrow.
+
+With Richards came also my old friend Ezra Buell, lately lieutenant in
+my own regiment, but now a captain in the 3rd New York Continentals,
+and a nephew of that Ezra Buell who ran the Stanwix survey in '69 and
+married a pretty Esaurora girl while marking the Treaty Line.
+
+"Well!" says Ezra, shaking my hand, and: "How are you lazy people up
+the river, and what are you doing there?"
+
+"Damming the lake," said I, "whilst you damn us for making you wait."
+
+Bradbury Richards laughed, saying that they themselves had but just
+come up, admitting, however, that there had been some little cursing
+concerning our delay.
+
+"It has been that way with us, too," said I, "but it is the rebel
+'Grants' we curse, and the Ethan Allens and John Starks, and
+treacherous Green Mountain Boy's, who would shoot us in the backs or
+make a dicker with Sir Henry sooner than lift a finger to obey the
+laws of the State they are betraying."
+
+"So hot and yet so young!" said Buell, laughing, "and after a long
+trail, too -- " glancing at my Indians, "and another in view already!
+But you were ever an uncompromising youngster, Loskiel."
+
+"Your regiment has marched for Canajoharie," I said. "When do you go
+a-tagging after it?"
+
+"This evening with the headquarter's guide, Heoikim, and the express
+rider, James Cooke. Lord, what a dreary business!"
+
+"Better learn the news we have concerning your back trail before you
+start. Ask Captain Franklin to mention it to the General."
+
+"Certainly," said Buell. "I would to God my regiment were ordered here
+with the rest of them, I'm that sick of the three forts and the
+scalping-party fighting on the Schoharie."
+
+"It's what you are likely to get for a long while yet," said I. "And
+now will you or Richards guide me and my party to headquarters?"
+
+"Will you mess with us?" said Richards. "I'll speak to Colonel
+Dearborn."
+
+I said I would with pleasure, if free to do so, and we walked on
+through the glorious sunset light, past camp after camp, very smoky
+with green fires. And I saw three more block-houses being builded, and
+armed with cannon.
+
+The music of Colonel Proctor's Artillery Regiment was playing "Yankee
+Doodle" near headquarters as we sighted the General's marquee, and the
+martial sounds enthralled me.
+
+One of the General's aides-de-camp, a certain Captain Dayton, met us
+most politely, detained my Indians with tobacco and pipes, and
+conducted me straight to the General, who, he assured me, happened to
+be alone. Having seen our General on various occasions, I recognized
+him at once, although he was in his banyan, having, I judged, been
+bathing himself in a small, wooden bowl full of warm water, which
+stood on the puncheon flooring near, very sloppy.
+
+He received me most civilly and listened to my report with interest
+and politeness, whilst I gave him what news I had of Clinton and how
+it was with us at the Lake, and all that had happened to my scout of
+six-- the death of the St. Regis and the two Iroquois, the treachery
+of the Erie and his escape, the murder of the Stockbridge-- and how we
+witnessed the defile of Indian Butler's motley but sinister array
+headed northwest on the Great Warrior Trail. Also, I gave him as true
+and just an account as I could give of the number of soldiers,
+renegades, Indians, and batt-horses in that fantastic and infamous
+command.
+
+"Where are your Indians?" he asked bluntly.
+
+I informed him, and he sent his aide to fetch them.
+
+General Sullivan understood Indians; and I am not at all sure that my
+services as interpreter were necessary; but as he said nothing to the
+contrary, I played my part, presenting to him the stately Sagamore,
+then the Grey-Feather, then the young warrior, Tahoontowhee, who
+fairly quivered with pride as I mentioned the scalps he had taken on
+his first war-path.
+
+With each of my Indians the General shook hands, and on each was
+pleased to bestow a word of praise and a promise of reward. For a
+while, through medium of me, he conversed with them, and particularly
+with the Sagamore, concerning the trail to Catharines-town; and,
+seeming convinced and satisfied, dismissed us very graciously, telling
+an aide to place two bush-huts at our disposal, and otherwise see that
+we lacked nothing that could be obtained for our comfort and good
+cheer.
+
+As I saluted, he said in a low voice that he preferred I should remain
+with the Mohican and Oneidas until the evening meal was over. Which I
+took to indicate that any rum served to my Indians must be measured
+out by me.
+
+So that night I supped with my red comrades in front of our bush-huts,
+instead of joining Colonel Dearborn's mess. And I was glad I did so;
+and I allowed them only a gill of rum. After penning my report by the
+light of a very vile torch, and filing it at headquarters, I was so
+tired that I could scarce muster courage to write in my diary. But I
+did, setting down the day's events without shirking, though I yawned
+like a volcano at every pen-stroke.
+
+Captains Franklin and Buell, in high spirits, came just as I finished,
+desiring to learn what I had to say of the road to Otsego; but when I
+informed them they went away looking far more serious than when they
+arrived.
+
+A few minutes later I saw the scout march out, bound for Chemung-- a
+small detachment of the 2nd Jersey, one Stockbridge Indian, and a
+Coureur-de-Bois in very elegant deerskin shirt and gorgeous leggins.
+Captain Cummins led them.
+
+As they left, Captain Dayton arrived to take me again to the General.
+There was a throng of officers in the marquee when I was announced,
+but evidently by some preconcerted understanding all retired as soon
+as I entered.
+
+When we were alone, the General very kindly pointed to a camp stool at
+his elbow and requested me to be seated; and for a little while he
+said nothing, but remained leaning with both elbows on his camp table,
+seeming to study space as though it were peopled with unpleasant
+pictures.
+
+However, presently his symmetrical features recovered pleasantly from
+abstraction, and he said:
+
+"Mr. Loskiel, it is said of you that, except for the Oneida Sachem,
+Spenser, you are perhaps the most accomplished interpreter Guy Johnson
+employed."
+
+"No," I said, "there are many better interpreters, my General, but
+few, perhaps, who understand the most intimate and social conditions
+of the Long House better than do I."
+
+"You are modest in your great knowledge, Mr. Loskiel."
+
+"No, General, only, knowing as much as I do, I also perceive how much
+more there is that I do not know. Which makes me wary of committing
+myself too confidently, and has taught me that to vaunt one's
+knowledge is a dangerous folly."
+
+General Sullivan laughed that frank, manly, and very winning laugh of
+his. Then his features gradually became sombre again.
+
+"Colonel Broadhead, at Fortress Pitt, sent you a supposed Wyandotte
+who might have been your undoing," he said abruptly. "He is a cautious
+officer, too, yet see how he was deceived! Are you also likely to be
+deceived in any of your Indians?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Oh! You are confident, then, in this matter!"
+
+"As far as concerns the Indians now under my command."
+
+"You vouch for them?"
+
+"With my honour, General."
+
+"Very well, sir.... And your Mohican Loup -- he can perform what he
+has promised? Guide us straight to Catharines-town, I mean?"
+
+"He has said it."
+
+"Aye-- but what is your opinion of that promise?"
+
+"A Siwanois Sagamore never lies."
+
+"You trust him?"
+
+"Perfectly. We are blood-brothers, he and I."
+
+"Oho!" said the General, nodding. "That was cunningly done, sir."
+
+"No, sir. The idea was his own."
+
+General Sullivan laughed again, playing with the polished gorget at
+his throat.
+
+"Do you never take any credit for your accomplishments, Mr. Loskiel?"
+he inquired.
+
+"How can I claim credit for that which was not of my own and proper
+plotting, sir?"
+
+"Oh, it can be done," said the General, laughing more heartily. "Ask
+some of our brigadiers and colonels, Mr. Loskiel, who desire
+advancement every time that heaven interposes to save them from their
+own stupidities! Well, well, let it go, sir! It is on a different
+matter that I have summoned you here-- a very different business, Mr.
+Loskiel-- one which I do not thoroughly comprehend.
+
+"All I know is this: that we Continentals are warring with Britain and
+her allies of the Long House, that our few Oneida and Stockbridge
+Indians are fighting with us. But it seems that between the Indians of
+King George and those who espouse our cause there is a deeper and
+bloodier and more mysterious feud."
+
+"Yes, General."
+
+"What is it?" he asked bluntly.
+
+"A religious feud-- terrible, implacable. But this is only between the
+degraded and perverted priesthood of the Senecas and our Oneidas and
+Mohicans, whose Sachems and Sagamores have been outraged and affronted
+by the blasphemous mockeries of Amochol."
+
+"I have heard something of this."
+
+"No doubt, sir. And it is true. The Senecas are different. They belong
+not in the Long House. They are an alien people at heart, and seem
+more nearly akin to the Western Indians, save that they share with the
+Confederacy its common Huron-Iroquois speech. For although their
+ensigns sit at the most sacred rite of the Confederacy, perhaps not
+daring in Federal Council to reveal what they truly are, I am
+convinced, sir, that of the Seneca Sachems the majority are at heart
+pagans. I do not mean non-Christians, of course; they are that anyway;
+but I mean they are degenerated from the more noble faith of the
+Iroquois, who, after all, acknowledge one God as we do, and have
+become the brutally superstitious slaves of their vile and perverted
+priests.
+
+"It is the spawn of Frontenac that has done this. What the Wyoming
+Witch did at Wyoming her demons will do hereafter. Witchcraft, the
+frenzied worship of goblins, ghouls, and devils, the sacrifice to
+Biskoonah, all these have little by little taken the place of the
+grotesque but harmless rites practiced at the Onon-hou-aroria. Amochol
+has made it sinister and terrible beyond words; and it is making of
+the Senecas a swarm of fiends from hell itself.
+
+"This, sir, is the truth. The orthodox priesthood of the Long House
+shudders and looks askance, but dares not interfere. As for Sir John,
+and Butler, and McDonald, what do they care as long as their Senecas
+are inflamed to fury, and fight the more ruthlessly? No, sir, only the
+priesthood of our own allies has dared to accept the challenge from
+Amochol and his People of the Cat. Between these it is now a war of
+utter extermination. And must be so until not one Erie survives, and
+until Amochol lies dead upon his proper altar!"
+
+The General said in a low voice:
+
+"I had not supposed that this business were so vital."
+
+"Yes, sir, it is vital to the existence of the Iroquois as a federated
+people who shall remain harmless after we have subdued them, that
+Amochol and his acolytes die in the very ashes they have so horribly
+profaned. Amherst hung two of them. The nation lay stunned until he
+left this country. Had he remained and executed a dozen more Sachems
+with the rope, the world, I think, had never heard of Amochol."
+
+The General looked hard at me:
+
+"Can you reach Amochol, Mr. Loskiel?"
+
+"That is what I would say to you, sir. I think I can reach him at
+Catharines-town with my Indians and a detachment from my own regiment,
+and crush him before he is alarmed by the advance of this army. I have
+spoken with my Indians, and they believe this can be accomplished,
+because we have learned that on the last day of this month the secret
+and debased rites of the Onon-hou-aroria will be practiced at
+Catharines-town; and every Sorcerer will be there."
+
+"Do you propose to go out in advance on this business?"
+
+"It must be done that way, sir, if we can hope to destroy this
+Sorcerer. The Seneca scouts most certainly watch this encampment from
+every hilltop. And the day this army stirs on its march to
+Catharines-town and Kendaia, the news will run into the North like
+lightning. You, sir, can hope to encounter no armed resistance as you
+march northward burning town after town, save only if Butler makes a
+stand or attempts an ambuscade in force.
+
+"Otherwise, no Seneca will await your coming-- I mean there will be no
+considerable force of Senecas to oppose you in their towns, only the
+usual scalping parties hanging just outside the smoke veil. All will
+retire before you. And how is Amochol to be destroyed at
+Catharines-town unless he be struck at secretly before your advance is
+near enough to frighten him?"
+
+"What people would you take with you?"
+
+"My Indians, Lieutenant Boyd, and thirty riflemen."
+
+"Is that not too few?"
+
+"In all swift and secret marches, sir, a few do better service than
+many-- as you have taught your own people many a time."
+
+"That is quite true. But they never seem to learn the lesson. I am
+somewhat astonished that you have seemed to learn it, and lay it
+practically to heart." He smiled, drummed on the table with a Faber
+pencil, then, knitting his brows, drew to him a sheet of paper and
+wrote on it slowly, pausing from time to time in troubled reflection.
+Once he glanced up at me coldly, and:
+
+"Who is to lead this expedition?" he asked bluntly.
+
+"Why, Lieutenant Boyd, sir," said I, wondering.
+
+"Oh! You have no ambitions then?"
+
+"Mr. Boyd ranks me," I said, smiling. "Who else should lead?"
+
+"I see. Well, sir, you understand that a new commission lies all
+neatly folded for you in Catharines-town. Even such a modest man as
+you, Mr. Loskiel, could scarce doubt that," he added laughingly.
+
+"No, sir, I do not doubt it."
+
+"That is well, then. Orders will be sent you in due time-- not until
+General Clinton's army arrives, however."
+
+He looked at me pleasantly: "I have robbed you of the sleep most
+justly due you. But I think perhaps you may not regret this
+conference. Good-night, sir."
+
+I saluted and went out. An orderly with a torch lighted me to my
+quarters. Inside the bush-hut assigned to the Mohican and myself, the
+red torch-light flickered over the recumbent Sagamore, swathed in his
+blanket, motionless. But even as I looked one of his eyes opened a
+little way, glimmering like a jewel in the ruddy darkness, then closed
+again.
+
+So I stretched myself out in my blanket beside the Sagamore, and,
+thinking of Lois, fell presently into a sweet and dreamless sleep.
+
+
+At six o'clock the morning gun awoke me with its startling and
+annoying thunder. The Sagamore sat up in his blanket, wearing that
+half-irritated, half-shamed expression always to be seen on an
+Indian's countenance when cannon are fired. An Indian has no stomach
+for artillery, and hates sight and sound of the metal monsters.
+
+For a few moments I bantered him sleepily, then dropped back into my
+blanket. What cared I for their insolent morning gun! I snapped my
+fingers at it.
+
+And so I lolled on my back, half asleep, yet not wholly, and soon
+tired of this, and, wrapping me in my blanket and drawing on ankle
+moccasins, went down to the Chemung where its crystal current
+clattered over the stones, and found me a clear, deep pool to flounder
+in.
+
+Before I plunged, noticing several fine trout lying there, I played a
+scurvy trick on them, tickling three big ones; and had a fourth out of
+water, but was careless, and he slipped back.
+
+Some Continental soldiers who had been watching me, mouths agape, went
+to another pool to try their skill; but while I would not boast, it is
+not everybody who can tickle a speckled trout; and after my bath the
+soldiers were still at it, and damning their eyes, their luck, and the
+pretty fish which so saucily flouted them.
+
+So I flung 'em a big trout and went back to camp whistling, and there
+found that my Indians had fed and were now gravely renewing their
+paint.
+
+Tahoontowhee dressed and cooked my fish for me, each in a bass-wood
+leaf, and when they were done and smelling most fragrant, we all made
+a delicious feast, with corn bread from the ovens and salt pork and a
+great jug of milk from the army's herd.
+
+At eight o'clock another gun was fired. This was the daily signal, I
+learned, to stack tents and load pack-horses. And another gun fired at
+ten o'clock meant "March." With all these guns, and a fourth at
+sundown, I saw an unhappy time ahead for my Indians. Truly, I think
+the sound makes them sick. They all pulled wry faces now, and I had my
+jest at their expense, ours being a most happy little family, so
+amiably did the Mohican and Oneidas foregather; and also, there being
+among them a Sagamore and a Chief of the noble Oneida clan, I could
+meet them on an equality of footing which infringed nothing on
+military etiquette. There were doubtless many interpreters in camp,
+but few, if any, I suppose, who had had the advantage of such training
+as I under Guy Johnson, who himself, after Sir William's death, was
+appointed Indian Superintendent under the Crown for all North America,
+Guy Johnson knew the Iroquois. And if he lacked the character,
+personal charm, and knowledge that Sir William possessed, yet in the
+politics and diplomacy of Indian affairs his knowledge and practice
+were vast, and his services most valuable to his King.
+
+Under him I had been schooled, and also under the veteran deputies,
+Colonel Croghan, Colonel Butler, and Colonel Claus; and had learned
+much from old Cadwallader Colden, too, who came often to Guy Park, as
+did our good General Philip Schuyler in these peaceful days.
+
+So I knew how to treat any Indian I had ever seen, save only the
+outlandish creatures of the Senecas. Else, perhaps, I had sooner
+penetrated the villainy of the Erie. Yet, even my own Indians had not
+been altogether certain of the traitor's identity until almost at the
+very end.
+
+At ten another gun was fired, but only a small detachment of infantry
+marched, the other regiments unpacking and pitching tents again, and
+the usual routine of camp life, with its multitudinous duties and
+details, was resumed.
+
+I reported at headquarters, to which my guides were now attached, and
+there were orders for me to hold myself and Indians in readiness for a
+night march to Chemung.
+
+All that day I spent in acquainting myself with the camp which had
+been pitched, as I say, on the neck of land bounded by the Susquehanna
+and the Chemung, with a small creek, called Cayuga by some, Seneca
+Creek by others, intersecting it and flowing south into the
+Susquehanna. It was but a trout brook.
+
+This site of the old Indian town of Tioga seemed to me very lovely.
+The waters were silvery and sweet, the flats composed of rich, dark
+soil, the forests beautiful with a great variety of noble and gigantic
+trees-- white pines on the hills; on the level country enormous
+black-walnuts, oaks, button-woods, and nut trees of many species,
+growing wide apart, yet so roofing the forest with foliage that very
+little sunlight penetrated, and only the flats were open and bright
+with waving Indian grass, now so ripe that our sheep, cattle, and
+horses found in it a nourishment scarcely sufficient for beasts so
+exercised and driven.
+
+That day, as I say, I walked about the camp and adjacent
+river-country, seeking out my friends in the various regiments to
+gossip with them. And was invited to a Rum Punch given by all the
+officers at the Artillery Lines to celebrate the victory of General
+Wayne at Stony Point.
+
+Colonel Proctor's artillery band discoursed most noble music for us;
+and there was much hilarity and cheering, and many very boisterous.
+
+These social parties in our army, where rum-punch was the favourite
+beverage, were gay and lively; but there was a headache in every cup
+of it, they say. I, being an interpreter, held aloof because I must
+ever set an example to my red comrades. And this day had all I could
+do to confine them to proper rations. For all spirit is a very poison
+to any Indian. And of all the crimes of which men of my colour stand
+attainted, the offering of this death-cup to our red brothers is, I
+think, the wickedest and the most contemptible.
+
+For when we white men become merely exhilarated in the performance of
+such social usages as politeness requires of us, the Indian becomes
+murderous. And I remember at this Artillery Punch many officers danced
+a Shawanese dance, and General Hand, of the Light Troops, did lead
+this war-dance, which caused me discomfiture, I not at all pleased to
+see officers who ranked me cut school-boy capers 'round a midday fire.
+
+And it was like very school-lads that many of us behaved, making of
+this serious and hazardous expedition a silly pleasure jaunt. I have
+since thought that perhaps the sombre and majestic menace of a sunless
+and unknown forest reacted a little on us all, and that many found a
+nervous relief in brief relaxations and harmless folly, and in antics
+performed on its grim and dusky edges.
+
+For no one, I think, doubted there was trouble waiting for us within
+these silent shades. And the tension had never lessened for this army,
+what with waiting for the Right Wing, which had not yet apparently
+stirred from Otsego; and the inadequacy of provisions, not known to
+the men but whispered among the officers; and the shots already
+exchanged this very morning along the river between our outposts and
+prowling scouts of the enemy; and the daily loss of pack-animals and
+cattle, strayed or stolen; and of men, too, scalped since they left
+Wyoming, sometimes within gunshot of headquarters.
+
+But work on the four block-forts, just begun, progressed rapidly; and,
+alas, the corps of invalids destined to garrison them had, since the
+army left Easton, increased too fast to please anybody, what with
+wounds, accidents in camp from careless handling of firearms, kicks
+from animals, and the various diseases certain to appear where many
+people congregate.
+
+There were a number of regiments under tents or awaiting the
+unfinished log barracks at Tioga Point; in the First Brigade there
+were four from New Jersey; in the Second Brigade three from New
+Hampshire; in the Third two from Pennsylvania, and an artillery
+regiment; and what with other corps and the train, boatmen, guides,
+workmen, servants, etc., it made a great and curious spectacle even
+before our Right Wing joined.
+
+Every regiment carried its colours and its music, fifes, drums, and
+bugle-horns; and sometimes these played an the march when a light
+detachment went forward for a day's scout, or to forage or to destroy.
+But best of all music I ever heard, I loved now to hear the band of
+Colonel Proctor's artillery regiment, filling me as it did with
+solemn, yet pleasurable, emotions, and seemingly teaching me how dear
+had Lois become to me.
+
+The scout, sent out the day before, returned in the afternoon with an
+account that Chemung was held by the enemy, which caused a bustle in
+camp, particularly among the light troop.
+
+Headquarters was very busy all day long, and sometimes even gay, for
+the gentlemen of General Sullivan's family were not only sufficient,
+but amiable and delightful. And there I had the honour of being made
+known to his aides-de-camp, Mr. Pierce, Mr. Van Cortlandt, and Major
+Hoops. I already knew Captain Dayton. Also, of the staff I met there
+Captain Topham, our Commissary of Militia Stores, Captain Lodge, our
+surveyor, Colonels Antis and Bond, Conductors of Boats, Dr. Hogan,
+Chief Surgeon, Lieutenant R. Pemberton, Judge Advocate, Lieutenant
+Colonel Frasier, Colonel Hooper, Lieutenant Colonel Barber, Adjutant
+General, the Reverend S. Kirkland, Chaplain, and others most agreeable
+but too numerous to mention. Still, I have writ them all down in my
+diary, as I try always to do, so that if God gives me wife and
+children some day they may find, perhaps, an hour of leisure, when to
+peruse a blotted page of what husband and father saw in the great war
+might not prove too tedious or disagreeable.
+
+In this manner, then, the afternoon of that August day passed, and
+what with these occupations, and the catching of several trouts, which
+I love to do with hook and line and alder pole, and what with sending
+to Lois a letter by an express who went to Clinton toward evening, the
+time did not seem irksome.
+
+Yet, it had passed more happily had I heard from Lois. But no runners
+came; and if any were sent out from Otsego and taken by the enemy I
+know not, only that none came through that day, Thursday, August the
+12th.
+
+One thing in camp had disagreeably surprised me, that there were women
+and children here, and like to remain in the block forts after the
+army had departed from its base for the long march through the Seneca
+country.
+
+This I could not understand or reconcile with any proper measure of
+safety, as the cannon in the block-houses were not to be many or of
+any great calibre, and only the corps of invalids were to remain to
+defend them.
+
+I had told Lois that no women would be permitted at Tioga Point. That
+these were the orders that had been generally understood at Otsego.
+
+And now, lo and behold, here were women arrived from Easton,
+Bethlehem, Wyalusing, and Wyoming, including the wives and children of
+several non-commissioned officers and soldiers from the district;
+widows of murdered settlers, washerwomen, and several tailoresses-- in
+all a very considerable number.
+
+And I hoped to heaven that Lois might not hear of this mischievous
+business and discover in it an excuse for coming as the guest of any
+lady at Otsego, or, in fact, make any further attempt to stir until
+the Right Wing marched and the batteaux took the ladies of Captain
+Bleecker, Ensign Lansing, and Lana, and herself to Albany.
+
+
+After sundown an officer came to me and said that the entire army was
+ordered to march at eight that evening, excepting troops sufficient to
+guard our camp; that there would be no alarm sounded, and that we were
+to observe secrecy and silence.
+
+Also, it appeared that a gill of rum per man had been authorized, but
+I refused for myself and my Indians, thinking to myself that the
+General might have made it less difficult for me if he had confined
+his indulgence to the troops.
+
+About eight o'clock a Stockbridge Indian-- the one who had been with
+the scout to Chemung-- came to me with a note from Dominie Kirkland.
+
+I gave him my hand, and he told me that his name was Yellow Moth, and
+that he was a Christian. Also, he inquired about the Mole, and I was
+obliged to relate the circumstances of that poor convert's murder.
+
+"God's will," said the Yellow Moth very quietly. "You, my brother, and
+I may see a thousand fall, and ten thousand on our right hand, and it
+shall not come nigh us."
+
+"Amen," said I, much moved by this simple fellow's tranquil faith.
+
+I made him known to the Sagamore and to the two Oneidas, who received
+him with a grave sincerity which expressed very plainly their respect
+for a people of which the Mole had been for them a respectable
+example.
+
+Like the Mole, the Yellow Moth wore no paint except a white cross
+limned on his breast over a clan sign indecipherable. And if, in
+truth, there had ever really been a totem under the white paint I do
+not know, for like the Algonquins, these peoples had but a loose
+political, social, religious, and tribal organization, which never
+approached the perfection of the Iroquois system in any manner or
+detail.
+
+About eight o'clock came Captain Carbury, of the 11th Pennsylvania, to
+us, and we immediately set out, marching swiftly up the Chemung River,
+the Sagamore and the Yellow Moth leading, then Captain Carbury and
+myself, then the Oneidas.
+
+Behind us in the dusk we saw the Light Troops falling in, who always
+lead the army. All marched without packs, blankets, horses, or any
+impedimenta. And, though the distance was not very great, so hilly,
+rocky, and rough was the path through the hot, dark night, and so
+narrow and difficult were the mountain passes, that we were often
+obliged to rest the men. Also there were many swamps to pass, and as
+the men carried the cohorn by hand, our progress was slow. Besides
+these difficulties and trials, a fog came up, thickening toward dawn,
+which added to the hazards of our march.
+
+So the dawn came and found us still marching through the mist, and it
+was not until six o'clock that we of the guides heard a Seneca dog
+barking far ahead, and so knew that Chemung was near.
+
+Back sped Tahoontowhee to hasten the troops; I ran forward with
+Captain Carbury and the Sagamore, passing several outlying huts, then
+some barns and houses which loomed huge as medieval castles in the
+fog, but were really very small.
+
+"Look out!" cried Carbury. "There is their town right ahead!"
+
+It lay straight ahead of us, a fine town of over a hundred houses
+built on both sides of the pretty river. The casements of some of
+these houses were glazed and the roofs shingled; smoke drifted lazily
+from the chimneys; and all around were great open fields of grain,
+maize, and hay, orchards and gardens, in which were ripening peas,
+beans, squashes, pumpkins, watermelons, muskmelons.
+
+"Good God!" said I. "This is a fine place, Carbury!"
+
+"It's like a dozen others we have laid in ashes," said he, "and like
+scores more that we shall treat in a like manner. Look sharp! Here
+some our light troops."
+
+The light infantry of Hand arrived on a smart run-- a torrent of
+red-faced, sweating, excited fellows, pouring headlong into the town,
+cheering as they ran.
+
+General Hand, catching sight of me, signalled with his sword and
+shouted to know what had become of the enemy.
+
+"They're gone off!" I shouted back. "My Indians are on their heels and
+we'll soon have news of their whereabouts."
+
+Then the soldiery began smashing in doors and windows right and left,
+laughing and swearing, and dragging out of the houses everything they
+contained.
+
+So precipitate had been the enemy's flight that they had left
+everything-- food still cooking, all their household and personal
+utensils; and I saw in the road great piles of kettles, plates,
+knives, deerskins, beaver-pelts, bearhides, packs of furs, and bolts
+of striped linen, to which heaps our soldiers were adding every
+minute.
+
+Others came to fire the town; and it was sad to see these humble homes
+puff up in a cloud of smoke and sparks, then burst into vivid flame.
+In the orchards our men were plying their axes or girdling the
+heavily-fruited trees; field after field of grain was fired, and the
+flames swept like tides across them.
+
+The corn was in the milk, and what our men could not burn, using the
+houses for kilns, they trampled and cut with their hangers-- whole
+regiments marching through these fields, destroying the most noble
+corn I ever saw, for it was so high that it topped the head of a man
+on horseback.
+
+So high, also, stood the hay, and it was sad to see it burn.
+
+And now, all around in this forest paradise, our army was gathered,
+destroying, raging, devastating the fairest land that I had seen in
+many a day. All the country was aflame; smoke rolled up, fouling the
+blue sky, burying woodlands, blotting out the fields and streams.
+
+From the knoll to which I had moved to watch the progress of my
+scouts, I could see an entire New Jersey regiment chasing horses and
+cattle; another regiment piling up canoes, fish-weirs, and the hewn
+logs of bridges, to make a mighty fire; still other regiments
+trampling out the last vestige of green stuff in the pretty gardens.
+
+Not a shot had yet been fired; there was no sound save the excited and
+terrifying roar of a vast armed mob obliterating in its fury the very
+well-springs that enabled its enemies to exist.
+
+Cattle, sheep, horses were being driven off down the trail by which we
+had come; men everywhere were stuffing their empty sacks with green
+vegetables and household plunder; the town fairly whistled with flame,
+and the smoke rose in a great cloud-shape very high, and hung above
+us, tenting us from the sun.
+
+In the midst of this uproar the Grey-Feather came speeding to me with
+news that the enemy was a little way upstream and seemed inclined to
+make a stand. I immediately informed the General; and soon the
+bugle-horns of the light infantry sounded, and away we raced ahead of
+them.
+
+I remember seeing an entire company marching with muskmelons pinned on
+their bayonets, all laughing and excited; and I heard General Sullivan
+bawl at them:
+
+"You damned unmilitary rascals, do you mean to open fire on 'em with
+vegetables?"
+
+Everybody was laughing, and the General grinned as Hand's bugle-horns
+played us in.
+
+But it was another matter when the Seneca rifles cracked, and a
+sergeant and a drummer lad of the 11th Pennsylvania fell. The
+smooth-bores cracked again, and four more soldiers tumbled forward
+sprawling, the melons on their bayonets rolling off into the bushes.
+
+Carbury, marching forward beside me, dropped across my path; and as I
+stooped over him gave me a ghastly look.
+
+"Don't let them scalp me," he said-- but his own men came running and
+picked him up, and I ran forward with the others toward a wooded hill
+where puffs of smoke spotted the bushes.
+
+Then the long, rippling volleys of Hand's men crashed out, one after
+another, and after a little of this their bugle-horns sounded the
+charge.
+
+But the Senecas did not wait; and it was like chasing weasels in a
+stone wall, for even my Indians could not come up with them.
+
+However, about two o'clock, returning to that part of the town across
+the river, which Colonel Dearborn's men were now setting afire, we
+received a smart volley from some ambushed Senecas, and Adjutant
+Huston and a guide fell.
+
+It was here that the Sagamore made his kill-- just beyond the first
+house, in some alders; and he came back with a Seneca scalp at his
+girdle, as did the Grey-Feather also.
+
+"Hiokatoo's warriors," remarked the Oneida briefly, wringing out his
+scalp and tying it to his belt.
+
+I looked up at the hills in sickened silence. Doubtless Butler's men
+were watching us in our work of destruction, not daring to interfere
+until the regulars arrived from Fort Niagara. But when they did
+arrive, it meant a battle. We all knew that. And knew, too, that a
+battle lost in the heart of that dark wilderness meant the destruction
+of every living soul among us.
+
+About two o'clock, having eaten nothing except what green and uncooked
+stuff we had picked up in field and garden, our marching signal
+sounded and we moved off; driving our captured stock, every soldier
+laden with green food and other plunder, and taking with us our dead
+and wounded.
+
+Chemung had been, but was no longer. And if, like Thendara, it was
+ever again to be I do not know, only that such a horrid and pitiful
+desolation I had never witnessed in all my life before. For it was not
+the enemy, but the innocent earth we had mutilated, stamping an armed
+heel into its smiling and upturned face. And what we had done sickened
+me.
+
+Yet, this was scarcely the beginning of that terrible punishment which
+was to pass through the Long House in flame and smoke, from the
+Eastern Door to the Door of the West, scouring it fiercely from one
+end to the other, and leaving no living thing within-- only a few dead
+men prone among its blood-soaked ashes.
+
+*Etho ni-ya-wenonh!
+
+[*Thus it befell!]
+
+By six that evening the army was back in its camp at Tioga Point. All
+the fever and excitement of the swift foray had passed, and the
+inevitable reaction had set in. The men were haggard, weary, sombre,
+and harassed. There was no elation after success either among officers
+or privates; only a sullen grimness, the sullenness of repletion after
+an orgy-- the grimness of disgust for an unwelcome duty only yet
+begun.
+
+Because this sturdy soldiery was largely composed of tillers of the
+soil, of pioneer farmers who understood good land, good husbandry,
+good crops, and the stern privations necessary to wrest a single rod
+of land from the iron jaws of the wilderness.
+
+To stamp upon, burn, girdle, destroy, annihilate, give back to the
+forest what human courage and self-denial had wrested from it, was to
+them in their souls abhorrent.
+
+Save for the excitement of the chase, the peril ever present, the
+certainty that failure meant death in its most dreadful forms, it
+might have been impossible for these men to destroy the fruits of the
+earth, even though produced by their mortal enemies, and designed,
+ultimately, to nourish them.
+
+Even my Indians sat silent and morose, stretching, braiding, and
+hooping their Seneca scalps. And I heard them conversing among
+themselves, mentioning frequently the Three Sisters* they had
+destroyed; and they spoke ever with a hint of tenderness and regret in
+their tones which left me silent and unhappy.
+
+[*Corn, squash, and bean were so spoken of affectionately, as they
+always were planted together by the Iroquois.]
+
+To slay in the heat and fury of combat is one matter; to scar and
+cripple the tender features of humanity's common mother is a different
+affair. And I make no doubt that every blow that bit into the laden
+fruit trees of Chemung stabbed more deeply the men who so mercilessly
+swung the axes.
+
+Well might the great Cayuga chieftain repeat the terrible prophecy of
+Toga-na-etah the Beautiful:
+
+"When the White Throats shall come, then, if ye be divided, ye will
+pull down the Long House, fell the tall Tree of Peace, and quench the
+Onondaga Fire forever."
+
+As I stood by the rushing current of the Thiohero,* on the profaned
+and desolate threshold of the Dark Empire, I thought of O-cau-nee, the
+Enchantress, and of Na-wenu the Blessed, and of Hiawatha floating in
+his white canoe into the far haven where the Master of Life stood
+waiting.
+
+[*Seneca River.]
+
+And now, for these doomed people of the Kannonsi, but one rite
+remained to be accomplished. And the solemn thunder of the last
+drum-roll must summon them to the great Festival of the Dead.
+
+  CHAPTER XV
+
+ BLOCK-HOUSE NO. 2
+
+On the 14th the army lay supine. There was no news from Otsego. One
+man fell dead in camp of heart disease. The cattle-guard was fired on.
+On the 15th a corporal and four privates, while herding our cattle,
+were fired on, the Senecas killing and scalping one and wounding
+another. On the 16th came a runner from Clinton with news that the
+Otsego army was on the march and not very far distant from the
+Ouleout; and a detachment of eight hundred men, under Brigadier
+General Poor, was sent forward to meet our Right Wing and escort it
+back to this camp.
+
+By one of the escort, a drummer lad, I sent a letter directed to Lois,
+hoping it might be relayed to Otsego and from thence by batteau to
+Albany. The Oneida runner had brought no letters, much to the disgust
+of the army, and no despatches except the brief line to our General
+commanding. The Brigadiers were furious. So also was I that no letters
+came for me.
+
+On the 17th our soldier-herdsmen were again fired on, and, as before,
+one poor fellow was killed and partly scalped, and one wounded. The
+Yellow Moth, Tahoontowhee, and the Grey-Feather went out at night on
+retaliation bent, but returned with neither trophies nor news, save
+what we all knew, that the Seneca scouts were now swarming like
+hornets all around us ready to sting to death anyone who strayed out
+of bounds.
+
+On the 18th the entire camp lay dull, patiently expectant of Clinton.
+He did not come. It rained all night.
+
+On Thursday, the 19th, it still rained steadily, but with no
+violence-- a fine, sweet, refreshing summer shower, made golden and
+beautiful at intervals by the momentary prophecy of the sun; yet he
+did not wholly reveal himself, though he smiled through the mist at us
+in friendly fashion.
+
+I had been out fishing for trouts very early, the rain making it
+favourable for such pleasant sport, and my Indians and I had finished
+a breakfast of corn porridge and the sweet-fleshed fishes that I took
+from the brook where it falls into the Susquehanna.
+
+It was still very early-- near to five o'clock, I think -- for the
+morning gun had not yet bellowed, and the camp lay very still in the
+gentle and fragrant rain.
+
+A few moments before five I saw a company of Jersey troops march
+silently down to the river, hang their cartouche-boxes on their
+bayonets, and ford the stream, one holding to another, and belly deep
+in the swollen flood.
+
+Thinks I to myself, they are going to protect our cattle-guards; and I
+turned and walked down to the ford to watch the crossing.
+
+Then I saw why they had crossed: there were some people come down to
+the landing place on the other bank in two batteaux and an Oneida
+canoe-- soldiers, boatmen, and two women; and our men were fording the
+river to protect the crossing of this small flotilla.
+
+I seated myself, wondering what foolhardy people these might be, and
+trying to see more plainly the women in the two batteaux. As the
+boatmen poled nearer, it seemed to me that some of the people looked
+marvelously like the riflemen of my own corps; and a few moments later
+I sprang to my feet astounded, for of the two women in the nearest
+batteau one was Lois de Contrecoeur and the other Lana Helmer.
+
+Suddenly the Oneida canoe shot out from the farther shore, passed both
+batteaux, paddles flashing, and came darting toward the landing where
+I stood. Two riflemen were in it; one rose as the canoe's nose grated
+on the gravel, cast aside the bow-paddle, balanced himself toward the
+bow with both hands, and leaped ashore, waving at me a gay greeting.
+
+"My God!" said I excitedly, as Boyd ran lightly up the slope. "Are you
+stark mad to bring ladies into this damnable place?"
+
+"There are other women, too. Why, even that pretty jade, Dolly Glenn,
+is coming! What could I do? The General himself permitted it. Miss de
+Contrecoeur and Lana heard that a number of women were already here,
+and so come for a frolic they must."
+
+"Who accompanies them? I see no older woman yonder."
+
+"Mrs. Sabin, the lady of Captain Sabin, Staff Commissary of Issues."
+
+"Where is she, then?"
+
+"We left her with the army at the Ouleout."
+
+"Where do you propose to quarter these ladies?"
+
+"We understand that you have four block-forts mounting cannon. That
+would argue barracks. Therefore, I don't think the danger is very
+considerable. Do you?"
+
+"There is danger, of course," I said. "The entire Seneca nation is
+here with Indian Butler and Brant."
+
+"Well, then, we'll turn your Butler into a turn-spit, and make of your
+wild Brant a domestic gander!"
+
+He spoke coolly, a slight smile on his eager, handsome features. And I
+wondered how he could make a jest of this business, and how he could
+have permitted so mad a prank if he truly entertained any very deep
+regard for Lana Helmer.
+
+"Danger," I repeated coldly. "Yes, there is a-plenty of that
+hereabouts, what with the Seneca scalping parties combing the woods
+around us, and the cattle-guard fired upon in plain sight of
+headquarters."
+
+"Well, there were and still are some few scalping parties hanging
+around Otsego. I myself see no real reason why the ladies should not
+pay us a visit here, have their frolic, and later return with the
+heavier artillery down the river to Easton. Or, if they choose, they
+shall await our return from Catharines-town."
+
+"And if we do not return? Have you thought of that, Boyd?"
+
+"You shall not conjure me with any such forebodings!" he laughed.
+"This raid of ours will be no very great or fearsome affair. They'll
+run-- your Brants and Butlers-- I warrant you. And we'll follow and
+burn their towns. Then, like the French king of old, down hill we'll
+all go strutting, you and I and the army, Loskiel; and no great harm
+done to anybody or anything, save to the Senecas' squash harvest, and
+the sensitive feelings of Walter Butler!"
+
+While he was speaking, I kept my eye on the slow batteau which led.
+Three boatmen poled it; Lois and Lana sat in the middle; behind them
+crouched two riflemen, long weapons ready, the ringed coon-tail
+floating in the breeze.
+
+Neither of the ladies had yet recognized me; Lana leaned lightly
+against Lois, her cheek resting on her companion's shoulder.
+
+A black rage against Boyd rose suddenly in my breast; and so savage
+and abrupt was the emotion that I could scarce stifle and subdue it.
+
+"It is wrong for them to come," I said with an effort to speak calmly,
+"---- utterly and wickedly wrong. Our block-forts are not finished.
+And when they are they will be more or less vulnerable. I can not
+understand why you did not make every effort to prevent their coming
+here."
+
+"I made every proper effort," he said carelessly. "What man is vain
+enough to believe he can influence a determined woman?"
+
+I did not like what he said, and so made him no answer.
+
+"Is your camp still asleep?" he asked, yawning.
+
+"Yes. The morning gun is usually fired at six."
+
+"Can you lodge us and bait us until I make my report?"
+
+"I can lodge the ladies and give breakfast to you all. How near is our
+main army?"
+
+"Between twenty and thirty miles above-- one can scarce tell the way
+this accursed river winds about. Our men are exhausted. They'll not
+arrive tonight. General Poor's men from this camp met us last night.
+Clinton desired me to take a few riflemen and push forward; and the
+ladies-- except the fat one-- begged so prettily to go with us that he
+consented. So we took two empty batteaux and a canoe and came on in
+advance, with no effort whatever."
+
+"That was a rash business!" I said, controlling my anger. "The river
+woods along the Ouleout swarm with Seneca scouts. Didn't you
+understand that?"
+
+"So I told 'em," he said, laughing, "but do you know, Loskiel, between
+you and me I believe that your pretty inamorata really loves the
+thrill of danger. And I know damned well that Lana Helmer loves it.
+For when we came through without so much as sighting a muskrat,
+'What!' says she, 'Not a savage to be seen and not a shot fired!
+Lord,' says she, 'I had as lief take the air on Bowling Green-- there
+being some real peril of beaux and macaronis!'"
+
+Everything this man said now conspired to enrage me; and it was a
+struggle for me to restrain the bitter affront ever twitching at my
+lips for utterance. Perhaps I might not have restrained it any longer
+had I not seen Lois lean suddenly forward in her seat, shade her eyes
+with her hands, then stand up beside one of the boatmen. And I knew
+she recognized me.
+
+Instantly within me all anger, rancour, and even dread melted in the
+warmer and more generous emotion which nigh overwhelmed me, so that
+for an instant I could scarce see her for the glimmering of my eyes.
+
+But that passed; I went down to the shore and stood there while the
+clumsy boat swung inshore, the misty waves slapping at the bow and
+side. The landing planks lay on the gravel. Boyd and I laid them.
+Lana, wrapped in her camblet, crossed them first, giving me her hand
+with a pale smile. I laid my lips to it; she passed, Boyd moving
+forward beside her.
+
+Then came Lois in her scarlet capuchin, eager and shy at the same
+time, smiling, yet with fearfulness and tenderness so strangely
+blended that ever her laughing eyes seemed close to tears and the lips
+that smiled were tremulous.
+
+"I came-- you see.... Are you angry?" she asked as I bent low over her
+little hand. "You will not chide me-- will you, Euan?"
+
+"No. What is done is done. Are you well, Lois?"
+
+"Perfect in health, my friend. And if you truly are glad to see me,
+then I am content. But I am also very wet, Euan, spite of my capuchin.
+Lana and I have a common box. It belongs to her. May our boatmen carry
+it ashore?"
+
+I gave brief directions to the men, returned the smiling salute of my
+wet riflemen from the other boat now drawing heavily inshore, and
+climbed the grassy bank with Lois to where Lana and Boyd stood under
+the trees awaiting us.
+
+"I have but one bush-hut to offer you at present," I said. "Proper
+provision in barracks will be made, no doubt, as soon as the General
+learns who it is who has honoured him so unexpectedly with a visit."
+
+"That's why we came, Euan-- to honour General Sullivan," said Lois
+demurely. "Did we not, Lanette?"
+
+Then again I noticed that the old fire, the old gaiety in Lana Helmer
+had been almost quenched. For instead of a saucy reply she only
+smiled; and even her eyes seemed spiritless as they rested on me a
+moment, then turned wearily elsewhere.
+
+"You are much fatigued," I said to Lois.
+
+"I? No. But my poor Lana slept very badly in the boat. Before dawn we
+went ashore for an hour's rest. That seemed sufficient for me, but
+Lana, poor dove, did not profit, I fear. Did you, dearest?"
+
+"Very little," said Lana, forcing a gaiety she surely did not inspire
+in others with her haunted eyes that looked at everything, yet saw
+nothing-- or so it seemed to me.
+
+As we came to our bush-huts, Lois caught sight of the Sagamore for the
+first time, and held out both hands with a pretty cry of recognition:
+
+"Nai, Mayaro!"
+
+The Sagamore turned in silent astonishment; though when he saw Boyd
+there also his features became smooth and blank again. But he came
+forward with stately grace to welcome her; and, bending his crested
+head, took her hands and laid them lightly over his heart.
+
+"Nai, Lois!" he exclaimed emphatically.
+
+"Itoh, Mayaro!" she replied gaily, pressing his hands in hers. "I am
+that contented to see you! Are you not amazed to see me here?" she
+insisted, mischievously amused at his unaltered features.
+
+The Sagamore said smilingly:
+
+"When she wills it, who can follow the Rosy-throated Pigeon in her
+swift flight? Not the Enchantress in the moon. Tharon alone, O
+Rosy-throated One!"
+
+"The wild pigeon has outwitted you all, has she not, Mayaro, my
+friend?"
+
+"Nakwah! Let my brother Loskiel deny it, then. I, a Sagamore, know
+better than to deny a fire its ashes, or a wild pigeon its magic
+flight."
+
+Boyd now spoke to the Mohican, who returned his greeting courteously,
+but very gravely. I then made the Mohican known to Lana, who gave him
+a lifeless hand from the green folds of her camblet. My Oneidas, who
+had finished their somewhat ominous painting, came from the other hut
+in company with the Yellow Moth, the latter now painted for the first
+time in a brilliant and poisonous yellow. All these people I made
+acquainted one with another. Lois was very gracious to them all, using
+what Indian words she knew in her winning greetings-- and using them
+quite wrongly-- God bless her!
+
+Then the Yellow Moth hung my new blue blanket, which I had lately
+drawn from our Commissary of Issues, across the door of my hut; two
+huge boatmen came up with Lana's box, swung between them, and
+deposited it within the hut.
+
+"By the time you are ready," said I, "we will have a breakfast for you
+such as only the streams of this country can afford."
+
+
+The six o'clock gun awoke the camp and found me already at the
+General's tent, awaiting permission to see him.
+
+He seemed surprised that Clinton had allowed any ladies to accompany
+the Otsego army, but it was evident that the happiness and relief he
+experienced at learning that Clinton was on the Ouleout had put him
+into a most excellent humour. And he straightway sent an officer with
+orders to remove Lana's box to Block-Fort No. 2 in the new fort, where
+were already domiciled the wives of two sergeants and a corporal, and
+gave me an order assigning to Lois and Lana a rough loft there.
+
+But the General's chief concern and curiosity was for Boyd and the
+eight riflemen who had come through from the Ouleout as the first
+advanced guard of that impatiently awaited Otsego army; and I heard
+Boyd telling him very gaily that they were bringing more than two
+hundred batteaux, loaded with provisions. And, this, I think, was the
+best news any man could have brought to our Commander at that moment.
+One thing I do know; from that time Boyd was an indulged favourite of
+our General, who admired his many admirable qualities, his gay
+spirits, his dashing enterprise, his utter fearlessness; and who
+overlooked his military failings, which were rashness to the point of
+folly, and a tendency to obey orders in a manner which best suited his
+own ideas. Captain Cummings was a far safer man.
+
+I say this with nothing in my heart but kindness for Boyd. God knows I
+desire to do him justice-- would wish it for him even more than for
+myself. And I not only was not envious of his good fortune in so
+pleasing our General, but was glad of it, hoping that this honour
+might carry with it a new and graver responsibility sufficiently heavy
+to curb in him what was least admirable and bring out in him those
+nobler qualities so desirable in officer and man.
+
+When I returned to my hut there were any fish smoking hot on their
+bark plates, and Lana and Lois in dry woollen dresses, worsted
+stockings, and stout, buckled shoon, already at porridge.
+
+So I sat down with them and ate, and it was, or seemed to be, a happy
+company there before our little hut, with officers and troops passing
+to and fro and glancing curiously at us, and our Indians squatted
+behind us all a-row, and shining up knife and hatchet and rifle; and
+the bugle-horns of the various regiments sounding prettily at
+intervals, and the fifers and drummers down by the river at distant
+morning practice.
+
+"You love best the bellowing conch-horn of the rifles," observed Lana
+to Lois, with a touch of her old-time impudence.
+
+"I?" exclaimed Lois.
+
+"You once told me that every blast of it sets you a-trembling,"
+insisted Lana. "Naturally I take it that you quiver with delight--
+having some friend in that corps----"
+
+"Lana! Have done, you little baggage!"
+
+"Lord!" said Lana. "'Twas Major Parr I meant. What does an infant
+Ensign concern such aged dames as you and I?"
+
+Lois, lovely under her mounting colour, continued busy with her
+porridge. Lana said in my ear:
+
+"She is a wild thing, Euan, and endures neither plaguing nor wooing
+easily. How I have gained her I do not know.... Perhaps because I am
+aging very fast these days, and she hath a heart as tender as a forest
+dove's."
+
+Lois looked up, seeing us whispering together.
+
+"Uncouth manners!" said she. "I am greatly ashamed of you both."
+
+I thought to myself, wondering, how utter a change had come over the
+characters of these two in twice as many weeks! Lois had now something
+of that quick and mischievous gaiety that once was Lana's; and the
+troubled eyes that once belonged to Lois now were hers no longer, but
+Lana's. It seemed very strange and sad to me.
+
+"Had I a dozen beaux," quoth Lois airily, "I might ask of one o' them
+another bit of trout." And, "Oh!" she exclaimed, in affected surprise,
+as I aided her. "It would seem that I have at least one young man who
+aspires to that ridiculous title. Do you covet it, Euan? And humbly?"
+
+"Do I merit it?" I asked, laughing.
+
+"Upon my honour," she exclaimed, turning to Lana, "I believe the poor
+young gentleman thinks he does merit the title. Did you ever hear of
+such insufferable conceit? And merely because he offers me a bit of
+trout."
+
+"I caught them, too," said I. "That should secure me in my title."
+
+"Oh! You caught them too, did you! And so you deem yourself entitled
+to be a beau of mine? Lana, do you very kindly explain to the
+unfortunate Ensign that you and I were accustomed at Otsego to a
+popularity and an adulation of which he has no conception. Colonels
+and majors were at our feet. Inform him very gently, Lana."
+
+"Yes," said Lana, "you behaved very indiscreetly at Otsego Camp, dear
+one-- sitting alone for hours and hours over this young gentleman's
+letters----"
+
+"Traitor!" exclaimed Lois, blushing. "It was a letter from his
+solicitor, Mr. Hake, that you found me doting on!"
+
+"Did you then hear from Mr. Hake?" I asked, laughing and very happy.
+
+"Indeed I did, by every post! That respectable Albany gentleman seemed
+to feel it his duty to write me by every batteau and inquire
+concerning my health, happiness, and pleasure, and if I lacked
+anything on earth to please me. Was it not most extraordinary
+behaviour, Euan?"
+
+She was laughing when she spoke, and for a moment her eyes grew
+strangely tender, but they brightened immediately and she tossed her
+head.
+
+"Oh, Lana!" said she. "I think I may seriously consider Mr. Hake and
+his very evident intentions. So I shall require no more beaux, Euan,
+and thank you kindly for volunteering. Besides, if I want 'em, this
+camp seems moderately furnished with handsome and gallant young
+officers," she added airily, glancing around her. "Lana! Do you please
+observe that tall captain with the red facings! And the other
+staff-major yonder in blue and buff! Is he not beautiful as Apollo?
+And I make no doubt that this agreeable young Ensign of ours will
+presently make them known to us for our proper diversion."
+
+Somehow, now, with the prospect of all these officers besetting her
+with their civilities and polite assiduities, nothing of the old and
+silly jealousy seemed to stir within me. Perhaps because, although for
+days I had not seen her, I knew her better. And also I had begun to
+know myself. Even though she loved not me in the manner I desired, yet
+the lesser, cruder, and more unworthy solicitude which at first seemed
+to have possessed me in her regard was now gone. And if inexperience
+and youth had inspired me with unworthy jealousies I do not know; but
+I do know that I now felt myself older-- years older than when first I
+knew Lois; and perhaps my being so honestly in love with her wrought
+the respectable change in me. For real love ages the mind, even when
+it makes more youthful the body, and so controls both body and mind.
+And I think it was something that way with me.
+
+Presently, as we sat chattering there, came men to take away Lana's
+box to Block-House No. 2 on the peninsula. So Lana went into the
+bush-hut and refilled and locked the box, and then we all walked
+together to the military works which were being erected on a cleared
+knoll overlooking both rivers, and upon which artillerymen were now
+mounting the three-pounder and the cohorn, or "grasshopper," as our
+men had named it, because our artillery officers had taken it from its
+wooden carriage and had mounted it on a tripod. And at every discharge
+it jumped into the air and kicked over backward.
+
+This miniature fortress, now called Fort Sullivan, was about three
+hundred feet square, with strong block-forts at the four corners, so
+situated as to command both rivers; and these fortifications were now
+so nearly completed that the men of the invalid corps who were to
+garrison the place had already marched into their barracks, and were
+now paraded for inspection.
+
+The forts had been very solidly constructed of great logs, the
+serrated palisade, deeply and solidly embedded, rose twelve feet high.
+A rifle platform ran inside this, connecting the rough barracks and
+stables, which also were built of logs, the crevices stuffed with moss
+and smeared and plastered with blue clay from the creek.
+
+These, with the curtain, block-forts, and a deep ditch over which was
+a log bridge, composed the military works at Tioga; and this was the
+place into which we now walked, a sentry directing us to Block-House
+No. 2, which overlooked the Chemung.
+
+And no sooner had we entered and climbed the ladder to the women's
+quarters overhead, than:
+
+"What luxury!" exclaimed Lois, looking down at her bed of fresh-cut
+balsam, over which their blankets had been cast. "Could any reasonable
+woman demand more? With a full view of the pretty river in the rain,
+and a real puncheon floor, and a bed of perfume to dream on, and a
+brave loop to shoot from! What more could a vain maid ask?" She
+glanced at me with sweet and humorous eyes, saying: "Fort Orange is no
+safer than this log bastion, so scowl on me no more, Euan, but
+presently take Lanette and me to the parapet where other and lovelier
+wonders are doubtless to be seen."
+
+"What further wonders?" asked Lana indifferently.
+
+"Why, sky and earth and river, dear, and the little dicky birds all
+a-preening under this sweet, sunny veil of rain. Is not all this
+mystery of nature wonderful enough to lure us to the rifle-platform?"
+
+Said Lana listlessly: "I had liefer court a deeper mystery."
+
+"Which, dear one?"
+
+"Sleep," said Lana briefly; and I saw how pale she was, kneeling there
+beside the opened box and sorting out the simple clothing they had
+brought with them.
+
+For a few minutes longer we conversed, talking of Otsego and of our
+friends there; and I learned how Colonel Gansevoort had left with his
+regiment and Lieutenant-Colonel Willet, and was marching hither with
+Clinton after all.
+
+A soldier brought a wooden bowl, an iron sap-kettle full of sweet
+water, a hewn bench, and nailed up a blanket cutting the room in two.
+Their quarters were now furnished.
+
+I pushed aside the blanket, walked to the inner loop, and gazed down
+on the miniature parade where the invalids were now being inspected by
+Colonel Shreve. When I returned, Lana had changed to a levete and was
+lying on her balsam couch, cheek on hand, looking up at Lois, who
+knelt beside her on the puncheon floor, smoothing back her thick,
+bright hair. And in the eyes of these two was an expression the like
+of which I had never before seen, and I stepped back instinctively,
+like a man who intrudes on privacy unawares.
+
+"Come in, Euan!" cried Lois, with a gaiety which seemed slightly
+forced; and I came, awkwardly, not meeting their eyes, and made for
+the ladder to get myself below.
+
+Whereat both laughed. Lois rose and went behind the blanket to the
+loop, and Lana said, with a trace of her former levity:
+
+"Broad-brim! Do you fly blushing from my levete? The Queen of France
+receives in scanter attire, I hear. Sit you on yonder bench and play
+courtier amiably for once."
+
+She seemed so frail and white and young, lying there, her fair hair
+unpowdered and tumbled about her face-- so childlike and helpless--
+that a strange and inexplicable apprehension filled me; and, scarce
+thinking what I did, I went over to her and knelt down beside her,
+putting one arm around her shoulders.
+
+Her expression, which had been smiling and vaguely audacious, changed
+subtly. She lay looking up at me very wistfully for a moment, then
+lifted her hands a little way. I laid them to my lips, looking over
+them down into her altered eyes.
+
+"Always," she said under her breath, "always you have been kind and
+true, Euan, even when I have used you with scant courtesy."
+
+"You have never used me ill."
+
+"No-- only to plague you as a girl torments what she truly loves....
+Lois and I have spoken much of you together----" She turned her head.
+"Where are you, sweeting?"
+
+Lois came from behind the blanket and knelt down so close to me that
+the fragrance of her freshened the air; and once again, as it happened
+at the first day's meeting in Westchester, the same thrill invaded
+me., And I thought of the wild rose that starlight night, and how
+fitly was it her symbol and her flower.
+
+Lana looked at us both, unsmiling; then drew her hands from mine and
+crook'd her arms behind her neck, cradling her head on them, looking
+at us both all the while. Presently her lids drooped on her white
+cheeks.
+
+When we rose on tiptoe, I thought she was asleep, but Lois was not
+certain; and as we crept out onto the rifle-platform and seated
+ourselves in a sheltered corner under the parapet, she said uneasily;
+
+"Lanette is a strange maid, Euan. At first I knew she disliked me.
+Then, of a sudden, one day she came to me and clung like a child
+afraid. And we loved from that minute.... It is strange."
+
+"Is she ill?"
+
+"In mind, I think."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I do not know, Euan."
+
+"Is it love, think you-- her disorder?"
+
+"I do not know, I tell you. Once I thought it was -- that. But knew
+not how to be certain."
+
+"Does Boyd still court her?"
+
+"No-- I do not know," she said with a troubled look.
+
+"Is it that affair which makes her unhappy?"
+
+"I thought so once. They were ever together. Then she avoided him-- or
+seemed to. It was Betty Bleecker who interfered between them. For Mrs.
+Bleecker was very wrathful, Euan, and Lana's indiscretions madded
+her.... There was a scene.... So Boyd came no more, save when other
+officers came, which was every day. Somehow I have never been certain
+that he and Lana did not meet in secret when none suspected."
+
+"Have you proof?" I asked, cold with rage.
+
+She shook her head, and her gaze grew vague and remote. After a while
+she seemed to put away her apprehensions, and, smiling, she turned to
+me, challenging me with her clear, sunny eyes:
+
+"Come, Euan, you shall do me reason, now that my curly pate is
+innocent of powder, no French red to tint my lips and hide my
+freckles, and but a linsey-woolsey gown instead of chintz and silk to
+cover me! So tell me honestly, does not the enchantment break that for
+a little while seemed to hold you near me?"
+
+"Do you forget," said I, "that I first saw my enchantress in rags and
+tattered shoon?"
+
+"Oh!" she said, tossing her pretty head. "Extremes attract all men.
+But now in this sober and common guise of every day, I am neither
+Cinderella nor yet the Princess-- merely a frowsy, rustic, freckled
+maid with a mouth somewhat too large for beauty, and the clipped and
+curly poll of a careless boy. And I desire to know, once for all, how
+I now suit you, Euan."
+
+"You are perfection-- once for all."
+
+"I? What obstinate foolishness you utter! In all seriousness-- "
+
+"You are-- more beautiful than ever-- in all seriousness!"
+
+"What folly!" She began to laugh nervously, then shrugged her
+shoulders, adding: "This young man is plainly partizan and deaf to
+reason."
+
+"Being in love."
+
+"You! In love! What nonsense!"
+
+"Do you doubt it?"
+
+"Oh!" she said carelessly. "You are in love with love-- as all men
+are-- and not particularly in love with me. Men, my dear Euan, are
+gamblers. When first you saw me in tatters, you laid a wager with
+yourself that I'd please you in silks. A gay hazard! A sporting wager!
+And straight you dressed me up to suit you; and being a man, and
+therefore conceited, you could scarcely admit that you had lost your
+wager to your better senses. Could you? But now you shall admit that
+in this frowsy, woollen gown the magic of both Cinderella and the
+Princess vanishes with yesterday's enchantment, and, instead of Chloe,
+pink and simpering, only a sturdy comrade stands revealed who now, as
+guerdon for the future, strikes hands with you-- like this! Koue!" And
+with the clear and joyous cry on her lips she struck my palm violently
+with hers, nor winced under my quick-closing grip.
+
+"Is all now clear and plain between us, Euan?" she inquired. And it
+seemed to me that her eagerness and fervour rang false.
+
+"You can not love me, then?" I asked in a low voice.
+
+"I? What has love to do with us-- here in the woods-- and I without
+knowledge and experience----"
+
+"You do not love me, then?"
+
+"I can not."
+
+"Why?"
+
+She made no answer, but bit her lip.
+
+"You need not reply," said I. "Yet-- that night I left Otsego-- and
+when I passed you in the dark-- I thought----"
+
+"My heart was full that night! What comrade could feel less and still
+possess a human heart?" she said almost sullenly.
+
+"Your letter-- and mine-- encouraged me to believe----"
+
+"I know," she said, with the curt and almost breathless impatience of
+haste, "but have I ever denied our bond of intimacy, Euan? Closer bond
+have I with no man. But it must be a comrade's bond between us.... I
+meant to make that plain to you-- and doubtless, my heart being full--
+and I but a girl-- conveyed to you-- by what I said-- and did----"
+
+"Lois! Is it not in you to love me as a woman loves a man?"
+
+"I told you that when the time arrived I would doubtless be what you
+wish me to be----"
+
+"You can love me, then?"
+
+"How do I know? You perplex and vex me. Who else would I love but you?
+Who else is there in the world-- except my mother?"
+
+There was a silence; then I said:
+
+"Has this passionate quest of her so wholly absorbed and controlled
+you that all else counts as nothing?"
+
+"Yes, yes! You know it. You knew it at Otsego! Nothing else matters. I
+will not permit anything else to matter! And, lest you deem me cold,
+thankless, inhuman, ask of yourself, Euan, why such a lonely girl as I
+should close her eyes and stop her ears and lock her heart and-- and
+turn her face away when the man-- to whom she owes all-- to whom she
+is-- utterly devoted-- urges her toward emotions-- toward matters
+strange to her-- and too profound as yet. So I ask you, for a time, to
+let what sleeps within us both lie sleeping, undisturbed. There is a
+love more natural, more imperious, more passionate still; and-- it has
+led me here! And I will not confuse it with any other sentiment; nor
+share it with any man-- not even with you-- dear as you have become to
+me-- lonely as I am, -- no, not even with you will I share it! For I
+have vowed that I shall never slake my thirst with love save first in
+her dear embrace.... After these wistful, stark, and barren years--
+loveless, weary, naked, and unkind----" Suddenly she covered her face
+with her hands, bowing her head to her knees.
+
+"Yet you bid me hope, Lois?" I asked under my breath.
+
+She nodded.
+
+"You make me happy beyond words," I whispered.
+
+She looked up from her hands:
+
+"Is that all you required to make you happy?"
+
+"Can I ask more?"
+
+"I-- I thought men were more ruthless-- more imperious and hotly
+impatient with the mistress of their hearts-- if truly I am mistress
+of yours, as you tell me."
+
+"I am impatient only for your happiness; ruthless only to secure it."
+
+"For my happiness? Not for your own?"
+
+"How can that come to me save when yours comes to you?"
+
+"Oh!... I did not understand. I had not thought it mattered very
+greatly to men, so that they found their happiness-- so that they
+found contentment in their sweethearts' yielding.... Then my surrender
+would mean nothing to you unless I yielded happily?"
+
+"Nothing. Good God! In what school have you learned of love!"
+
+She nodded thoughtfully, looking me in the eyes.
+
+"What you tell me, Euan, is pleasant to think on. It reassures and
+comforts; nay, it is the sweetest thing you ever said to me-- that you
+could find no happiness in my yielding unless I yield happily.... Why,
+Euan, that alone would win me-- were it time. It clears up much that I
+have never understood concerning you.... Men have not used me
+gently.... And then you came.... And I thought you must be like the
+others, being a man, except that you are the only one to whom I was at
+all inclined-- perhaps because you were from the beginning gentler and
+more honest with me.... What a way to win a woman's heart! To seek her
+happiness first of all!... Could you give me to another-- if my
+happiness required it?"
+
+"What else could I do, Lois?"
+
+"Would you do that!" she demanded hotly.
+
+"Have I any choice?"
+
+"Not if your strange creed be sincere. Is it sincere?"
+
+"There is no other creed for those who really love."
+
+"You are wrong," she said angrily, looking at me with tightened lips.
+
+"How wrong?"
+
+"Because-- I would not give you to another woman, though you cried out
+for her till the heavens fell!"
+
+I began to laugh, but her eyes still harboured lightning.
+
+"You should not go to her, whether or not you loved her!" she
+repeated. "I would not have it. I would not endure it!"
+
+"Yet-- if I loved another----"
+
+"No! That is treason! Your happiness should be in me. And if you
+wavered I would hold you prisoner against your treacherous and very
+self!"
+
+"How could you hold me?"
+
+"What? Why-- why-- I----" She sat biting her scarlet lips and
+thinking, with straight brows deeply knitted, her greyish-purple eyes
+fixed hard on me. Then a slight colour stained her cheeks, and she
+looked elsewhere, murmuring: "I do not know how I would hold you
+prisoner. But I know I should do it, somehow."
+
+"I know it, too," said I, looking at my ring she wore.
+
+She blushed hotly: "It is well that you do, Euan. Death is the dire
+penalty if my prisoner escapes!" She hesitated, bit her lip, then
+added faintly: "Death for me, I mean." After a moment she slowly
+lifted her eyes to mine, and so still and clear were they that it
+seemed my regard plunged to the very depths of her.
+
+"You do love me then," I said, taking her hand in mine.
+
+Her face paled, and she caught her breath.
+
+"Will you not wait-- a little while-- before you court me?" she
+faltered. "Will you not wait because I ask it of you?"
+
+"Yes, I will wait."
+
+"Nor speak of love-- until----"
+
+"Nor speak of love until you bid me speak."
+
+"Nor-- caress me-- nor touch me-- nor look in my eyes-- this way---- "
+Her hand had melted somehow closely into mine. We both were trembling
+now; and she withdrew her hand and slowly pressed it close against her
+heart, gazing at me in a white and childish wonder, as though dumb and
+reproachful of some wound that I had dealt her. And as I saw her
+there, so hurt and white and sweet, all quivering under the first
+swift consciousness of love, I trembled, too, with the fierce desire
+to take her in my arms and whisper what was raging in my heart of
+passionate assurance and devotion.
+
+And I said nothing, nor did she. But presently the wild-rose tint
+crept back into her pale cheeks, and her head dropped, and she sat
+with eyes remote and vaguely sweet, her hands listless in her lap.
+
+And I, my heart in furious protest, condemned to batter at its walls
+in a vain summons to the silent lips that should have voiced its every
+beat, remained mute in futile and impotent adoration of the miracle
+love had wrought under my very eyes.
+
+Consigned to silence, condemned to patience super-human, I scarce knew
+how to conduct. And so cruelly the restraint cut and checked me that
+what with my perplexity, my happiness, and my wretchedness, I was in a
+plight.
+
+No doubt the spectacle that my features presented-- a very playground
+for my varying emotions-- was somewhat startling to a maid so new at
+love. For, glancing with veiled eyes at me, presently her own eyes
+flew open wide. And:
+
+"Euan!" she faltered. "Is aught amiss with you? Are you ill, dear lad?
+And have not told me?"
+
+Whereat I was confused and hot and vexed; and I told her very plainly
+what it was that ailed me. And now mark! In place of an understanding
+and sympathy and a nice appreciation of my honourable discomfort, she
+laughed; and as her cheeks cooled she laughed the more, tossing back
+her pretty head while her mirth, now uncontrolled, rippled forth till
+the wild birds, excited, joined in with restless chirping, and a
+squirrel sprung his elfin rattle overhead.
+
+"And that," said I, furious, "is what I get for deferring to your
+wishes! I've a mind to kiss you now!"
+
+Breathless, her hands pressed to her breast, she looked at me, and
+made as though to speak, but laughter seized her and she surrendered
+to it helplessly.
+
+Whereat I sprang to my feet and marched to the parapet, and she after
+me, laying her hand on my arm.
+
+"Dear lad-- I do not mean unkindness.... But it is all so new to me--
+and you are so tall a man to pull such funny faces-- as though love
+was a stomach pain----" She swayed, helpless again with laughter,
+still clinging to my arm.
+
+"If you truly find my features ridiculous----" I began, but her hand
+instantly closed my lips. I kissed it, however, with angry
+satisfaction, and she took it away hurriedly.
+
+"Are you ashamed-- you great, sulky and hulking boy-- to take my
+harmless pleasantry so uncouthly? And how is this?" says she, stamping
+her foot. "May I not laugh a little at my lover if I choose? I will
+have you know, Euan, that I do what pleases me with mine own, and am
+not to sit in dread of your displeasure if I have a mind to laugh."
+
+"It hurt me that you should make a mockery----"
+
+"I made no mockery! I laughed. And you shall know that one day, please
+God, I shall laugh at you, plague you, torment you, and----" She
+looked at me smilingly, hesitating; then in a low voice: "All my
+caprices you shall endure as in duty bound.... Because your reward
+shall be-- the adoration of one who is at heart-- your slave
+already.... And your desires will ever be her own-- are hers already,
+Euan.... Have I made amends?"
+
+"More fully than----"
+
+"Then be content," she said hastily, "and pull me no more lugubrious
+faces to fright me. Lord! What a vexing paradox is this young man who
+sits and glowers and gnaws his lips in the very moment of his victory,
+while I, his victim, tranquil and happy in defeat, sit calmly telling
+my thoughts like holy beads to salve my new-born soul. Ai-me! There
+are many things yet to be learned in this mad world of men."
+
+We leaned over the parapet, shoulder to shoulder, looking down upon
+the river. The rain had ceased, but the sun gleamed only at intervals,
+and briefly.
+
+After a moment she turned and looked at me with her beautiful and
+candid eyes-- the most honest eyes I ever looked upon.
+
+"Euan," she said in a quiet voice, "I know how hard it is for us to
+remain silent in the first flush of what has so sweetly happened to us
+both. I know how natural it is for you to speak of it and for me to
+listen. But if I were to listen, now, and when one dear word of yours
+had followed another, and the next another still; and when our hands
+had met, and then our lips-- alas, dear lad, I had become so wholly
+yours, and you had so wholly filled my mind and heart that-- I do not
+know, but l deeply fear-- something of my virgin resolution might
+relax. The inflexible will-- the undeviating obstinacy with which I
+have pursued my quest as far as this forest place, might falter, be
+swerved, perhaps, by this new and other passion-- for I am as yet
+ignorant of its force and possibilities. I would not have it master me
+until I am free to yield. And that freedom can come happily and
+honourably to me only when I set my foot in Catharines-town. Do you
+understand me, Euan?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then-- we will not speak of love. Or even let the language of our
+eyes trouble each other with all we may not say and venture.... You
+will not kiss me, will you? Before I ask it of you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Under no provocation? Will you-- even if I should ask it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I will tell you why, Euan. I have promised myself-- it is odd, too,
+for I first thought of it the day I first laid eyes on you. I said to
+myself that, as God had kept me pure in spite of all-- I should wish
+that the first one ever to touch my lips should be my mother. And I
+made that vow-- having no doubt of keeping it-- until I saw you
+again----"
+
+"When?"
+
+"When you came to me in Westchester before the storm."
+
+"Then!" I exclaimed, amazed.
+
+"Is it not strange, Euan? I know not how it was with me or why, all
+suddenly, I seemed to know-- seemed to catch a sudden glimmer of my
+destiny-- a brief, confusing gleam. And only seemed to fear and hate
+you-- yet, it was not hate or fear, either.... And when I came to you
+in the rain-- there at the stable shed-- and when you followed, and
+gave your ring-- such hell and heaven as awakened in my heart you
+could not fathom-- nor could I-- nor can I yet understand.... Do you
+think I loved you even then? Not knowing that I loved you?"
+
+"How could you love me then?"
+
+"God knows.... And afterward, on the rock in the moonlight-- as you
+lay there asleep-- oh, I knew not what so moved me to leave you my
+message and a wild-rose lying there.... It was my destiny-- my
+destiny! I seemed to fathom it.... For when you spoke to me on the
+parade at the Middle Fort, such a thrill of happiness possessed
+me----"
+
+"You rebuked and rebuked me, sweeting!"
+
+"Because all my solicitude was for you, and how it might disgrace
+you."
+
+"I could have knelt there at your ragged feet, in sight of all the
+fort!"
+
+"Could you truly, Euan?"
+
+"As willingly as I kneel at prayer!"
+
+"How dear and gallant and sweet you are to me----" She broke off in
+dismay. "Ai-me! Heaven pity us both, for we are saying what should
+wait to be said, and have talked of love only while vowing not to do
+so!... Let loose my hand, Euan-- that somehow has stolen into yours.
+Ai-me! This is a very maze I seem to travel in, with every pitfall
+hiding all I would avoid, and everywhere ambush laid for me....
+Listen, dear lad, I am more pitifully at your mercy than I dreamed of.
+Be faithful to my faithless self that falters. Point out the path from
+your own strength and compassion.... I-- I must find my way to
+Catharines-town before I can give myself to thoughts of you-- to
+dreams of all that you inspire in me."
+
+"Listen, Lois. This fort is as far as you may go."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Truly, dear maid. It is not alone the perils of an unknown country
+that must check you here. There is a danger that you know not of--
+that you never even heard of."
+
+"A danger?"
+
+"Worse. A threat of terrors hellish, inconceivable, terrible beyond
+words."
+
+"What do you mean? The hatchet? The stake? Dear lad, may I not then
+venture what you soldiers brave so lightly?"
+
+"It is not what we brave that threatens you!"
+
+"What then?" she asked, startled.
+
+"Dear did you ever learn that you are a 'Hidden Child'?"
+
+"What is that, Euan?"
+
+"Then you do not know?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+And so I told her; told her also all that we had guessed concerning
+her; how that her captive mother, terrified by Amochol and his red
+acolytes, had concealed her, consecrated her, and, somehow, had found
+a runner to carry her beyond the doors of the Long House to safety.
+
+This runner must have written the Iroquois message which I had read
+amid the corn-husks of her garret. It was all utterly plain and
+horrible now, to her and to myself.
+
+As for the moccasins, the same faithful runner must have carried them
+to her, year after year, and taken back with him to the desolate
+mother the assurance that her child was living and still undiscovered
+and unharmed by Amochol.
+
+All this I made plain to her; and I also told her that I, too, was of
+the Hidden Ones; and made it most clear to her who I really was. And I
+told her of the Cat-People, and of the Erie, and how the Sorcerer had
+defied us and boasted that the Hidden Child should yet die strangled
+upon the altar of Red Amochol.
+
+She was quiet and very pale while I was speaking, and at moments her
+grey eyes widened with the unearthly horror of the thing; but never a
+tremour touched her, nor did lid or lips quiver or her gaze falter.
+
+And when I had done she remained silent, looking out over the river at
+our feet, which was now all crinkling with the sun's bright network
+through the tracery of leaves.
+
+"There is a danger to you," I said, "which will not cease until this
+army has left the Red Priest dead amid the sacrilegious ashes of his
+own vile altar. My Indians have made a vow to leave no Erie, no
+blasphemous and perverted priest alive. Amochol, the Wyoming Witch,
+the Toad-Woman-- all that accursed spawn of Frontenac must die.
+
+"Major Parr is of the same opinion; Clinton sees the importance of
+this, having had the sense to learn of Amherst how to stop the Seneca
+demons with a stout hempen rope. Two Sachems he hung, and the whole
+nation cowed down in terror of him while his authority remained.
+
+"But Amherst left us; and the yelps of the Toad-Woman aroused the
+Sorcerers from their torpor. But I swear to you by St. Catharine, who
+is the saint of the Iroquois also, that the sway of Amochol shall end,
+and that he shall lie on his own bloody altar, nor die there before he
+sees the flames of Catharines-town touch the very heaven of an
+affronted God!"
+
+"Can you do this?"
+
+"With God's help and General Sullivan's," I said cheerfully. "For I
+daily pray to the One, and I have the promise of the other that before
+our marching army alarms Catharines-town, I and my Indians and Boyd
+and his riflemen shall strike the Red Priest there at the
+Onon-hou-aroria."
+
+"What is that, Euan?"
+
+"Their devil-rites-- an honest feast which they have perverted. It was
+the Dream Feast, Lois, but Amochol has made of it an orgy unspeakable,
+where human sacrifices are offered to the Moon Witch, Atensi, and to
+Leshi and the Stone-Throwers, and the Little People-- many of which
+were not goblins and ghouls until Amochol so decreed them."
+
+"When is this feast to be held in Catharines-town?"
+
+"On the last day of this month. Until then you must not leave this
+camp; and after the army marches you must not go outside this fort.
+Amochol's arm is long. His acolytes are watching. And now I think you
+understand at last."
+
+She nodded. Presently she rested her pale cheek on her arms and looked
+at the reddening edges of the woods. Northwest lay Catharines-town, so
+Mayaro said. And into the northwest her grey eyes now gazed, calmly
+and steadily, while the sun went out behind the forest and the high
+heavens were plumed with fire.
+
+Under us the river ran, all pink and primrose, save where deep, glassy
+shadows bounded it under either bank. The tips of the trees glowed
+with rosy flame, faded to ashes, then, burnt out, stood once more dark
+and serrated against the evening sky.
+
+Suddenly an unearthly cry rang out from somewhere close to the river
+bank up stream. Instantly a sentry on the parapet near us fired his
+piece.
+
+"Oh, God! What is it!" faltered Lois, grasping my arm. But I sprang
+for the ladder and ran down it; and the scattered soldiers and
+officers below on the parade were already running some grasping their
+muskets, others drawing pistols and hangers.
+
+We could hear musketry firing ahead, and drums beating to arms in our
+camp behind us.
+
+"The cattle-guard!" panted an officer at my elbow as we ran up stream
+along the river-bank. "The Senecas have made their kill again, God
+curse them!"
+
+It was so. Out of the woods came running our frightened cattle, with
+the guard plodding heavily on their flanks; and in the rear two of our
+soldiers urged them on with kicks and blow; two more retreated
+backward, facing the dusky forest with levelled muskets, and a third
+staggered beside them, half carrying, half trailing a man whose head
+hung down crimsoning the leaves as it dragged over them.
+
+He had been smoking a cob pipe when the silent assassin's hatchet
+struck him, and the pipe now remained clenched between his set teeth.
+At first, for the dead leaves stuck to him, we could not see that he
+had been scalped, but when we turned him over the loose and horrible
+features, all wrinkled where the severed brow-muscles had released the
+skin, left us in no doubt.
+
+"This man never uttered that abominable cry," I said, shuddering. "Is
+there yet another missing from the guard?"
+
+"Oh, no, sir," said the soldier who had dragged him. "That there was a
+heifer bawling when them devils cut her throat."
+
+He stood scratching his head and gazing blankly down at his dead
+comrade.
+
+"Jesus," he drawled. "What be I a-goin' for to tell his woman now?"
+
+  CHAPTER XVI
+
+ LANA HELMER
+
+Our Sunday morning gun had scarce been fired when from up the river
+came the answering thunder of artillery. Thirteen times did the
+distant cannon bellow their salute, announcing Clinton's advance, our
+camp swarmed like an excited hive, mounted officers galloping, foot
+officers running, troops tumbling out as the drums rattled the
+"general" in every regimental bivouac.
+
+Colonel Proctor's artillery band marched out toward the landing place
+as I entered No. 2 Block-House and ran up the ladder, and I heard the
+ford-guard hurrahing and the garrison troops on the unfinished
+parapets answering them with cheer after cheer.
+
+At my loud rapping on the flooring, Lois opened the trap for me, her
+lovely, youthful features flushed with excitement; Lana, behind her,
+beckoned me; and I sprang up into the loft and paid my duty to them
+both.
+
+"What a noble earthquake of artillery up the river!" said Lois.
+"Butler has no cannon, has he?"
+
+"Not even a grasshopper!" said I gaily. "Those cannon shot are
+Clinton's how d'ye do!"
+
+"Poor's guns, were they not?" asked Lana, striving to smile. "And that
+means you march away and leave us with 'The World Turned Upside
+Down!'" And she shrugged her shoulders and whistled a bar of the
+old-time British air.
+
+"Come to the parapet!" said Lois impatiently. "For the last few
+minutes there has been a sound in the woods-- very far away, Euan--
+yet, if one could hear so far I would swear that I heard the
+conch-horn of your rifles!"
+
+"Did I not tell you she knew it well?" said Lana with her pallid
+smile, as we opened the massive guard-door, squeezed through the
+covered way, and came out along the rifle-platform among our noisy
+soldiers.
+
+"Listen!" murmured Lois, close at my elbow. "There! It comes again! Do
+you not hear it, Euan! That low, long, sustained and heart-thrilling
+undertone droning in the air through all this tumult!"
+
+And presently I heard the sound-- the wondrous melancholy, yet
+seductive music of our conch-horn. Its magic call set my every pulse
+a-throbbing. All the alluring mystery and solitude, all the sorrow of
+the wilderness were in those long-drawn blasts; all the enchantment of
+the woodland, too, calling, calling to the sons of the forest,
+riflemen, hunter, Coureur-de-Bois.
+
+For its elfin monotone was the very voice of the forest itself-- the
+deep, sweet whisper of virgin wilds, sacred, impenetrable, undefiled,
+tempting forever the sons of men.
+
+And now, across the misty river, there was a great tumult of shouting
+as the first Otsego batteaux came into view; louder boomed our jolly
+cohorn, leaping high in its sulphurous powder-cloud; and the artillery
+band at the landing began to play "Iunadilla," which so deeply
+pleasured me that I forgot and caught Lois's hands between my own and
+pressed them there while her shoulder trembled against mine, and her
+breath came faster as the music swung into "The Huron" with a barbaric
+clash of cymbals.
+
+It was a wondrous spectacle to see the navy of our Right Wing coming
+on, the waves slapping on bow and quarter-- two hundred and ten loaded
+batteaux in line falling grandly down with the smooth and sunlit
+current, three men to every boat. Then, opposite, a wild flurry of
+bugle-horns announced our light infantry; and on they came, our merry
+General Hand riding ahead. And we saw him dismount, fling his bridle
+to an orderly, and lifting his sword and belt above his head, wade
+straight into the ford. And Asa Chapman and Justus Gaylord guided him.
+
+After these came the light troops in their cocked hats, guided by
+Frederick Eveland; then a dun-coloured and dusty column emerged from
+the brilliant green of the woods, a mass of tossing fringes and ringed
+coon-tails and flashing rifle-barrels.
+
+"The Rifles! hurrah for Morgan's men! Ha-i! The Eleventh Virginia!"
+roared the soldiery all about us, while Lois tightened her arm around
+mine and almost crushed my fingers with her own.
+
+"There is Major Parr-- and Captain Simpson-- oh, and yonder minces my
+macaroni Ensign!" cried Lois, as the brown column swung straight into
+the ford, every rifle lifted, powder-horn and cartouche-box high
+swinging and glittering in the sun.
+
+I turned to look for Lana; and first caught sight of the handsome
+wench, Dolly Glenn. And, following her restless gaze, I saw that Boyd
+had come up to the rifle-platform to join Lana, and that they stood
+together at a little distance from us. Also, I noticed that Lana's
+hand was resting an his arm. In sharp contrast to the excited,
+cheering soldiery thronging the platform, the attitude of these two
+seemed dull and spiritless; and Boyd looked more frequently at her
+than on the stirring pageant below; and once, under cover of the
+movement and tumult, I saw her pale cheek press for a moment against
+his green fringed shoulder cape-- lightly-- only for one brief moment.
+Yonder was no coquetry, no caprice of audacity. There was a heart
+there as heavy as the cheek was pale. It was love and nothing less--
+the pitiful devotion of a lass in love whose lover marches on the
+morrow. Lord-- Lord! Had we but known!
+
+As I stood beside Lois, I could not refrain from glancing toward them
+at moments, not meaning to spy, yet somehow held fascinated and
+troubled by what I had seen; for it seemed plain to me that if there
+was love there, little of happiness flavored it. Also, whenever I
+looked at them always I saw Dolly Glenn watching Boyd out of her
+darkly beautiful and hostile eyes.
+
+And afterward, when our big riflemen marched on to the parade below,
+and we all hastened down, and the whole fort was a hubbub of cries and
+cheers and the jolly voices of friends greeting friends-- even then I
+could scarce keep my eyes from these two and from the Glenn girl. And
+I was glad when a large, fat dame came a-waddling, who proved to be
+Mrs. Sabin; and she had a cold and baleful eye for Boyd, which his gay
+spirits and airy blandishments neither softened nor abated.
+
+Lois made me known to her very innocently and discreetly, and I made
+her my best manners; but to my mortification, the disdain in her gaze
+increased, as did her stiffness with Boyd and her chilling hauteur.
+Lord! Here was no friend to men-- at least, no friend to young men!
+That I comprehended in a trice; and my chagrin was nothing mended as I
+caught a sly glance from the merry and slightly malicious eyes of
+Boyd.
+
+"Her husband is a fussy fat-head and she's a basalisk," he whispered.
+"I thought she'd bite my head of when the ladies came on under my
+protection."
+
+She was more square and heavily solid than fat, like a squat
+block-house; and as I stole another glance at her I wondered how she
+was to mount the ladder and get her through the trap above. And by
+heaven! When the moment came to try it, she could not. She attempted
+it thrice; and the third effort hung her there, wedged in, squeaking
+like a fat doe-rabbit-- and Boyd and I, stifling with laughter, now
+pushing, now tugging at her fat ankles. And finally got her out upon
+the ladder platform, crimson and speechless in her fury; and we
+lingered not, but fled together, not daring to face the lady at whose
+pudgy and nether limbs we had pulled so heartily.
+
+"Lord!" said Boyd. "If she complains of us to her Commissary husband,
+there'll be a new issue not included in his department!"
+
+And it doubled us with laughter to think on't, so that for lack o'
+breath I sat down upon a log to hold my aching sides.
+
+"Now, she'll be ever on their heels," muttered Boyd, "hen-like,
+malevolent, and unaccountable. No man dare face and flout that lady,
+whose husband also is utterly subjected. It was Betty Bleecker who set
+her on me. Well, so no more of yonder ladies save in her bristling
+presence."
+
+Yet, as it happened, one thing barred Mistress Sabin from a perpetual
+domination and sleepless supervision of her charges, and that was the
+trap-door. Through it she could not force herself, nor could she come
+around by the guard-door, for the covered way would not admit her
+ample proportions. She could but mount her guard at the ladder's foot.
+And there were two exits to that garret room.
+
+That day I would have messed with my own people, Major Parr inviting
+me, but that our General had all the Otsego officers to dine with him
+at headquarters, and a huge punch afterward, from which I begged to be
+excused, as it was best that I look to my Indians when any rum was
+served in camp.
+
+Boyd came later to the bush-hut, overflushed with punch, saying that
+he had drawn sixty pair of shoes for his men, to spite old Sabin, and
+meant to distribute them with music playing; and that afterward I was
+to join him at the fort as he had orders for himself and for me from
+the General, and desired to confer with me concerning them.
+
+Later came word from him that he had a headache and would confer with
+me on the morrow. Neither did I see Lois again that evening, a gill of
+rum having been issued to every man, and I sticking close as a
+wood-tick to my red comrades-- indeed, I had them out after sunset to
+watch the cattle-guard, who were in a sorry pickle, sixty head having
+strayed and two soldiers missing. And the manoeuvres of that same
+guard did ever sicken me.
+
+It proved another bloody story, too, for first we found an ox with
+throat cut; and, it being good meat, we ordered it taken in. And then,
+in the bushes ahead, a soldier begins a-bawling that the devil is in
+his horses, and that they have run back into the woods.
+
+I heard him chasing them, and shouted for him to wait, but the poor
+fool pays no heed, but runs on after his three horses; and soon he
+screams out:
+
+"God a'mighty!" And, "Christ have mercy!"
+
+With that I blow my ranger's whistle, and my Indians pass me like
+phantoms in the dusk, and I hot-foot after them; but it was too late
+to save young Elliott, who lay there dead and already scalped, doubled
+up in the bed of a little brook, his clenched hand across his eyes and
+a Seneca knife in his smooth, boyish throat.
+
+Late that night the Sagamore started, chased, and quickly cornered
+something in a clump of laurel close to the river bank; and my Indians
+gathered around like fiercely-whining hounds. It was starlight, but
+too dark to see, except what was shadowed against the river; so we all
+lay flat, waiting, listening for whatever it was, deer or bear or man.
+
+Then the Night Hawk, who stood guard at the river, uttered the shrill
+Oneida view-halloo; and into the thicket we all sprang crashing, and
+strove to catch the creature alive; but the Sagamore had to strike to
+save his own skull; and out of the bushes we dragged one of Amochol's
+greasy-skinned assassins, still writhing, twisting, and clawing as we
+flung him heavily and like a scotched snake upon the river sand, where
+the Mohican struck him lifeless and ripped the scalp from his oiled
+and shaven head.
+
+The Erie's lifeless fist still clutched the painted casse-tete with
+which he had aimed a silently murderous blow at the Sagamore.
+Grey-Feather drew the death-maul from the dead warrior's grasp, and
+handed it to the Siwanois.
+
+Then Tahoontowhee, straightening his slim, naked figure to its full
+and graceful height, raised himself on tiptoe and, placing his
+hollowed hands to his cheeks, raised the shuddering echoes with the
+most terrific note an Indian can utter.
+
+As the forest rang with the fierce Oneida scalp-yell, very far away
+along the low-browed mountain flank we could hear the far tinkle of
+hoof and pebble, where the stolen horses moved; and out of the intense
+blackness of the hills came faintly the answering defiance of the
+Senecas, and the hideous miauling of the Eries, quavering, shuddering,
+dying into the tremendous stillness of the Dark Empire which we had
+insulted, challenged, and which we were now about to brave.
+
+Once more Tahoontowhee's piercing defiance split the quivering
+silence; once more the whining panther cry of the Cat-People floated
+back through the far darkness.
+
+Then we turned away toward our pickets; and, as we filed into our
+lines, I could smell the paint and oil on the scalp that the Siwanois
+had taken. And it smelled rank enough, God wot!
+
+
+About nine on Monday morning the entire camp was alarmed by irregular
+and heavy firing along the river; but it proved to be my riflemen
+clearing their pieces; which did mortify General Clinton, and was the
+subject of a blunt order from headquarters, and a blunter rebuke from
+Major Parr to Boyd, who, I am inclined to think, did do this out of
+sheer deviltry. For that schoolboy delight of mischief which never,
+while he lived, was entirely quenched, was ever sparkling in those
+handsome and roving eyes of his. For which our riflemen adored him,
+being by every instinct reckless and irresponsible themselves, and
+only held to discipline by their worship of Daniel Morgan, and the
+upright character and the iron rigour of Major Parr.
+
+Not that the 11th Virginia ever shrank from duty. No regiment in the
+Continental army had a prouder record. But the men of that corps were
+drawn mostly from those free-limbed, free-thinking, powerful,
+headlong, and sometimes ruthless backwoodsmen who carried law into
+regions where none but Nature's had ever before existed. And the law
+they carried was their own.
+
+It was a reproach to us that we scalped our red enemies. No officer in
+the corps could prevent these men from answering an Indian's insult
+with another of the same kind. And there remained always men in that
+command who took their scalps as carelessly as they clipped a
+catamount of ears and pads.
+
+As for my special detail, I understood perfectly that I could no more
+prevent my Indians from scalping enemies of their own race than I
+could whistle a wolf-pack up wind. But I could stop their lifting the
+hair from a dead man of my own race, and had made them understand very
+plainly that any such attempt would be instantly punished as a
+personal insult to myself. Which every warrior understood. And I have
+often wondered why other officers commanding Indians, and who were
+ever complaining that they could not prevent scalping of white
+enemies, did not employ this argument, and enforce it, too. For had
+one of my men, no matter which one, disobeyed, I would have had him
+triced up in a twinkling and given a hundred lashes.
+
+Which meant, also, that I would have had to kill him sooner or later.
+
+There was a stink of rum in camp that morning and it is a quaffing
+beverage which while I like to drink it in punch, the smell of it
+abhors me. And ever and anon my Indians lifted their noses, sniffling
+the tainted air; so that I was glad when a note was handed me from
+Boyd saying that we were to take a forest stroll with my Indians
+around the herd-guard, during which time he would unfold to me his
+plans.
+
+So I started for the fort, my little party carrying rifles and
+sidearms but no packs; and there waited across the ditch in the
+sunshine my Indians, cross-legged in a row on the grass, and gravely
+cracking and munching the sweet, green hazelnuts with which these
+woods abound.
+
+On the parade inside the fort, and out o' the tail of my eye, I saw
+Mistress Sabin knitting on a rustic settle at the base of Block-house
+No. 2, and Captain Sabin beside her writing fussily in a large,
+leather-bound book.
+
+She did not know that the dovecote overhead was now empty, and that
+the pigeons had flown; nor did I myself suspect such a business, even
+when from the woods behind me came the low sound of a ranger's whistle
+blown very softly. I turned my head and saw Boyd beckoning; and arose
+and went thither, my Indians trotting at my heels.
+
+Then, as I came up and stood to offer the officer's salute, Lois
+stepped from behind a tree, laughing and laying her finger across her
+lips, but extending her other hand to me.
+
+And there was Lana, too, paler it seemed to me than ever, yet sweet
+and simple in her greeting.
+
+"The ladies desire to see our cattle," said Boyd, "The herd-guard is
+doubled, our pickets trebled, and the rounds pass every half hour. So
+it is safe enough, I think."
+
+"Yet, scarce the country for a picnic," I said, looking uneasily at
+Lois.
+
+"Oh, Broad-brim, Broad-brim!" quoth she. "Is there any spice in life
+to compare to a little dash o' danger?"
+
+Whereat I smiled at her heartily, and said to Boyd:
+
+"We pass not outside our lines, of course."
+
+"Oh, no!" he answered carelessly. Which left me still reluctant and
+unconvinced. But he walked forward with Lana through the open forest,
+and I followed beside Lois; and, without any signal from me my Indians
+quietly glided out ahead, silently extending as flankers on either
+side.
+
+"Do you notice what they are about?" said I sourly. "Even here within
+whisper of the fort?"
+
+"Are you not happy to see me, Euan?" she cooed close to my ear.
+
+"Not here; inside that log curtain yonder."
+
+"But there is a dragon yonder," she whispered, with mischief adorable
+in her sparkling eyes; then slipped hastily beyond my reach, saying:
+"Oh, Euan! Forget not our vows, but let our conduct remain seemly
+still, else I return."
+
+I had no choice, for we were now passing our inner pickets, where a
+line of bush-huts, widely set, circled the main camp. There were some
+few people wandering along this line-- officers, servants, boatmen,
+soldiers off duty, one or two women.
+
+Just within the lines there was a group of people from which a fiddle
+sounded; and I saw Boyd and Lana turn thither; and we followed them.
+
+Coming up to see who was making such scare-crow music, Lana said in a
+low voice to us:
+
+"It's an old, old man-- more than a hundred years old, he tells us--
+who has lived on the Ouleout undisturbed among the Indians until
+yesterday, when we burnt the village. And now he has come to us for
+food and protection. Is it not pitiful?"
+
+I had a hard dollar in my pouch, and went to him and offered it. Boyd
+had Continental money, and gave him a handful.
+
+He was not very feeble, this ancient creature, yet, except among
+Indians who live sometimes for more than a hundred years, I think I
+never before saw such an aged visage, all cracked into a thousand
+wrinkles, and his little, bluish eyes peering out at us through a sort
+of film.
+
+To smile, he displayed his shrivelled gums, then picked up his fiddle
+with an agility somewhat surprising, and drew the bow harshly, saying
+in his cracked voice that he would, to oblige us, sing for us a ballad
+made in 1690; and that he himself had ridden in the company of horse
+therein described, being at that time thirteen years of age.
+
+And Lord! But it was a doleful ballad, yet our soldiers listened,
+fascinated, to his squeaking voice and fiddle; and I saw the tears
+standing in Lois's eyes, and Lana's lips a-quiver. As for Boyd, he
+yawned, and I most devoutly wished us all elsewhere, yet lost no word
+of his distressing tale:
+
+  "God prosper long our King and Queen,
+    Our lives and safeties all;
+  A sad misfortune once there did
+    Schenectady befall.
+
+  "From forth the woods of Canady
+    The Frenchmen tooke their way,
+  The people of Schenectady
+    To captivate and slay.
+
+  "They march for two and twenty daies,
+    All thro' ye deepest snow;
+  And on a dismal winter night
+    They strucke ye cruel blow.
+
+  "The lightsome sunne that rules the day
+    Had gone down in the West;
+  And eke the drowsie villagers
+    Had sought and found their reste.
+
+  "They thought they were in safetie all,
+    Nor dreamt not of the foe;
+  But att midnight they all swoke
+    In wonderment and woe.
+
+  "For they were in their pleasant beddes,
+    And soundlie sleeping, when
+  Each door was sudden open broke
+    By six or seven menne!
+
+  "The menne and women, younge and olde,
+    And eke the girls and boys,
+  All started up in great affright
+    Att the alarming noise.
+
+  "They then were murthered in their beddes
+    Without shame or remorse;
+  And soon the floors and streets were strew'd
+    With many a bleeding corse.
+
+  "The village soon began to blaze,
+    Which shew'd the horrid sight;
+  But, O, I scarce can beare to tell
+    The mis'ries of that night.
+
+  "They threw the infants in the fire,
+    The menne they did not spare;
+  But killed all which they could find,
+    Tho' aged or tho' fair.
+
+  .  .  .  .  .  .
+
+  .  .  .  .  .  .
+
+  "But some run off to Albany
+    And told the doleful tale;
+  Yett, tho' we gave our chearful aid,
+    It did not much avail.
+
+  "And we were horribly afraid,
+    And shook with terror, when
+  They gave account the Frenchmen were
+    More than a thousand menne.
+
+  "The news came on a Sabbath morn,
+    Just att ye break o' day;
+  And with my companie of horse
+    I galloped away.
+
+  "Our soldiers fell upon their reare,
+    And killed twenty-five;
+  Our young menne were so much enrag'd
+    They took scarce one alive.
+
+  "D'Aillebout them did command,
+    Which were but thievish rogues,
+  Else why did they consent to goe
+    With bloodye Indian dogges?
+
+  "And here I end my long ballad,
+    The which you just heard said;
+  And wish that it may stay on earth
+    Long after I be dead."
+
+The old man bowed his palsied head over his fiddle, struck with his
+wrinkled thumb a string or two; and I saw tears falling from his
+almost sightless eyes.
+
+Around him, under the giant trees, his homely audience stood silent
+and spellbound. Many of his hearers had seen with their own eyes
+horrors that compared with the infamous butchery at Schenectady almost
+a hundred years ago. Doubtless that was what fascinated us all.
+
+But Boyd, on whom nothing doleful made anything except an irritable
+impression, drew us away, saying that it was tiresome enough to fight
+battles without being forced to listen to the account of 'em
+afterward; at which, it being true enough, I laughed. And Lois looked
+up winking away her tears with a quick smile. As for Lana, her face
+was tragic and colourless as death itself. Seeing which, Boyd said
+cheerfully:
+
+"What is there in all the world to sigh about, Lanette? Death is far
+away and the woods are green."
+
+"The woods are green, repeated Lana under her breath, "yet, there are
+many within call who shall not live to see one leaf fall."
+
+"Why, what a very dirge you sing this sunny morning!" he protested,
+still laughing; and I, too, was surprised and disturbed, for never had
+I heard Lana Helmer speak in such a manner.
+
+"'Twas that dreary old fiddler," he added with a shrug. "Now, God save
+us all, from croaking birds of every plumage, and give us to live for
+the golden moment."
+
+"And for the future," said Lois.
+
+"The devil take the future," said Boyd, his quick, careless laugh
+ringing out again. "Today I am lieutenant, and Loskiel, here, is
+ensign. Tomorrow we may be captains or corpses. But is that a reason
+for pulling a long face and confessing every sin?"
+
+"Have you, then, aught to confess?" asked Lois, in pretense of
+surprise.
+
+"I? Not a peccadillo, my pretty maid-- not a single one. What I do, I
+do; and ask no leniency for the doing. Therefore, I have nothing to
+confess."
+
+Lana stopped, bent low over a forest blossom, and touched her face to
+it. Her cheeks were burning. All about us these frail, snowy blossoms
+grew, and Lois gathered one here and yonder while Boyd and I threw
+ourselves down on a vast, deep bed of moss, under which a thread of
+icy water trickled.
+
+Ahead of us, in plain view, stood one of our outer picket guards, and
+below in a wide and bowl-shaped hollow, running south to the river, we
+could see cattle moving amid the trees, and the rifle-barrel of a herd
+guard shining here and there.
+
+My Indians on either flank advanced to the picket line, and squatted
+there, paying no heed to the challenge of the sentinels, until Boyd
+was obliged to go forward and satisfy the sullen Pennsylvania soldiery
+on duty there.
+
+He came back in his graceful, swinging stride, chewing a twig of
+black-birch, his thumbs hooked in his belt, damning all Pennsylvanians
+for surly dogs.
+
+I pointed out that many of them were as loyal as any man among us; and
+he said he meant the Quakers only, and cursed them for rascals, every
+one. Again I reminded him that Alsop Hunt was a Quaker; and he said
+that he meant not the Westchester folk, but John Penn's people,
+Tories, every one, who would have hired ruffians to do to the
+Connecticut people in Forty Fort what later was done to them by
+Indians and Tory rangers.
+
+Lana protested in behalf of the Shippens in Philadelphia, but Boyd
+said they were all tarred with the same brush, and all were selfish
+and murderous, lacking only the courage to bite-- yes, every Quaker in
+Penn's Proprietary-- the Shippens, Griscoms, Pembertons, Norrises,
+Whartons, Baileys, Barkers, Storys-- "'Every damned one o' them!" he
+said, "devised that scheme for the wanton and cruel massacre of the
+Wyoming settlers, and meant to turn it to their own pecuniary profit!"
+
+He was more than partly right; yet, knowing many of these to be
+friends and kinsmen to Lana Helmer, he might have more gracefully
+remained silent. But Boyd had not that instinctive dread of hurting
+others with ill-considered facts; he blurted out all truths, whether
+timely or untimely, wherever and whenever it suited him.
+
+For the Tory Quakers he mentioned I had no more respect than had he,
+they being neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but a smooth, sanctimonious
+and treacherous lot, more calculated to work us mischief because of
+their superior education and financial means. Indeed, they generally
+remained undisturbed by the ferocious Iroquois allies of our late and
+gentle King; secure in their property and lives while all around them
+men, women, and little children fell under the dripping hatchets.
+
+"Had I my say," remarked Boyd loudly, "I'd take a regiment and scour
+me out these rattlesnakes from the Proprietary, and pack 'em off to
+prison, bag and baggage!"
+
+Lana had knelt, making a cup of her hand, and was drinking from the
+silvery thread of water at our feet. Now, as Boyd spoke, she
+straightened up and cast a shower of sparkling drops in his face,
+saying calmly that she prayed God he might have the like done for him
+when next he needed a cooling off.
+
+"Lanette," said he, disconcerted but laughing, "do you mean in hell or
+at the Iroquois stake?"
+
+Whereupon Lana flushed and said somewhat violently that he should not
+make a jest of either hell or stake; and that she for one marvelled at
+his ill-timed pleasantries and unbecoming jests.
+
+So here was a pretty quarrel already sur le tapis; but neither I nor
+Lois interposed, and Lana, pink and angry, seated herself on the moss
+and gazed steadily at our watchful Indians. But in her fixed gaze I
+saw the faint glimmer of tears.
+
+After a moment Boyd got up, went down to her, and asked her pardon.
+She made no answer; they remained looking at each other for another
+second, then both smiled, and Boyd lay down at her feet, resting his
+elbow on the moss and his cheek on his hand, so that he could converse
+with me across her shoulder.
+
+And first he cautioned both Lana and Lois to keep secret whatever was
+to be said between us two, then, nodding gaily at me:
+
+"You were quite right, Loskiel, in speaking to the General about the
+proper trap for this Wizard-Sachem Amochol, who is inflaming the
+entire Seneca nation to such a fury."
+
+"I know no other way to take and destroy him," said I.
+
+"There is no other way. It must be done secretly, and by a small party
+manoeuvring ahead and independently of our main force."
+
+"Are you to command?" I asked.
+
+"I am to have that honour," he said eagerly, "and I take you, your
+savages, and twenty riflemen----"
+
+"What is this?" said Lana sharply; but he lifted an impatient hand and
+went on in his quick, interested manner, to detail to me the plan he
+had conceived for striking Amochol at Catharines-town, in the very
+midst of the Onon-hou-aroria.
+
+"Last night," he said, "I sent out Hanierri and Iaowania, the
+headquarters scouts; and I'm sorry I did, for they came in this
+morning with their tails between their legs, saying the forest swarmed
+with the Seneca scouts, and it was death to stir.
+
+"And I was that disgusted-- what with their cowardice and the
+aftermath of that headquarters punch-- that I bade them go paint and
+sing their death-songs----"
+
+"Oh, Lord! You should not lose your temper with an Indian!" I said,
+vexed at his indiscretion.
+
+"I know it. I'll not interfere with your tame wolves, Loskiel. But
+Hanierri madded me; and now he's told Dominie Kirkland's praying
+Indians, and not one o' them will stir from Tioga-- the
+chicken-hearted knaves! What do you think of that, Loskiel?"
+
+"I am sorry. But we really need no other Indians than my Sagamore, the
+two Oneidas, and the Stockbridge, Yellow Moth, to do Amochol's
+business for him, if you and your twenty riflemen are going."
+
+"I think as you do; and so I told the General, who wanted Major Parr
+to command and the entire battalion to march. 'Oh, Lord!' says I.
+'Best bring Colonel Proctor's artillery band, also!' And was
+frightened afterward at what I said, with so little reflection and
+respect; but the General, who had turned red as a pippin, burst out
+laughing and says he: 'You are a damnably disrespectful young man,
+sir, but you and your friend Loskiel may suit yourselves concerning
+the taking of this same Amochol. Only have a care to take or destroy
+him, for if you do not, by God, you shall be detailed to the batteaux
+and cool your heels in Fort Sullivan until we return!'"
+
+We both laughed heartily, and Boyd added:
+
+"He said it to fright me for my impudence. Trust that man to know a
+man when he sees one!"
+
+"Meaning yourself?" said I, convulsed.
+
+"And you, too, Loskiel," he said so naively that Lois, too, laughed,
+exclaiming:
+
+"What modest opinions of themselves have these two boys! Do you hear
+them, Lana, dubbing each other men?"
+
+"I hear," said Lana listlessly.
+
+Boyd plucked a long, feathery stalk, and with its tip caressed Lana's
+cheeks.
+
+"Spiders!" said he. "Spinning a goblin veil for you!"
+
+"I wish the veil of Fate were as transparent," said she.
+
+"Would you see behind it if you could?"
+
+She said under her breath:
+
+"I sometimes dream I see behind it now."
+
+"What do you see?" he asked.
+
+She shook her head; but we all begged her to disclose her dreams,
+saying laughingly that as dreams were the most important things in the
+lives of all Indians, our close association with them had rendered us
+credulous.
+
+"Come, Lanette," urged Boyd, "tell us what it is you see in dreams
+behind the veil."
+
+She hesitated, shuddered:
+
+"Flames-- always flames. And a man in black with leaden buttons, whose
+face is always hidden in his cloak. But, oh! I know-- I seem to know
+that he has no face at all, but is like a skull under his black
+cloak."
+
+"A merry dream," said Boyd, laughing.
+
+"Is there more to it?" asked Lois seriously.
+
+"Yes.... Lieutenant Boyd is there, and he makes a sign-- like
+this----"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Boyd, sitting up, astounded. "Where did you learn
+that sign?"
+
+"In my dream. What does it mean?"
+
+"Make it no more, Lana," he said, in a curiously disturbed voice. "For
+wherever you have learned it-- if truly from a dream, or from some
+careless fellow-- of my own----" He hesitated, glanced at me. "You are
+not a Mason, Loskiel. And Lana has just given the Masonic signal of
+distress-- having seen me give it in a dream. It is odd." He sat very
+silent for a moment, then lay down again at Lana's feet; and for a
+little while they conversed in whispers, as though forgetting that we
+were there at all, his handsome head resting against her knees, and
+her hand touching the hair on his forehead lightly at intervals.
+
+After a few moments I rose and, with Lois, walked forward toward our
+picket line, from where we could see very plainly the great cattle
+herd among the trees along the river.
+
+She said in a low and troubled voice:
+
+"It has come so far, then, that Lana makes no longer a disguise of her
+sentiments before you and me. It seems as though they had bewitched
+each other-- and find scant happiness in the mutual infatuation."
+
+I said nothing.
+
+"Is he not free to marry her?" asked Lois.
+
+"Why, yes-- I suppose he is-- if she will have him," I said, startled
+by the direct question. "Why not?"
+
+"I don't know. Once, at Otsego Camp I overheard bitter words between
+them-- not from him, for he only laughed at what she said. It was in
+the dusk, close to our tent; and either they were careless or thought
+I slept.... And I heard her say that he was neither free nor fit to
+speak of marriage. And he laughed and vowed that he was as free and
+fit as was any man. 'No,' says she, 'there are other men like Euan
+Loskiel in the world.' 'Exceptions prove the case,' says he, laughing;
+and there was a great sob in her voice as she answered that such men
+as he were born to damn women. And he retorted coolly that it was such
+women as she who ever furnished the provocation, but that only women
+could lose their own souls, and that it was the same with men; but
+neither of 'em could or ever had contributed one iota toward the
+destruction of any soul except their own.... Then Lana came into our
+tent and stood looking down at me where I lay; and dimly through my
+lashes I could perceive the shadow of Boyd behind her on the tent
+wall, wavering, gigantic, towering to the ridge-pole as he set the
+camp-torch in its socket on the flooring." She passed her slim hand
+across her eyes. "It was like an unreal scene-- a fevered vision of
+two phantoms in the smoky, lurid lustre of the torch. Boyd stood there
+dark against the light, edged with flickering flame as with a mantle,
+figure and visage scintilant with Lucifer's own beauty-- and Lana, her
+proud head drooping, and her sad, young eyes fixed on me-- Oh, Euan!"
+She stood pressing down both eyelids with her fingers, motionless;
+then, with a quick-drawn breath and a brusque gesture, flung her arms
+wide and let them drop to her sides. "How can men follow what they
+call their 'fortune,' headlong, unheeding, ranging through the world
+as a hot-jowled hound ranges for rabbits? Are they never satiated? Are
+they never done with the ruthless madness? Does the endless chase with
+its intervals of killing never pall?"
+
+"Hounds are hounds," I said slowly. "And the hound will chase his
+thousandth hare with all the unslaked eagerness that thrilled him when
+his first quarry fled before him."
+
+"Why?"
+
+But I shook my head in silence.
+
+"Are you that way?"
+
+"I have not been."
+
+"The instinct then is not within you?"
+
+"Yes, the instinct is.... But some hounds are trained to range only as
+far as their mistress, Old Dame Reason, permits. Others slip leash and
+take to the runways to range uncontrolled and mastered only by a dark
+and second self, urging them ever forward.... There are but two kinds
+of men, Lois-- the self-disciplined, and the unbroken. But the raw
+nature of the two differed nothing at their birth."
+
+She stood looking down at the distant cattle along the river for a
+while without speaking; then her hand, which hung beside her, sought
+mine and softly rested within my clasp.
+
+"It is wonderful," she murmured, "that it has been God's pleasure I
+should come to you unblemished-- after all that I have lived to learn
+and see. But more wonderful and blessed still it is to me to find you
+what you are amid this restless, lawless, ruthless world of soldiery--
+upright and pure in heart.... It seems almost, with us, as though our
+mothers had truly made of us two Hidden Children, white and mysterious
+within the enchanted husks, which only our own hands may strip from
+us, and reveal ourselves unsullied as God made us, each to the other--
+on our wedding morn."
+
+I lifted her little hand and laid my lips to it, touching the ring.
+Then she bent timidly and kissed the rough gold circlet where my lips
+had rested. Somehow, a shaft of sunlight had penetrated the green roof
+above, and slanted across her hair, so that the lovely contour of her
+head was delicately edged with light.
+
+* "Nene-nea-wen-ne, Lois!" I whispered passionately.
+
+[* "This thing shall happen, Lois!"]
+
+* "Nen-ya-wen-ne, O Loskiel! Teni-non-wes."
+
+[* "It shall happen, O Loskiel! We love, thou and I."]
+
+We stood yet a while together there, and I saw her lift her eyes and
+gaze straight ahead of us beyond our picket line, and remain so,
+gazing as though her regard could penetrate those dim and silent
+forest aisles to the red altar far beyond in unseen Catharines-town.
+
+"When must you go?" she asked under her breath.
+
+"The army is making ready today."
+
+"To march into the Indian country?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"When does it march?"
+
+"On Friday. But that is not to be known at present."
+
+"I understand. By what route do you go?"
+
+"By Chemung."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"At Chemung we leave the army, Boyd and I. You heard."
+
+"Yes, Euan."
+
+I said, forcing myself to speak lightly:
+
+"You are not to be afraid for us, Little Rosy Pigeon of the Forest.
+Follow me with your swift-winged thoughts and no harm shall come to
+me."
+
+"Must you go?"
+
+I laughed: * "Ka-teri-oseres, Lois."
+
+[* "I am going to this war, Lois."]
+
+* "Wa-ka-ton-te-tsihon," she said calmly. "Wa-ka-ta-tiats-kon."
+
+[* "I understand perfectly. I am resigned."]
+
+Then I gave way to my increasing surprise:
+
+"Wonder-child!" I exclaimed. "When and where have you learned to
+understand and answer me in the tongue of the Long House?"
+
+*"Kio-ten-se," she said with a faint smile.
+
+[* "I am working for somebody."]
+
+"For whom?"
+
+"For my mother, Euan. Did you suppose I could neglect anything that
+might be useful in my life's quest? Who knows when I might need the
+tongue I am slowly learning to speak?... Oh, and I know so little,
+yet. Something of Algonquin the Mohican taught me; and with it a
+little of the Huron tongue. And now for nearly a month every day I
+have learned a little from the Oneidas at Otsego-- from the Oneida
+girl whose bridal dress you bought to give to me. Do you remember her?
+The maid called Drooping Wings?"
+
+"Yes-- but-- I do not understand. To what end is all this? When and
+where is your knowledge of the Iroquois tongue likely to aid you?"
+
+She gave me a curious, veiled look-- then turned her face away.
+
+"You do not dream of following our army, do you?" I demanded. "Not one
+woman would be permitted to go. It is utterly useless for you to
+expect it, folly to dream of such a thing.... You and Lana are to go
+to Easton as soon as the heavier artillery is sent down the river,
+which will be the day we start-- Friday. This frontier gypsying is
+ended-- all this coquetting with danger is over now. The fort here is
+no place for you and Lana. Your visit, brief as it has been, is rash
+and unwarranted. And I tell you very plainly, Lois, that I shall never
+rest until you are at Easton, which is a stone town and within the
+borders of civilization. The artillery will be sent down by boat, and
+all the women and children are to go also. Neither Boyd nor I have
+told this to you and Lana, but----" I glanced over my shoulder. "I
+think he is telling her now."
+
+Lois slowly turned and looked toward them. Evidently they no longer
+cared what others saw or thought, for Lana's cheek lay pressed against
+his shoulder, and his arm encircled her body.
+
+
+We walked back, all together, to the fort, and left Lois and Lana at
+the postern; then Boyd and I continued on to my bush-hut, the Indians
+following.
+
+Muffled drums of a regiment were passing, and an escort with reversed
+arms, to bury poor Kimball, Captain in Colonel Cilly's command, shot
+this morning through the heart by the accidental discharge of a musket
+in the careless hands of one of his own men.
+
+We stood at salute while the slow cortege passed.
+
+Said Boyd thoughtfully:
+
+"Well, Kimball's done with all earthly worries. There are those who
+might envy him."
+
+"You are not one," I said bluntly.
+
+"I? No. I have not yet played hard enough in the jolly blind man's
+buff-- which others call the game of life. I wear the bandage still,
+and still my hands clutch at the empty air, and in my ears the world's
+sweet laughter rings----" He smiled, then shrugged. "The charm of
+Fortune's bag is not what you pull from it, but what remains within."
+
+"Boyd," I said abruptly. "Who is that handsome wench that followed us
+from Otsego?"
+
+"Dolly Glenn?"
+
+"That is her name."
+
+"Lord, how she pesters me!" he said fretfully. "I chanced upon her at
+the Middle Fort one evening-- down by the river. And what are our
+wenches coming to," he exclaimed impatiently, "that a kiss on a
+summer's night should mean to them more than a kiss on a night in
+summer!"
+
+"She is a laundress, is she not?"
+
+"How do I know? A tailoress, too, I believe, for she has patched and
+mended for me; and she madded me because she would take no pay. There
+are times," he added, "when sentiment is inconvenient----"
+
+"Poor thing," I said.
+
+"My God, why? When I slipped my arm around her she put up her face to
+be kissed. It was give and take, and no harm done-- and the moon
+a-laughing at us both. And why the devil she should look at me
+reproachfully is more than I can comprehend."
+
+"It seems a cruel business," said I.
+
+"Cruel!"
+
+"Aye-- to awake a heart and pass your way a-whistling."
+
+"Now, Loskiel," he began, plainly vexed, "I am not cruel by nature,
+and you know it well enough. Men kiss and go their way-- -- "
+
+"But women linger still."
+
+"Not those I've known."
+
+"Yet, here is one----"
+
+"A silly fancy that will pass with her. Lord! Do you think a gentleman
+accountable to every pretty chit of a girl he notices on his way
+through life?"
+
+"Some dare believe so."
+
+He stared at me, then laughed.
+
+"You are different to other men, of course," he said gaily. "We all
+understand that. So let it go----"
+
+"One moment, Boyd. There is a matter I must speak of-- because
+friendship and loyalty to a childhood friend both warrant it. Can you
+tell me why Lana Helmer is unhappy?"
+
+A dark red flush surged up to the roots of his hair, and the muscles
+in his jaw tightened. He remained a moment mute and motionless,
+staring at me. But if my question, for the first moment, had enraged
+him, that quickly died out; and into his eyes there came a haggard
+look such as I had never seen there.
+
+He said slowly:
+
+"Were you not the man you are, Loskiel, I had answered in a manner you
+might scarcely relish. Now, I answer you that if Lana is unhappy I am
+more so. And that our unhappiness is totally unnecessary-- if she
+would but listen to what I say to her."
+
+"And what is it that you say to her?" I inquired as coolly as though
+his answer might not very easily be a slap with his fringed sleeve
+across my face.
+
+"I have asked her to marry me," he said. "Do you understand why I tell
+you this?"
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"To avoid killing you at twenty paces across the river.... I had
+rather tell you than do that."
+
+"So that you have told me," said I, "the reason for your telling
+matters nothing. And my business with you ends with your answer....
+Only-- she is my friend, Boyd-- a playmate of pleasant days. And if
+you can efface that wretchedness from her face-- brighten the quenched
+sparkle of her eyes, paint her cheeks with rose again-- do it, in
+God's name, and make of me a friend for life."
+
+"Shall I tell you what has gone amiss-- from the very first there at
+Otsego?"
+
+"No-- that concerns not me----"
+
+"Yes, I shall tell you! It's that she knew about-- the wench here--
+Dolly Glenn."
+
+"Is that why she refuses you and elects to remain unhappy?" I said
+incredulously.
+
+"Yes-- I can say no more.... You are right, Loskiel, and such men as I
+are wrong-- utterly and wretchedly wrong. Sooner or later comes the
+bolt of lightning. Hell! To think that wench should hurl it!"
+
+"But what bolt had she to hurl?" said I, astonished.
+
+He reddened, bit his lip savagely, made as though to speak, then, with
+a violent gesture, turned away.
+
+A few moments later a cannon shot sounded. It was the signal for
+striking tents and packing up; and in every regiment hurry and
+confusion reigned and the whole camp swarmed with busy soldiery.
+
+But toward evening orders came to unpack and pitch tents again; and
+whether it had been an exercise to test the quickness of our army for
+marching, or whether some accident postponed the advance, I do not
+know.
+
+All that evening, being on duty with my Indians to watch the
+cattle-guard, I did not see Lois.
+
+The next day I was ordered to take the Indians a mile or two toward
+Chemung and lie there till relieved; so we went very early and
+remained near the creek on observation, seeing nothing, until evening,
+when the relief came with Hanierri and three Stockbridges. These gave
+us an account that another soldier had been shot in camp by the
+accidental discharge of a musket, and that the Light Troops had
+marched out of their old encampment and had pitched tents one hundred
+rods in advance.
+
+Also, they informed us that the flying hospital and stores had been
+removed to the fort, and that Colonel Shreve had taken over the
+command of that place.
+
+By reason of the darkness, we were late in getting into camp, so again
+that day I saw nothing of Lois.
+
+On Wednesday it rained heavily about eleven o'clock, and the troops
+made no movement. Some Oneidas came in and went to headquarters. My
+Indians did not seem to know them.
+
+I was on duty all day at headquarters, translating into Iroquois for
+the General a speech which he meant to deliver to the Tuscaroras on
+his return through Easton. The rain ceased late in the afternoon.
+Later, an express came through from Fort Pitt; and before evening
+orders had gone out that the entire army was to march at eight o'clock
+in the morning.
+
+Morning came with a booming of cannon. We did not stir.
+
+Toward eleven, however, the army began to march out as though
+departing in earnest; but as Major Parr remained with the Rifles, I
+knew something had gone amiss.
+
+Yet, the other regiments, including my own, marched away gaily enough,
+with music sounding and colours displayed; and the garrison, boatmen,
+artillerymen, and all the civil servants and women and children waved
+them adieu from the parapets of the fort.
+
+But high water at Tioga ford, a mile or two above, soon checked them,
+and there they remained that night. As I was again on duty with
+Hanierri and the Dominie, I saw not Lois that day.
+
+Friday was fair and sunny, and the ground dried out. And all the
+morning I was with Dominie Kirkland and Hanierri, translating,
+transcribing, and writing out the various speeches and addresses left
+for me by General Sullivan.
+
+Runners came in toward noon with news that our main forces had
+encamped at the pass before Chemung, and were there awaiting us.
+
+Murphy, the rifleman, came saying that our detail was packing up at
+the fort, that Major Parr had sent word for Lieutenant Boyd to strike
+tents and pull foot, and that the boats were now making ready to drop
+down the river with the non-combatants.
+
+My pack, and those of my Indians, had been prepared for days, and
+there was little for me to do to make ready. Some batt-men carried my
+military chest to the fort, where it was bestowed with the officers'
+baggage until we returned.
+
+Then I hastened away to the fort and discovered our twenty riflemen
+paraded there, and Boyd inspecting them and their packs. His face
+seemed very haggard under its dark coat of sunburn, but he returned my
+salute with a smile, and presently came over to where I stood, saying
+coolly enough:
+
+"I have made my adieux to the ladies. They are at the landing place
+expecting you. Best not linger. We should reach Chemung by dusk."
+
+"My Indians are ready," said I.
+
+"Very well," he said absently, and returned to his men, continuing his
+careful inspection.
+
+As I passed the log bridge, I saw Dolly Glenn standing there with a
+frightened look on her face, but she paid no heed to me, and I went on
+still haunted by the girl's expression.
+
+A throng of people-- civilians and soldiers-- were at the landing. The
+redoubtable Mrs. Sabin was bustling about a batteau, terrorizing its
+crew and bullying the servants, who were stowing away her property.
+Looking about me, I finally discovered Lois and Lana standing on the
+shore a little way down stream, and hastened to them.
+
+Lana was as white as a ghost, but to my surprise Lois seemed cheerful
+and in gayest spirits, and laughed when I saluted her hand. And it
+relieved me greatly to find her so animated and full of confidence
+that all would be well with us, and the parting but a brief one.
+
+"I know in my heart it will be brief," she said smilingly, and
+permitting both her hands to remain in mine. "Soon, very soon, we
+shall be again together, Euan, and this interrupted fairy tale, so
+prettily begun by you and me, shall be once more resumed."
+
+"To no fairy finish," I said, "but in sober reality."
+
+She looked at Lana, laughing:
+
+"What a lad is this, dear! How can a fairy tale be ever real? Yet, he
+is a magician like Okwencha, this tall young Ensign of mine, and I
+make no doubt that his wizardry can change fancy to fact in the
+twinkling of an eye. Indeed, I think I, too, am something of a witch.
+Shall I make magic for you, Euan? What most of anything on earth would
+you care to see tonight?"
+
+"You, Lois."
+
+"Hai-e! That is easy. I will some night send to you my spirit, and it
+shall be so like me and so vivid nay, so warm and breathing-- that you
+shall think to even touch it.... Shall I do this with a spell?"
+
+"I only have to close my eyes and see you. Make it that I can also
+touch you."
+
+"It shall be done."
+
+We both were smiling, and I for one was forcing my gay spirits, for
+now that the moment had arrived, I knew that chance might well make of
+our gay adieux an endless separation.
+
+Lana had wandered a little way apart; I glanced at Lois, then turned
+and joined her. She laid her hand on my arm, as though her knees could
+scarcely prop her, and turned to me a deathly face.
+
+"Euan," she breathed, "I have said adieu to him. Somehow, I know that
+he and I shall never meet again.... Tell him I pray for him-- for his
+soul.... And mine.... And that before he goes he shall do the thing I
+bid him do.... And if he will not-- tell him I ask God's mercy on
+him.... Tell him that, Euan."
+
+"Yes," I said, awed.
+
+She stood resting her arm on mine to support her, closed her eyes for
+a moment, then opened them and looked at me. And in her eyes I saw her
+heart was breaking as she stood there.
+
+"Lana! Lanette! Little comrade! What is this dreadful thing that
+crushes you? Could you not tell me?" I whispered.
+
+"Ask him, Euan."
+
+"Lana, why will you not marry him, if you love him so?"
+
+She shuddered and closed her eyes.
+
+Neither of us spoke again. Lois, watching us, came slowly toward us,
+and linked her arm in Lana's.
+
+"Our batteau is waiting," she said quietly.
+
+I continued to preserve my spirits as we walked together down to the
+shore where Mrs. Sabin stood glaring at me, then turned her broad back
+and waddled across the planks.
+
+Lana followed; Lois clung a second to my hands, smiling still; then I
+released her and she sprang lightly aboard.
+
+And now batteau after batteau swung out into the stream, and all in
+line dropped slowly down the river, pole and paddle flashing,
+kerchiefs fluttering.
+
+For a long way I could see the boat that carried Lois gliding in the
+channel close along shore, and the escort following along the bank
+above, with the sunshine glancing on their slanting rifles. Then a
+bend in the river hid them; and I turned away and walked slowly toward
+the fort.
+
+By the gate my Indians were waiting. The Sagamore had my pack and
+rifle for me. On the rifle-platform above, the soldiers of the
+garrison stood looking down at us.
+
+And now I heard the short, ringing word of command, and out of the
+gate marched our twenty riflemen, Boyd striding lightly ahead.
+
+Then, as he set foot on the log bridge, I saw Dolly Glenn standing
+there, confronting him, blocking his way, her arms extended and her
+eyes fixed on him.
+
+"Are you mad?" he said curtly.
+
+"If you go," she retorted unsteadily, "leaving me behind you here--
+unwedded-- God will punish you."
+
+The column had came to a halt. There was a dead silence on parapet and
+parade while three hundred pair of eyes watched those two there on the
+bridge of logs.
+
+"Dolly, you are mad!" he said, with the angry colour flashing in his
+face and staining throat and brow.
+
+"Will you do me justice before you go?"
+
+"Will you stand aside?" he said between his teeth.
+
+"Yes-- I will stand aside.... And may you remember me when you burn at
+the last reckoning with God!"
+
+"'Tention! Trail arms! By the left flank-- march!" he cried, his voice
+trembling with rage.
+
+The shuffling velvet tread of his riflemen fell on the bridge; and
+they passed, rifles at a trail, and fringes blowing in the freshening
+breeze.
+
+Without a word I fell in behind. After me loped my Indians in perfect
+silence.
+
+  CHAPTER XVII
+
+ THE BATTLE OF CHEMUNG
+
+Toward sundown we hailed our bullock guard below the ruins of Old
+Chemung, and passed forward through the army to the throat of the
+pass, where the Rifles lay.
+
+The artillery was already in a sorry mess, nine guns stalled and an
+ammunition wagon overturned in the ford. And I heard the infantry
+cursing the drivers and saying that we had lost thousands of
+cartridges. Stewart's bullock-guard was in a plight, too, forty head
+having strayed.
+
+At the outlet to the pass Major Parr met us, cautioning silence. No
+fires burned and the woods were very still, so that we could hear in
+front of us the distant movement of men; and supposed that the enemy
+had come down to Chemung in force. But Major Parr told us that our
+scouts could make nothing of these incessant noises, reporting only a
+boatload of Sir John Johnson's green-coated soldiers on the river, and
+a few Indians in two canoes; and that he had no knowledge whether Sir
+John, the two Butlers, McDonald, and Brant lay truly in front of us,
+or whether these people were only a mixed scalping party of blue-eyed
+Indians, Senecas, and other ragamuffin marauders bent on a more
+distant foray, and now merely lingering along our front over night to
+spy out what we might be about.
+
+Also, he informed us that a little way ahead, on the Great Warrior
+trail, lay an Indian town which our scouts reported to be abandoned;
+and said that he had desired to post our pickets there, but that
+orders from General Hand had prevented that precaution until the
+General commanding arrived at the front.
+
+Some few minutes after our appearance in camp, and while we were
+eating supper, there came a ruddy glimmer of torches from behind us,
+lighting up the leaves overhead; and Generals Sullivan, Clinton, Hand,
+and Poor rode up and drew bridle beside Major Parr, listening intently
+to the ominous sounds in front of us.
+
+And, "What the devil do you make of it, Major?" says Sullivan, in a
+low voice. "It sounds like a log-rolling in March."
+
+"My scouts give me no explanation," says Parr grimly. "I think the
+rascals are terrified."
+
+"Send Boyd and that young interpreter," said Sullivan curtly.
+
+So, as nobody could understand exactly what these noises indicated,
+and as headquarters' scouts could obtain no information, Lieutenant
+Boyd and I, with my Indians, left our supper of fresh roast corn and
+beans and went forward at once. We moved out of the defile with every
+precaution, passing the throat of the rocky pass and wading the little
+trout-brook over which our trail led, the Chemung River now lying
+almost south of us. Low mountains rose to the north and west, very
+dark and clear against the stars; and directly ahead of us we saw the
+small Indian town surrounded by corn fields; and found it utterly
+deserted, save for bats and owls; and not even an Indian dog
+a-prowling there.
+
+A little way beyond it we crossed another brook close to where it
+entered the river, opposite an island. Here the Chemung makes a great
+bend, flowing in more than half a circle; and there are little hills
+to the north, around which we crept, hearing always the stirring and
+movements of men ahead of us, and utterly unable to comprehend what
+they were so busily about.
+
+Just beyond the island another and larger creek enters the river; and
+here, no longer daring to follow the Seneca trail, we turned
+southwest, slinking across the river flats, through the high Indian
+grass, until we came to a hardwood ridge, from whence some of these
+sounds proceeded.
+
+We heard voices very plainly, the splintering of saplings, and a
+heavier, thumping sound, which the Mohican whispered to us was like
+hewn logs being dragged over the ground and then piled up. A few
+moments later, Tahoontowhee, who had crept on ahead, glided up to us
+and whispered that there was a high breastwork of logs on the ridge,
+and that many men were cutting bushes, sharpening the stems, and
+planting them to screen this breastwork so that it could not be seen
+from the Seneca trail north of us, along which lay our army's line of
+march. A pretty ambuscade, in truth! But Braddock's breed had passed.
+
+Silently, stealthily, scarcely breathing, we got out of that dangerous
+place, recrossed the grassy flats, and took to the river willows the
+entire way back. At the mouth of the pass, where my battalion lay
+asleep, we found Major Parr anxiously awaiting us. He sent Captain
+Simpson back with the information.
+
+Before I could unlace my shirt, drag my pack under my head, and
+compose myself to sleep, Boyd, who had stretched himself out beside
+me, touched my arm.
+
+"Are you minded to sleep, Loskiel?"
+
+"I own that I am somewhat inclined that way," said I.
+
+"As you please."
+
+"Why? Are you unwell?"
+
+He lay silent for a few moments, then:
+
+"What a mortifying business was that at the Tioga fort," he said under
+his breath. "The entire garrison saw it, did they not, Loskiel?
+Colonel Shreve and all?"
+
+"Yes, I fear so,"
+
+"It will be common gossip tomorrow," he said bitterly. "What a
+miserable affair to happen to an officer of Morgan's!"
+
+"A sad affair," I said.
+
+"It will come to her ears, no doubt. Shreve's batt-men will carry it
+down the river."
+
+I was silent.
+
+"Rumour runs the woods like lightning," he said. "She will surely hear
+of this disgraceful scene. She will hear of it at Easton.... Strange,"
+he muttered, "strange how the old truths hold!... Our sins shall find
+us out.... I never before believed that, Loskiel-- not in a
+wilderness, anyway.... I had rather be here dead and scalped than have
+had that happen and know that she must hear of it one day."
+
+He lay motionless for a while, then turned heavily on his side, facing
+me across the heap of dead leaves.
+
+"Somehow or other," he said, "she heard of that miserable business--
+heard of it even at Otsego.... That is why she would not marry me,
+Loskiel. Did you ever hear the like! That a man must be so utterly and
+hopelessly damned for a moment's careless folly-- lose everything in
+the world for a thoughtless moonlight frolic! Where lies the justice
+in such a judgment?"
+
+"It is not the world that judges you severely. The world cares little
+what a man's way may be with a maid."
+
+"But-- Lana cares. It has ended everything for her."
+
+I said in a low voice:
+
+"You ended everything for Dolly Glenn."
+
+"How was I to know she was no light o' love-- this camp tailoress--
+this silly little wench who-- but let it go! Had she but whimpered,
+and seemed abashed and unfamiliar with a kiss---- Well, let it go....
+But I could cut my tongue out that I ever spoke to her. God! How
+lightly steps a man into a trap of his own contriving!... And here I
+lie tonight, caring not whether I live or die in tomorrow's battle
+already dawning on the Chemung. And yonder, south of us, in the black
+starlight, drift the batteaux, dropping down to Easton under the very
+sky that shines above us here.... If Lana be asleep at this moment I
+do not know.... She tells me I have broke her heart-- but yet will
+have none of me.... Tells me my duty lies elsewhere; that I shall make
+amends. How can a man make amends when his heart lies not in the
+deed?... Am I then to be fettered to a passing whim for all eternity?
+Does an instant's idle folly entail endless responsibility? Do I merit
+punishment everlasting for a silly amourette that lasted no longer
+than the July moon? Tell me, Loskiel, you who are called among us
+blameless and unstained, is there no hope for a guilty man to shrive
+himself and walk henceforward upright?"
+
+"I can not answer you," I said dully. "Nor do I know how, of such a
+business, a man may be shriven, or what should be his amends.... It
+all seems pitiful and sad to me-- a matter perplexing, unhappy, and
+far beyond my solving.... I know it is the fashion of the times to
+regard such affairs lightly, making of them nothing.... Much I have
+heard, little learned, save that the old lessons seem to be the
+truest; the old laws the best. And that our cynical and modern
+disregard of them make one's salvation none the surer, one's happiness
+none the safer."
+
+I heard Boyd sigh heavily, where he lay; but he said nothing more that
+I heard; for I slept soon afterward, and was awakened only at dawn.
+
+Everywhere in the rocky pass the yawning riflemen were falling in and
+calling off; a detail of surly Jersey men, carrying ropes, passed us,
+cursing the artillery which, it appeared, was in a sorry plight again,
+the nine guns all stalled behind us, and an entire New Jersey brigade
+detailed to pull them out o' the mud and over the rocks of the
+narrowing defile.
+
+Boyd shared my breakfast, seeming to have recovered something of his
+old-time spirits. And if the camp that night had gossiped concerning
+what took place at Tioga Fort, it seemed to make no difference to his
+friends, who one and all greeted him with the same fellowship and
+affection that he had ever inspired among fighting men. No man, I
+think, was more beloved and admired in this Western army, by officers
+and men alike; for in him were naturally combined all those brilliant
+qualities of daring, fearlessness, and gaiety in the face of peril,
+which endear, and which men strive to emulate. In no enterprise had he
+ever failed to perform the part allotted him; never had he faltered in
+the hundred battles fought by Morgan's veteran corps; never had he
+seemed dismayed. And if sometimes he did a little more than he was
+asked to do, his superior officers forgave this handsome, impetuous
+young man-- the more readily, perhaps, because, so far, no disaster
+had befallen when he exceeded the orders given him.
+
+My Indians had eaten, and were touching up their paint when Major Parr
+came up, wearing a magnificent new suit of fringed buckskins, and
+ordered us to guide the rifle battalion. A moment later our conch-horn
+boomed out its thrilling and melodious warning. Far in the rear I
+heard the drums and bugle-horns of the light infantry sounding the
+general.
+
+As we went forward in the early daylight, the nature of the ambuscade
+prepared for us became very plain to me; and I pointed out to Major
+Parr where the unseen enemy rested, his right flank protected by the
+river, his left extending north along the hog-bank, so that his lines
+enveloped the trail on which we marched, threatening our entire army
+in a most cunning and evil manner. Truly there was no fox like Butler
+in the Northland!
+
+All was very still about us as we marched; the river mist hung along
+the woods; a few birds sang; the tops of the Indian corn rustled.
+
+Toward eight o'clock the conch-horn blew; our riflemen halted and
+deployed in perfect silence, facing the unseen works on the wooded
+ridge ahead. Another division of troops swung to the left, continuing
+the movement to the river in splendid order, where they also halted
+and formed a line of battle, facing north. And still the unseen enemy
+gave no sign; birds sang; the mist drifted up through the trees.
+
+From where we lay we could see our artillery horses straining,
+plunging, stumbling up a high knoll in the centre of our line, while
+Maxwell's division halted and extended behind our riflemen to support
+the artillery, and Clinton's four splendid New York regiments hurried
+forward on a double, regiment after regiment dropping their packs
+behind our lines and running north through the open woods, their
+officers all finely mounted and cantering ahead, swords drawn.
+
+A few moments later, General Sullivan passed along our front on
+horseback, and drew bridle for a moment where Boyd and I were standing
+at salute.
+
+"Now is your opportunity, young gentlemen," he said in a low voice.
+"If you would gain Catharines-town and destroy Amochol before we drive
+this motley Tory army headlong through it, you should start
+immediately. And have a care; Butler's entire army and Brant's Mohawks
+are now intrenched in front of us; and it is a pitched battle we're
+facing-- God be thanked!"
+
+He spurred forward with a friendly gesture toward us, as we saluted;
+and his staff officers followed him at a canter while our riflemen
+turned their heads curiously to watch the brilliant cavalcade.
+
+"Where the devil are their log works?" demanded Major Parr, using his
+field glasses. "I can see naught but green on that ridge ahead."
+
+Boyd painted at the crest; but our Major could see nothing; and I
+called to Timothy Murphy and Dave Elerson to climb trees and spy out
+if the works were still occupied.
+
+Murphy came down presently from the dizzy top of a huge black-walnut
+tree, reporting that he had been able to see into the river angle of
+their works; had for a while distinguished nothing, but presently
+discovered Indians, crouched motionless, the brilliancy of their
+paint, which at first he had mistaken for patches of autumn leaves,
+betraying them when they moved.
+
+"Now, God be praised!" said Major Parr grimly. "For we shall this day
+furnish these Western-Gate Keepers with material for a Condolence
+Feast such as no Seneca ever dreamed of. And if you gentlemen can
+surprise and destroy Amochol, it will be a most blessed day for our
+unhappy country."
+
+General Hand, in his patched and faded uniform of blue and buff, drew
+his long, heavy sword and walked his horse over to Major Parr.
+
+"Well, sir," he said, "we must amuse them, I suppose, until the New
+Yorkers gain their left. Push your men forward and draw their fire,
+Major."
+
+There came a low order; the soft shuffle of many mocassined feet;
+silence. Presently, ahead of us, a single rifle-shot shattered the
+stillness.
+
+Instantly a mighty roar of Tory musketry filled the forest; and their
+Indians, realizing that the ambuscade had been discovered, came
+leaping down the wooded ridge, yelling and firing all along our front;
+and our rifles began to speak quicker and quicker from every rock and
+tuft and fallen log.
+
+"Are we to miss this?" said Boyd, restlessly. "Listen to that firing!
+The devil take this fellow Amochol and his Eries! I wish we were
+yonder with our own people. I wish at least that I could see what our
+New Yorkers are about!"
+
+Behind us, Boyd's twenty riflemen stood craning their sunburnt necks;
+and my Indians, terribly excited, fairly quivered where they crouched
+beside us. But all we could see was the rifle smoke sifting through
+the trees, and early sunshine slanting on the misty river.
+
+The fierce yelling of the unseen Mohawks and Senecas on the wooded
+ridge above us had become one continuous and hideous scream, shrill
+and piercing above the racket of musketry and rifle fire; sometimes
+the dreadful volume of sound surged nearer as though they were
+charging, or showing themselves in order to draw us into a frontal
+attack on their pits and log breastworks; but always after a little
+while the yelping tumult receded, and our rifle fire slackened while
+the musketry from the breastworks grew more furious, crashing out
+volley on volley, while the entire ridge steamed like a volcano in
+action. Further to the north we heard more musketry break out, as our
+New York regiments passed rapidly toward Butler's left flank. And by
+the running fire we could follow their hurried progress.
+
+"Hell!" said Boyd, furiously, flinging his rifle to his shoulder.
+"Come on, Loskiel, or we'll miss this accursed Amochol also." And he
+gave the signal to march.
+
+As we skirted the high knoll where our artillery was planted, the
+first howitzer shot shook the forest, and my Indians cringed as they
+ran beside me. High towering rose the shell, screaming like a living
+thing, and plunged with a shriek into the woods on the ridge,
+exploding there with a most infernal bang.
+
+Up through the trees gushed a very fountain of smoke, through which we
+could dimly see dark objects falling; but whether these were the limbs
+of trees or of men we could not tell.
+
+Crash! A howitzer hurled its five and a half inch shell high into the
+sunshine. Boom! Another shot from a three-pounder. Bang! The little
+cohorn added its miniature bellow to the bigger guns, which now began
+to thunder regularly, one after another, shaking the ground we trod.
+The ridge was ruddy with the red lightning of exploding shells. Very
+far away in the forest we could hear entire regiments, as they climbed
+the slopes, cheering above the continuous racket of musketry; the
+yelling of the Senecas and Mohawks grew wavering, becoming ragged and
+thinner.
+
+It was hard for us all, I think, to turn our backs on the first real
+battle we had seen in months-- hard for Boyd, for me, and for our
+twenty riflemen; harder, perhaps, for our Indians, who could hear the
+yells of their most deadly enemies, and who knew that they were within
+striking distance at last.
+
+As we marched in single file, I leading with my Indians, I said aloud,
+in the Iroquois tongue:
+
+"If in this Battle of the Chemung the Mountain Snake be left writhing,
+yet unless we crush his head at Catharines-town, the serpent will live
+to strike again. For though a hundred arrows stick in the Western
+Serpent's body, his poison lies in his fangs; his fangs are rooted in
+his head; and the head still hisses at God and man from the shaggy
+depths of Catharines-town. It is for us of the elect to slay him
+there-- for us few and chosen ones honoured by this mandate from our
+commander. Why, then, should the thunder of Proctor's guns arouse in
+us envy for those who join in battle? Let the iron guns do their part;
+let the men of New York, of Jersey, of Virginia, of New Hampshire, of
+Pennsylvania, do the great part allotted them. Let us in our hearts
+pray God to speed them. For if we do our part as worthily, only then
+shall their labour be not in vain. Their true title to glory is in our
+keeping, locked inevitably with our own. If we fail, they have failed.
+Judge, therefore, O Sagamore, judge, you Yellow Moth, and you
+Oneidas-- Grey-Feather, with your war-chief's feather and your
+Sachem's ensign, Tahoontowhee, chieftain to be-- judge, all of you,
+where the real glory lies-- whether behind us in the rifle smoke or
+before us in the red glare of Amochol's accursed altar!"
+
+They had been listening to every word as I walked beside them. The
+Mohican made answer first:
+
+"It was hard for us to leave the Chemung, O Loskiel, my brother-- with
+the dog-yelps at the Sinako and Mowawaks insulting our ears. But it
+was wiser. I, a Sagamore, say it!"
+
+"It is God's will," said the Yellow Moth. But his eyes were still red
+with his fierce excitement; and the distant cannonade steadily
+continued as we marched.
+
+"I am Roya-neh!" said the Grey-Feather. "What wisdom counsels I
+understand, He who would wear the scaly girdle must first know where
+the fangs lie buried.... But to hear the Antouhonoran scalp-yelp, and
+to turn one's back, is very hard, O my friend, Loskiel."
+
+The Night-Hawk controlled his youthful features, forcing a merry smile
+as my eye fell on him.
+
+"Koue!" he exclaimed softly. "I have made promise to my thirsty
+hatchet, O Loskiel! Else it might have leaped from its sheath and
+bitten some one."
+
+"A good hatchet and a good dog bite only under orders," I said. "My
+younger brother's hatchet has acquired glory; now it is acquiring
+wisdom."
+
+Boyd came up along the line, his deerskin shirt open to the
+breastbone, the green fringe blowing in the hill wind.
+
+Far below us in the river valley sounded the uproar of the battle-- a
+dull, confused, and distant thunder-- for now we could no longer hear
+the musketry and rifle fire, only the boom-booming of the guns and the
+endless roar of echoes.
+
+Here on a high hill's spur, with a brisk wind blowing in our faces,
+the heavy rumble of forest warfare became deadened; and we looked out
+over the naked ridge of rock, across the forests of this broken
+country, into a sea of green which stretched from horizon to horizon,
+accented only by the silver glimmer of lakes and the low mountain
+peaks east, west, and south of us.
+
+Below us lay a creek, its glittering thread visible here and there.
+The Great Warrior trail crossed it somewhere in that ravine.
+
+I drew the Mohican aside.
+
+"Sagamore," said I, "now is your time come. Now we depend on you. If
+it lay with us, not one white man here, not one Indian, could take us
+straight to Catharines-town; for the Great Warrior trail runs not
+thither. Are you, then, confident that you know the way?"
+
+"I know the way, Loskiel."
+
+"Is there then a trail that leads from the Great Warrior trail below?"
+
+"There are many."
+
+"And you know the right one?"
+
+"I have spoken, brother."
+
+"I am satisfied. But we must clearly mark the trail for our surveyors
+and for the army."
+
+"We will mark it," he said meaningly, "so that no Seneca dog can ever
+mistake which way we passed."
+
+I did not exactly understand him, but I nodded to Boyd and he gave the
+signal, and we began the descent through the warm twilight of an open
+forest that sloped to the creek a thousand feet below us.
+
+Down and down we went, partly sliding, and plowing up the moss and
+leaves knee-deep, careless how we left our trail, as there was none to
+follow, save the debris of a flying army or the flanking scouts of a
+victorious one.
+
+Below us the foaming rifles of the creek showed white in the woodland
+gloom, and presently we heard its windy voice amid rocks and fallen
+trees, soughing all alone through leafy solitudes; and its cool, damp
+breath mounted to us as we descended.
+
+The Indians dropped prone to slake their thirst; the riflemen squatted
+and used their cups of bark or leather, pouring the sweet, icy water
+over their cropped heads and wrists.
+
+"Off packs!" said Boyd quietly, and drew a bit of bread and meat from
+his beaded wallet. And so the Mohican and I left them all eating by
+the stream, and crossed to the western bank. Here the Sagamore pointed
+to the opposite slope; I gave a low whistle, and Boyd looked across
+the water at me.
+
+Then I drew my hatchet and notched a tree so that he saw what I did;
+he nodded comprehension; we went on, notching trees at intervals, and
+so ascended the slope ahead until we arrived at the top.
+
+Here the forest lay flat beyond, and the Great Warrior trail ran
+through it-- a narrow path fifteen inches wide, perhaps, and worn
+nearly a foot deep, and patted as hard as rock by the light feet of
+generations-- men and wild beasts-- which had traversed it for
+centuries.
+
+North and south the deeply graven war trail ran straight through the
+wilderness. The Mohican bent low above it, scrutinizing it in the
+subdued light, then stepped lightly into it, and I behind him.
+
+For a little way we followed it, seeing other and narrower trails
+branching from it right and left, running I knew not whither-- the
+narrow, delicate lanes made by game-- deer and bear, fox and hare--
+all spreading out into the dusk of the unknown forest.
+
+Presently we came to a trail which seemed wet, as though swampy land
+were not far away; and into this the Mohican turned, slashing a great
+scar on the nearest tree as he entered it.
+
+There was a mossy stream ahead, and the banks of it were dark and
+soft. Here we rested high and dry on the huge roots of an oak, and ate
+our midday meal.
+
+In a little while the remainder of our party came gliding through the
+trees, Boyd ahead.
+
+"Is this the Catharines-town trail?" he asked. "By God, they'll never
+get their artillery through here. Mark it, all the same," he added
+indifferently, and seated himself beside me, dropping his rifle across
+his knees with a gesture of weariness.
+
+"Are you tired?" I asked.
+
+He looked up at me with a wan smile.
+
+"Weary of myself, Loskiel, and of a life lived too lightly and now
+nigh ended."
+
+"Nigh ended!" I repeated.
+
+"I go not back again," he said, sombrely.
+
+I glanced sharply at him, where he sat brooding over his rifle; and
+there was in his face an expression such as I had never before seen
+there-- something unnatural that altered him altogether, as death
+alters the features, leaving them strangely unfamiliar. And even as I
+looked, the expression passed. He lifted his eyes to mine, and even
+smiled.
+
+"There is," he said, "a viewless farm which companions even the
+swiftest on the last long trail, a phantom-pilot which leads only
+toward that Shadowed Valley of endless rest. In my ears all day--
+close, close to my ear, I have heard the whisper of this unseen
+ghost-- everywhere I have heard it, amid the din of the artillery, on
+windy hill-tops, in the long silence of the forest, through the noise
+of torrents in lost ravines, by flowing rivers sparkling in the sun--
+everywhere my pilot whispers to me. I can not escape,, Loskiel;
+whatever trail I take, that is the trail; whichever way I turn, that
+is the way. And ever my phantom pilots me-- forward or back, aside or
+around-- it is all one to him and to me, for at the end of every trail
+I take, nearer and nearer draw I to mine end."
+
+I had heard of premonitions before a battle; had known officers and
+soldiers to utter them-- brave men, too, yet obsessed by the
+conviction of their approaching death. Sometimes they die; sometimes
+escape, and the premonition ends forever. But until the moment of
+peril is passed, or they fall as they had foretold, no argument will
+move them, no assurance cheer them. But our corps had been in many
+battles during the last three years, and I had never before seen Boyd
+this way.
+
+He said, brooding on his rifle:
+
+"The one true passion of my life has been Lana Helmer. It began
+ignobly; it continues through all this pain and bewilderment, a pure,
+clean current, running to the deep, still sea of dreams.... There it
+is lost; I follow it no further.... And were I here today as upright
+and as stainless as are you, Loskiel, still I could follow it no
+further than that sea of dreams. Nor would my viewless pilot lead me
+elsewhere than to the destiny of silence that awaits me; and none the
+less would I hear his whisper in my ears.... My race is run."
+
+I said: "Is it vain to appeal to your reason when your heart is
+heavy?"
+
+"Had I another chance," he said, "I would lighten the load of sin I
+bear-- the heavy load I bear with me into the unknown."
+
+"God gives us all our chance."
+
+"He gave me my last chance at Tioga Fort. And I cursed it in my heart
+and put it aside."
+
+"One day you will return,"
+
+"Never again, Loskiel.... I am no coward. I dare face the wrath to
+come. It is not that; but-- I am sorry I did not spare when I might
+have been more generous.... The little thing was ignorant.... Doves
+mate like that.... And somewhere-- somehow-- I shall be required to
+answer for it all-- shall be condemned to make amends.... I wonder how
+the dead make their amends?... For me to burn in hell avails her
+nothing.... If she thought it she would weep uncomforted.... No; there
+is a justice. But how it operates I shall never understand until it
+summons me to hear my sentence."
+
+"You will return and do what a contrite heart bids you to do," I said.
+
+"If that might be," he said gently, "that would I do-- for the child's
+sake and for hers."
+
+"Good God!" I said under my breath.
+
+"Did you not surmise it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, then, now you know how deeply I am damned.... God gave me a
+last chance. There was a chaplain at the fort."
+
+"Kirkland."
+
+"Yes, Gann went forward.... But-- God's grace was not within me....
+And to see her angered me-- that and the blinding hurt I had when Lana
+left-- heart-broken, wretched, still loving me, but consigning me to
+my duty.... So I denied her at the bridge.... And from that moment has
+my unseen pilot walked beside me, and I know he leads me swiftly to my
+end."
+
+I raised my troubled eyes and glanced toward my Indians. They had
+stripped great squares of bark from half a dozen trees, and were
+busily painting upon them, in red and blue, insulting signs and
+symbols-- a dead tree-cat, scalped, and full of arrows; a snake
+severed into sections; a Seneca tied to a post and a broken wampum
+belt at his feet. And on every tree they had also painted the symbol
+of their own clans and nation-- pointed stones and the stars of the
+Pleiades; a witch-wolf and an enchanted bear; a yellow moth alighted
+on a white cross; a night-hawk, perfectly recognizable, soaring high
+above a sun, setting, bisecting the line of the horizon.
+
+Every scalp taken was duly enumerated and painted there, together with
+every captured weapon. Such a gallery of art in the wilderness I had
+never before beheld.
+
+Boyd's riflemen sat around, cross-legged on the moss, watching the
+Indians at their labour-- all except Murphy and Elerson, who, true to
+their habits, had each selected a tree to decorate, and were hard at
+work with their hunting knives on the bark.
+
+On Murphy's tree I read: "To hell with Walter Butler."
+
+Elerson, who no doubt had scraped the outlines of this legend with his
+knife-point before Murphy carved it, had produced another message on
+his own tree, not a whit more complimentary: "Dam Butler, Brant,
+Hiakotoo, and McDonald for bloody rogues and murtherin' rascals all!"
+
+They were ever like this, these two great overgrown boys, already
+celebrated so terribly in song and legend. And the rank and file of
+Morgan's resembled them-- brave to a fault, innately lawless, of scant
+education save what the forest had taught them, headstrong, quick to
+anger, quick to forgive, violent in every emotion through the entire
+gamut from love to hatred.
+
+Boyd rose, glanced quietly at me, then made his signal. And in a few
+moments the riflemen were on the trail again, spotting it wherever a
+new path led away, trotting steadily forward in single file, my
+Indians ranging wide on either flank.
+
+Late in the afternoon we came to the height of land, where the little
+water-courses all ran north; and here we halted, dropped packs, and
+the men sat down while the Sagamore and I once more went forward to
+the headwaters of a stream, beside which the narrow and swampy trail
+ran due north. And here the nature of the country changed entirely,
+for beyond it was all one vast swamp, as still and dark as death.
+
+A little way along this blackish stream Mayaro halted, and for a while
+stood motionless, his powerful arms folded, gazing straight in front
+of him with the half-closed eyes of a dreaming wolf.
+
+Never had I looked upon so sinister a country or a swamp so vast and
+desolate. It seemed more black than dusky, and the gloom lay not in
+the obscure light of thick-set spruce, pine, and hemlock, but in the
+shaggy, monstrous, and forbidding growth which appeared to be soiled
+with some common dye, water, earth, tree-trunks, foliage-- all wore
+the same inky livery, and seemed wrought of rusty iron, so still the
+huge trees stood, with every melancholy branch a-droop.
+
+Sign of life there was none; the current of the narrow stream ran like
+smooth oil; nor was its motion visible where it wound between soft,
+black banks of depthless swamp through immemorial shadows.
+
+The Mohican's voice came to me, low in the silence, sounding dull and
+remote; nor did his dreaming eyes move in their vague intensity.
+
+"This is the land of Amochol," he said. "Here, through these viewless
+shades, his sway begins, as this stream begins, whose source is
+darkness and whose current moves slowly like thick blood. Here is the
+haunt of witch and sorcerer-- of the hag Catrine, of the Wyoming
+Fiend, of Amochol-- of Amochol! Here run the Andastes, hunting through
+the dusk like wolves and foxes-- running, smelling, listening, ever
+hunting. Here slink the Cat-People under a moon which is hidden
+forever by this matted forest roof. This is the Dark Empire, O
+Loskiel! Behold!"
+
+A slight shudder chilled me, but I said calmly enough:
+
+"Where lies Catharines-town, O Sagamore?"
+
+"This thick, dark stream runs through it."
+
+"Through Catharines-town?"
+
+"Aye."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Along the vast chain of inland seas-- first into the Lake of the
+Senecas, then to that of the Cayugas, fed by Owasco, by Onondaga, by
+Oneida, until it is called Oswego, and flows north by the great fort
+into the sea Ontario."
+
+"And where lies Catharines-town?"
+
+"Nine miles beyond us, northward."
+
+"And the trail?"
+
+"None, Loskiel, save for the maze of game trails where long leaps are
+made from tussock to swale, from root to rotting log across black
+pools of mud, and quivering quicksands whose depths are white as snow
+under the skin of mud, set with tarnished rainbow bubbles."
+
+"But-- those who come after us, Mayaro! The army-- the wagons, horses,
+artillery, cattle-- nay, the men themselves! How are they to pass?"
+
+He pointed east, then west: "For six miles, flanking this swamp, run
+ridges of high hills northward. By these must the army march to
+Catharines-town, the pioneers opening a road for the artillery. This
+you shall make plain to Boyd presently, for he must march that way,
+marking plain the trail north on the eastern ridge of hills, then
+west. Thus shall Boyd move to cut off Amochol from the lake, while you
+and I and the Oneidas and the Yellow Moth must thread this swamp and
+comb it clean to head him from the rivers south of us."
+
+"Is there a path along the ridge?"
+
+"No path, Loskiel. So Boyd shall march by compass, slowly, seeking
+over the level way, and open woods, with the artillery and wagons ever
+in his thoughts. Six miles due north shall he march; then, where the
+hills end a swamp begins-- thick, miry, set with maple, brier, and
+tamarack. But through this he must blaze his trail, and the pioneers
+who are to follow shall lay their wagon-path across felled trees,
+northward still, across the forests that border the flats of
+Catharines-town; and then, still northward for a mile; and so swing
+west, severing the lake trail. Thus we shall trap Amochol between us."
+
+Slowly we walked back together to the height of land, where our little
+party lay looking down at the dark country below. I sat down beside
+Boyd, cleared from the soil the leaves for a little space, drew my
+knife, and with its point traced out the map.
+
+He listened in silence, while I went over all that the Sagamore had
+taught me; and around us squatted our Indians, motionless, fiercely
+intent upon my every word and gesture.
+
+"Today is Sunday," I said. "By this hour, Butler's people should be in
+headlong flight. Our army will not follow them at once, because it
+will take all day tomorrow for our men to destroy the corn along the
+Chemung. But on Tuesday our army will surely march, laying waste the
+Indian towns and fields. Therefore, giving them ample time for this,
+they should arrive at this spot on Wednesday."
+
+"I have so calculated," said Boyd, listlessly.
+
+"But Wednesday is the first day of September; and if we are to strike
+Amochol at all it must be done during the Onon-hou-aroria. And that
+ends on Tuesday. Therefore, must you move within the hour. And by
+tomorrow evening you shall have blazed your hill-trail and shall be
+lying with your men beside the stream and across the lake trail, north
+of Catharines-town."
+
+He nodded.
+
+"Tonight," said I, "I and my Indians lie here on this height of land,
+watching the swamp below, that nothing creep out of it. On Monday
+morning, we move through it, straight northward, following the stream,
+and by Monday night we scout to Catharines-town."
+
+"That is clear," he said, lifting his handsome head from his hands.
+"And the signal should come from me. Listen, Loskiel; you shall expect
+that signal between midnight of Monday and dawn."
+
+He rose, and I stood up; and for a moment we looked each other
+steadily in the eye. Then he smiled faintly, shaking his head:
+
+"Not this time, Loskiel," he said in a low voice. "My spectral pilot
+gives no sign. Death lies beyond the fires of Catharines-town. I know,
+Loskiel-- I know."
+
+"I also," said I in a low voice, taking his outstretched hand, "for
+you shall live to make material amends as you have made them
+spiritually. Only the act of deep contrition lies between you and
+God's swift pardon. It were a sin to doubt it."
+
+But he slowly shook his head, the faint smile lingering still. Then
+his grip closed suddenly on my hand, released it, and he swung on his
+heel.
+
+"Attention!" he said crisply. "Sling packs! Fall in! Tr-r-rail arms!
+March!"
+
+  CHAPTER XVIII
+
+ THE RITE OF THE HIDDEN CHILDREN
+
+My Indians and I stood watching our riflemen as they swung to the east
+and trotted out of sight among the trees. Then, at a curt nod from me,
+the Indians lengthened their line, extending it westward along the
+height of land, and so spreading out that they entirely commanded the
+only outlet to the swamp below, by encircling both the trail and the
+headwaters of the evil-looking little stream.
+
+Through the unbroken thatch of matted foliage overhead no faintest ray
+of sunlight filtered-- not even where the stream coiled its slimy way
+among the tamaracks and spruces. But south of us, along the ascending
+trail by which we had come, the westering sun glowed red across a
+ledge of rock, from which the hill fell sheer away, plunging into
+profound green depths, where unseen waters flowed southward to the
+Susquehanna.
+
+Around the massive elbow of this ledge, our back-trail, ascending into
+view, curved under shouldering boulders. Blueberry scrub, already
+turning gold and crimson, grew sparsely on the crag-- cover enough for
+any watcher of the trail. And thither I crept and stretched me out
+flat in the bushes, where I could see the trail we had lately
+traversed, and look along it far to our rear as clearly as one sees
+through a dim and pillared corridor.
+
+West of me, a purplish ridge ran north, the sun shining low through a
+pine-clad notch. Southwest of me, little blue peaks pricked the
+primrose sky; south-east lay endless forests, their green already
+veiled in an ashy blue bloom. Far down, under me, wound the narrow
+back-trail through the gulf below.
+
+Presently, beside me came creeping the lithe Mohican, and lay down
+prone, smooth and golden, and shining like a sleek panther in the sun.
+
+"Is all well guarded, brother?" I whispered.
+
+"Not even a wood-mouse could creep from the swamp unless our warriors
+see it."
+
+"And when dark comes?"
+
+"Our ears must be our eyes, Loskiel.... But neither the Cat-People nor
+the Andastes will venture out of that morass, save only by the trail.
+And we shall have two watchers on it through the night."
+
+"There is no other outlet?"
+
+"None, except by the ridge Boyd travels. He blocks that pass with his
+twenty men."
+
+"Then we should have their egress blocked, except only in the north?"
+
+"Yes-- unless they learn of this by magic," muttered the Mohican.
+
+It was utterly useless for me to decry or ridicule his superstitions;
+and there was but one way to combat them.
+
+"If witchcraft there truly be in Catharines-town," said I, "it is bad
+magic, and therefore weak; and can avail nothing against true
+priesthood. What could the degraded acolytes of this Red Priest do
+against a consecrated Sagamore of the Lenape-- against an ensign of
+the Enchanted Clan? Else why do you wear your crest-- or the great
+Ghost Bear there rearing upon your breast?"
+
+"It is true," he murmured uneasily. "What spell can Amochol lay upon
+us? What magic can he make to escape us? For the trail from
+Catharines-town is stopped by a Siwanois Sagamore and a Mohican
+warrior! It is closed by an Oneida Sachem who stand watching. When the
+Ghost Bear and the Were-Wolf watch, then the whole forest watches with
+them-- Loup, Blue Wolf, and Bear. Where, then, can the Forest Cats
+slink out? Where can the filthy Carcajou escape?"
+
+"Mayaro has spoken. It is a holy barrier that locks and bolts this
+door of secret evils. Under Tharon shall this trap remain inviolate
+till the last sorcerer be taken in it, the last demon be dead!"
+
+*"Yo-ya-ne-re!" he said, deliberately employing the Canienga
+expression with a fierce scorn that, for a moment, made his noble
+features terrible. Then he spat as though to wash from his mouth the
+taste of the hated language that had soiled it, even when used in
+contempt and derision; and he said in the suave tongue of his own
+people: "Pray to your white God, Holder of Heaven, Master of Life and
+Death, that into our hands be delivered these scoffers who mock at Him
+and at Tharon-- these Cat-murderers of little children, these
+pollutors of the Three Fires. And in the morning I shall arise and
+look into the rising sun, and ask the same of the far god who made of
+me a Mohican, a Siwanois, and a Sagamore. Let these things be done,
+brother, ere our hatchets redden in the flames of Catharines-town.
+For," he added, naively, "it is well that God should know what we are
+about, lest He misunderstand our purpose."
+
+[* "It is well!"]
+
+I assented gravely.
+
+The sun hung level, now, sending its blinding light straight into our
+eyes; and for precaution's sake we edged away under the blue shadows
+of the shrubbery, in case some far prowler note the light spots where
+our faces showed against the wall of green behind us.
+
+"How far from Catharines-town," I asked, "lies the Vale Yndaia, of
+which our little Lois has spoken?"
+
+"It is the next valley to the westward. A pass runs through and a
+little brook. Pleasant it is, Loskiel, with grassy glades and half a
+hundred little springs which we call 'Eyes of the Inland Seas.'"
+
+"You know," I said, "that in this valley all the hopes of Lois de
+Contrecoeur are centred."
+
+"I know, Loskiel," he answered gravely.
+
+"Do you believe her mother lives there still?"
+
+"How shall I know, brother? If it were with these depraved and
+perverted Senecas as it is with other nations, the mother of a Hidden
+Child had lived there unmolested. Her lodge would have remained her
+sanctuary; her person had been respected; her Hidden One undisturbed
+down to this very hour. But see how the accursed Senecas have dealt
+with her, so that to save her child from Amochol she sent it far
+beyond the borders of the Long House itself! What shame upon the
+Iroquois that the Senecas have defiled their purest law! May Leshi
+seize them all! So how, then, shall I know whether this white captive
+mother lives in the Vale Yndaia still-- or if she lives at all? Or if
+they have not made of her a priestess-- a sorceress-- perhaps The
+Dreaming Prophetess of the Onon-hou-aroria!-- by reason of her throat
+being white!"
+
+"What!" I exclaimed, startled.
+
+"Did not the Erie boast a Prophetess to confound us all?"
+
+"I did not comprehend."
+
+"Did he not squat, squalling at us from his cave, deriding every
+secret plan we entertained, and boasting that the Senecas had now a
+prophetess who could reveal to them everything their white enemies
+were plotting-- because her own throat was white?"
+
+I looked at him in silent horror.
+
+"Hai-ee!" he said grimly. "If she still lives at all it is because she
+dreams for Amochol. And this, Loskiel, has long remained my opinion.
+Else they had slain her on their altars long ago-- strangled her as
+soon as ever she sent her child beyond their reach. For what she did
+broke sanctuary. According to the code of the Long House, the child
+belonged to the nation in which the mother was a captive. And by the
+mother's act this child was dedicated to a stainless marriage with
+some other child who also had been hidden. But the Red Sorcerer has
+perverted this ancient law; and when he would have taken the child to
+sacrifice it, then did the mother break the law of sanctuary and send
+her child away, knowing, perhaps, that the punishment for this is
+death.
+
+"So you ask me whether or not she still lives. And I say to you that I
+do not know; only I judge by the boasting of that vile Erie Cat that
+she has bought her life of them by dreaming for their Red Priest. And
+if she has done this thing, and has deceived them until this day, then
+it is very plain to me that they believe her to be a witch. For it is
+true, Loskiel, that those who dream wield heavy influences among all
+Indians-- and among the Iroquois in particular. Yet, with all this, I
+doubt not that, if she truly be alive, her life hangs by a single
+thread, ever menaced by the bloody knife of Amochol."
+
+"I can not understand," said I, "why she sent out no appeal during her
+long captivity. Before this war broke, had her messengers to Lois gone
+to Sir William Johnson, or to Guy Johnson, with word that the Senecas
+held in their country a white woman captive, she had been released
+within a fortnight, I warrant you!"
+
+"Loskiel, had that appeal gone out, and a belt been sent to
+Catharines-town from Johnstown or Guy Park, the Senecas would have
+killed her instantly and endured the consequences-- even though
+Amherst himself was thundering on their Western Gate."
+
+"Are you sure, Mayaro?"
+
+"Certain, Loskiel. She could not have lived a single moment after the
+Senecas learned that she had sent out word of her captivity. That is
+their law, which even Amochol could not break."
+
+"It was a mercy that our little Lois appealed not to His Excellency,
+so that the word ran through Canada by flag to Haldimand."
+
+"She might have done this," said the Sagamore quietly. "She asked me
+at Poundridge how this might be accomplished. But when I made it clear
+to her that it meant her mother's death, she said no more about it."
+
+"But pushed on blindly by herself," I exclaimed, "braving the sombre
+Northland forests with her little ragged feet-- half naked, hungry,
+friendless, and alone, facing each terror calmly, possessed only of
+her single purpose! O Sagamore of a warrior clan that makes a history
+of brave deeds done, can you read in the records of your most ancient
+wampum a braver history than this?"
+
+He said: "Let what this maid has done be written in the archives of
+the white men, where are gathered the records of brave but unwise
+deeds. So shall those who come after you know how to praise and where
+to pity our little rosy pigeon of the forest. No rash young warrior of
+my own people, bound to the stake itself can boast of greater bravery
+than this. And you, blood-brother to a Siwanois, shall witness what I
+say."
+
+After a silence I said: "They must have passed Wyoming already. At
+this hour our little Lois may be secure under the guns of Easton. Do
+you not think so, Mayaro?"
+
+As he made no answer, I glanced around at him and found him staring
+fixedly at the trail below us.
+
+"What do you see on our back-trail?" I whispered.
+
+"A man, Loskiel-- if it be not a deer."
+
+A moment and I also saw something moving far below us among the trees.
+As yet it was only a mere spot in the dim light of the trail, slowly
+ascending the height of land. Nearer, nearer it came, until at length
+we could see that it was a man. But no rifle slanted across his
+shoulder.
+
+"He must be one of our own people," I said, puzzled. "Somebody sends
+us a messenger. Is he white or Indian?"
+
+"White," said the Sagamore briefly, his eyes still riveted on the
+approaching figure, which now I could see was clothed in deerskin
+shirt and leggins.
+
+"He carries neither pack nor rifle; only a knife and pouch. He is a
+wood-running fool!" I said, disgusted. "Why do they send us such a
+forest-running battman, when they have Oneidas at headquarters, and
+Coureurs-de-Bois to spare who understand their business?"
+
+"I make nothing of him," murmured the Mohican, his eyes fairly
+glittering with excitement and perplexity.
+
+"Is he, perhaps, some fugitive from Butler's rangers?" I whispered,
+utterly at a loss to account for such a silly spectacle. "The pitiful
+idiot! Did you ever gaze upon the like, Mayaro-- unless he be some
+French mission priest. Otherwise, yonder walks the greatest of God's
+fools!"
+
+"Then he is easily taken," muttered Mayaro. "Fix thy flint, Loskiel,
+and prime. Here is a business I do not understand."
+
+Once the man halted and looked up at our ledge of rock, where the last
+sun rays still lingered, then lightly continued the ascent. And I,
+turning to the Mohican for some possible explanation of this amazing
+sight, ere we crept out to closer ambush, found Mayaro staring through
+the trees with a glassy and singular expression which changed swiftly
+to astonishment, and then to utter blankness.
+
+"Etho!" he exclaimed, bluntly, springing to his feet behind the nearer
+trees, regardless whether or not the stranger saw him. "Go forward
+now, Loskiel. This is a fool's business-- and badly begun. Now, let a
+white man's wisdom finish it."
+
+I, too, had risen in surprise, stepping backward also, in order that
+the trees might screen me. And at the same moment the stranger rounded
+the jutting shoulder of our crag, and came suddenly face to face with
+me in midtrail.
+
+"Euan!"
+
+So astounded was I that my rifle fell clattering from my nerveless
+hand as she sprang forward and caught my shoulders with both her
+hands. And I saw her grey eyes filling and her lips quivering with
+words she could not utter.
+
+"Lois!" I repeated, as though stupefied. "Lois!"
+
+"Oh, Euan! Euan! I thought I would never, never come up with you!" she
+whimpered. "I left the batteau where it touched at Towanda Creek, and
+hid in the woods and dressed me in the Oneida dress you gave me. Then,
+by the first batt-man who passed, I sent a message to Lana saying that
+I was going back to-- to join you. Are you displeased?"
+
+Her trembling hands clasped my shoulders tighter, and her face drew
+closer, so that her sweet, excited breath fell on my cheek.
+
+"Listen!" she stammered. "I desire to tell you everything! I will tell
+you all, Euan! I ran back along the trail, meeting the boat-guard,
+batt-men, and the sick horses all along the way to Tioga, where they
+took me over on a raft of logs.... I paid them three hard shillings.
+Then Colonel Shreve heard of what I had been about, and sent a soldier
+after me, but I avoided the fort, Euan, and went boldly up through the
+deserted camps until I came to where the army had crossed. Some
+teamsters mending transport wagons gave me bread and meat enough to
+fill my pouch; and one of them, a kindly giant, took me over the
+Chemung dry shod, I clinging to his broad back like a very cat-- and
+all o' them a-laughing fit to burst!... Are you displeased, dear
+lad?... Then, just at night, I came up with the rear-guard, where they
+were searching for strayed cattle; and I stowed myself away in a
+broken-down wagon, full of powder-- quietly, like a mouse, no one
+dreaming that I was not the slender youth I looked. So none molested
+me where I lay amid the powder casks and sacking."
+
+She smiled wistfully, and stood caressing my arms with her eager
+little hands, as though to calm the wrath to come.
+
+"I heard your regiment's pretty conch-horn in the morning," she said,
+"and slipped out of my wagon and edged forward amid all that swearing,
+sweating confusion, noticed not at all by anybody, save when a
+red-head Jersey sergeant bawled at me to man a rope and haul at the
+mired cannon with the others. But I was deaf just then, Euan, and got
+free o' them with nothing worse than a sound cursing from the
+sergeant; and away across the creek I legged it, where I hid in the
+bush until the firing began and the horrid shouting on the ridge. Then
+it was that, badly scared, I crept through the Indian grass like a
+hunted hare, and saw Lieutenant Boyd there, and his men, halted across
+the trail. And very soon our cannon began, and then it was that I saw
+you and your Indians filing out to the right. So I followed you. Oh,
+Euan, are you very angry? Because, dear lad, I have had so lonely a
+trail, what with keeping clear of your party so that you might not
+catch me and send me back, and what with losing you after you had left
+the main, trodden trail! Save for the marks you left on trees, I had
+been utterly lost-- and must have perished, no doubt----" She looked
+at me with melting eyes.
+
+"Think on that, Euan, ere you grow too angry and are cruel with me."
+
+"Cruel? Lois, you have been more heartless than I ever----"
+
+"There! I knew it! Your anger is about to burst its dreadful
+bounds----"
+
+"Child! What is there to say or do now? What is there left for me,
+save to offer you what scant protection I may-- good God!-- and take
+you forward with us in the morning? This is a cruel, unmerited
+perplexity you have caused me, Lois. What unkind inspiration prompted
+you to do this rash, mad, foolish thing! How could you so conduct?
+What can you hope to accomplish in all this wicked and bloody business
+that now confronts us? How can I do my duty-- how perform it to the
+letter-- with you beside me-- with my very heart chilling to water at
+thought of your peril-- --"
+
+"Hush, dearest lad," she whispered, tightening her fingers on my
+sleeve. "All in the world I care for lies in this place where we now
+stand-- or near it. Have I not told you that I must go to
+Catharines-town? How could I remain behind when every tie I have in
+all the world was tugging at my heart to draw me hither? You ask me
+what I can do-- what I can hope to accomplish. God knows-- but my
+mother and my lover are here-- and how could I stay away if there was
+a humble chance that I might do some little thing to aid her-- to aid
+you, Euan?
+
+"Why do you scowl at me? Try me, Test me. I am tough as an Indian
+youth, strong and straight and supple-- and as tireless. See-- I am
+not wearied with the trail! I am not afraid. I can do what you do. If
+you fast I can fast, too; when you go thirsty I can endure it also;
+and you may not even hope to out-travel me, Euan, for I am innured to
+sleeplessness, to hunger, to fatigue, by two years' vagabondage--
+hardened of limb and firm of body, self-taught in self-denial, in
+quiet endurance, in stealth, and patience. Oh, Euan! Make me your
+comrade, as you would take a younger brother, to school him in the
+hardy ways of life you know so well! I will be no burden to you; I
+will serve you humbly and faithfully; prove docile, obedient, and
+grateful to the end. And if the end comes in the guise of death--
+Euan-- Euan! Why may I not share that also with you? For the world's
+joy dies when you die, and my body might as well die with it!"
+
+So eager and earnest her argument, so tightly she clung to my arms, so
+pleading and sweet her ardent face, upturned, with the tears scarcely
+dry under her lashes, that I found nought to answer her, and could
+only look into her eyes-- deep, deep into those grey-blue wells of
+truth-- troubled to silence by her present plight and mine.
+
+I could not take her back now, and also keep my tryst with Boyd at
+Catharines-town. I could not leave her here by this trail, even
+guarded-- had I the guards to spare-- for soon in our wake would come
+thundering the maddened debris of the Chemung battle, pell-mell,
+headlong through the forests, desperate, with terror leading and fury
+lashing at their heels.
+
+I laid my hands heavily upon her firm, young shoulders, and strove to
+think the while I studied her; but the enchantment of her confused my
+mind, and I saw only the crisp and clustering curls, and clear, young
+eyes looting into mine, and the lips scarce parted, hanging breathless
+on my words.
+
+"O boy-girl comrade!" I said in a low, unsteady voice. "Little
+boy-girl born to do endless mischief in this wide and wind-swept
+forest world of men! What am I to say to you, who have your will of
+everyone beneath the sun? Who am I to halt the Starry Dancers, or bar
+your wayward trail when Tharon himself has hidden you, and the Little
+People carry to you 'winged moccasins for flying feet as light and
+swift!' For truly I begin to think it has been long since woven in the
+silvery and eternal wampum-- belt after belt, string twisted around
+string-- that you shall go to Catharines-town unscathed.
+
+"Where she was born returns the rosy Forest Pigeon to her native tree
+for mating. White-Throat-- White-Throat-- your course is flown! For
+this is Amochol's frontier; and by tomorrow night we enter
+Catharines-town-- thou and I, little Lois-- two Hidden Children-- one
+hidden by the Western Gate, one by the Eastern Gate's dark threshold,
+'hidden in the husks.'...How shall it be with us now, 0 little rosy
+spirit of the home-wood? My Indians will ask. What shall I say to them
+concerning you?"
+
+"All laws break of themselves before us twain, who, having been
+hidden, are prepared for mating-- where we will-- and when.... And if
+the long flight be truly ended-- and the home forests guard our
+secret-- and if Tharon be God also-- and His stars the altar lights--
+and his river-mist my veil----" She faltered, and her clear gaze
+became confused. "Why should your Indians question you?" she asked.
+
+The last ray of the sun reddened the forest, lingered, faded, and went
+out in ashes. I said:
+
+"God and Tharon are one. Priest and Sagamore, clergyman and Sachem,
+minister, ensign, Roya-neh-- red men or white, all are consecrated
+before the Master of Life. If in these Indians' eyes you are still to
+remain sacred, then must you promise yourself to me, little Lois. And
+let the Sagamore perform the rite at once."
+
+"Betroth myself, Euan?"
+
+"Yes, under the Rite of the Hidden Children. Will you do this-- so
+that my Indians can lay your hands upon their hearts? Else they may
+turn from you now-- perhaps prove hostile."
+
+"I had desired to have you take me from my mother's arms."
+
+"And so I will, in marriage-- if she be alive to give you."
+
+"Then-- what is this we do?"
+
+"It is our White Bridal."
+
+"Summon the Sagamore," she said faintly.
+
+And so it was done there, I prompting her with her responses, and the
+mysterious rite witnessed by the priesthood of two nations-- Sachem
+and Sagamore, Iroquois and Algonquin, with the tall lodge-poles of the
+pines confirming it, and the pale ghost-flowers on the moss fulfilling
+it, and the stars coming one by one to nail our lodge door with silver
+nails, and the night winds, enchanted, chanting the Karenna of the
+Uncut Corn.
+
+And now the final and most sacred symbol of betrothal was at hand; and
+the Oneida Sachem drew away, and the Yellow Moth and the Night Hawk
+stood aside, with heads quietly averted, leaving the Sagamore alone
+before us. For only a Sagamore of the Enchanted Clan might stand as
+witness to the mystery, where now the awful, viewless form of Tharon
+was supposed to stand, white winged and plumed, and robed like the
+Eight Thunders in snowy white.
+
+"Listen, Loskiel," he said, "my younger brother, blood-brother to a
+Siwanois. Listen, also, O Rosy-Throated Pigeon of the Woods-- home
+from the unseen flight to mate at last!"
+
+He plucked four ghost-flowers, and cast the pale blossoms one by one
+to the four great winds.
+
+"O untainted winds that blow the Indian corn," he said, "winds of the
+wilderness, winds of the sounding skies-- clean and pure as ye are,
+not one of you has blown the green and silken blankets loose from
+these, our Hidden Children, nestling unseen, untouched, unstained,
+close cradled in a green embrace. Nor wind, nor rain, nor hail, not
+the fierce heat of many summers have revealed these Hidden Ones,
+stripped them of the folded verdure that conceals them still, each
+wrapped within the green leaves of the corn.
+
+"Continue to listen, winds of the sounding skies. Let the Eight
+White-plumed Thunders listen. An ensign of the Magic Clan bears
+witness under Tharon. A Sagamore veils his face. Let Tharon hear these
+children when they speak. Let Tamenund listen!"
+
+Standing straight and tall there in the starlight, he drew his blanket
+across his eyes. The Oneidas and the Stockbridge did the same.
+
+Slowly, timidly, in compliance with my whispered bidding, the slender,
+trembling hands of Lois unlaced my throat-points to the shoulder,
+baring my chest. Then she said aloud, but in a voice scarce audible, I
+prompting every word:
+
+"It is true! Under the folded leaves a Hidden Youth is sleeping. I bid
+him sleep awhile. I promise to disturb no leaf. This is the White
+Bridal. I close what I have scarcely parted. I bid him sleep this
+night. When-- when----"
+
+I whispered, prompting her, and she found her voice, continuing:
+
+"When at his lodge door they shall come softly and lay shadows to bar
+it, a moon to seal it, and many stars to nail it fast, then, in the
+dark within, I shall hear the painted quiver rattle as he puts it off;
+and the antlers fall clashing to the ground. Only the green and tender
+cloak of innocence shall endure-- a little while-- then, falling,
+enfold us twain embraced where only one had slept before. A promised
+bride has spoken."
+
+She bowed her head, took my hands in hers, laid them lightly on her
+heart; then straightened up, with a long-drawn, quivering breath, and
+stood, eyes closed, as I unlaced her throat-points, parting the
+fawn-skin cape till the soft thrums lay on her snowy shoulders.
+
+"It is true," I whispered. "Under the folded leaves a Hidden Maid lies
+sleeping. I bid her sleep awhile; I bid her dream in innocence through
+this White Bridal night. I promise to disturb no leaf that sheathes
+her. I now refold and close again what I have scarcely touched and
+opened. I bid her sleep.
+
+"When on my lodge door they nail the Oneida stars, and seal my door
+with the moon of Tharon, and lay long shadows there to bar it; then I,
+within the darkness there, shall hear the tender rustle of her
+clinging husks, parting to cradle two where one alone had slept since
+she was born,"
+
+Gently I drew the points, closing the cape around her slender throat,
+knotted the laces, smoothed out the thrums, took her small hands and
+laid them on my breast.
+
+One by one the stately Indians came to make their homage, bending
+their war-crests proudly and placing her hands upon their painted
+breasts. Then they went away in silence, each to his proper post, no
+doubt. Yet, to be certain, I desired to make my rounds, and bade Lois
+await me there. But I had not proceeded three paces when lo! Of a
+sudden she was at my side, laughing her soft defiance at me in the
+darkness.
+
+"No orders do I take save what I give myself," she said. "Which is no
+mutiny, Euan, and no insubordination either, seeing that you and I are
+one-- or are like to be when the brigade chaplain passes-- if the
+Tories meddle not with his honest scalp! Come! Honest Euan, shall we
+make our rounds together? Or must I go alone?"
+
+And she linked her arm in mine and put one foot forward, looking up at
+me with all the light mischief of the very boy she seemed in her soft
+rifle-dress and leggins, and the bright hair crisply curling 'round
+her moleskin cap.
+
+"Have a care of the trees, then, little minx," I said.
+
+"Pooh! Can you not see in the dark?"
+
+"Can you?"
+
+"Surely. When you and I went to the Spring Waiontha, I needed not your
+lantern light to guide me."
+
+"I see not well by night," I admitted.
+
+"You do see well by night-- through my two eyes! Are we not one? How
+often must I repeat it that you and I are one! One! One! O Loskiel--
+stealer of hearts, if you could only know how often on my knees I am
+before you-- how truly I adore, how humbly, scarcely daring to believe
+my heart that tells me such a tale of magic and enchantment-- after
+these barren, loveless years. Mark! Yonder stands the Grey-Feather! Is
+that his post?"
+
+"Wonder-eyes, I see him not! Wait-- aye, you are right. And he is at
+his post. Pass to the left, little minx."
+
+And so we made the rounds, finding every Indian except the Sagamore at
+his post. He lay asleep. And after we had returned to our southern
+ledge of rock, and I had spread my blanket for her and laid my pack to
+pillow her, I picked up my rifle and rose from my knees.
+
+"And you?" she asked.
+
+"I stand guard across the trail below."
+
+"Why? When all except the Siwanois are watching! The Night Hawk is
+there. Stretch yourself here beside me and try to sleep. Your watch
+will come too soon to suit you, or me either, for that matter."
+
+"Do you mean to go on guard with me?"
+
+"Do you dream that I shall let you stand your guard alone, young sir?"
+
+"This is folly, Lois-- "
+
+"Euan, you vex me. Lie beside me. Here is sufficient blanket room and
+pillow. And if you do not sleep presently and let me sleep too, our
+wits will all be sadly addled when they summon us."
+
+So I stretched myself out beside her and looked up, open eyed, into
+darkness.
+
+"Sleep well," she whispered, smothering a little laugh.
+
+"Sleep safely, Lois."
+
+"That is why I desired you-- so I might sleep safely, knowing myself
+safe when you are, too. And you are safe only when you are at my side.
+Do you follow my philosophy?"
+
+I said presently: "This is our White Bridal, Lois. The ceremony
+completes itself by dawn."
+
+"Save that the Sagamore is but a heathen priest, truly I feel myself
+already wedded to you, so solemn was our pretty rite.... Dare you kiss
+me, Euan? You never have. Christians betrothed may kiss each other
+once, I think."
+
+"Not such as we-- if the rite means anything to us."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Not on the White Bridal night-- if we regard this rite as sacred."
+
+"I feel its sacredness. That is why I thought no sin if you should
+kiss me-- on such a night."
+
+She sat up in her blanket; and I sat up, too.
+
+*"Tekasenthos," she said.
+
+[*"I am weeping."]
+
+*"Chetena, you are laughing!"
+
+[* "Mouse."]
+
+*"Neah. Tekasenthos!" she insisted.
+
+[* "No, I am weeping."]
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You do not love me," she remarked, kicking off one ankle moccasin.
+
+* "Kenonwea-sasita-ha-wiyo, chetenaha!" I said, laughing.
+
+[* "I love your beautiful foot, little mouse."]
+
+* "Akasita? Katontats. But is that all of me you love?"
+
+[* "My foot? I consent."]
+
+"The other one also."
+
+"The other one also."
+
+*"Neah-wenh-a, O Loskiel. I shall presently slay you and go to sleep."
+
+[* "I thank you."]
+
+There fell a silence, then:
+
+"Do you not know in your heart how it is with me?" I said unsteadily.
+
+She lay down, facing me.
+
+"In my heart I know, beloved above all men! But I am like a child with
+you-- desiring to please, ardent, confused, unaccustomed. And
+everything you say delights me-- and all you do-- or refrain from
+doing-- thrills me with content.... It was so true and sweet of you to
+leave my lips untouched. I adore you for it-- but then I had adored
+you if you had kissed me, also. Always, your decision pleasures me."
+
+After a long while I spoke cautiously. She lay asleep, her lips scarce
+parted; but in her sleep she seemed to hear my voice, for one arm
+stole out in the dark and closed around my neck.
+
+And so we lay until the dark forms gliding from the forest summoned me
+to mount my guard, and Lois awoke with a little sigh, sat upright,
+then sprang to her feet to face the coming dawn alone with me.
+
+  CHAPTER XIX
+
+ AMOCHOL
+
+By daybreak we had salted our parched corn, soaked, and eaten it, and
+my Indians were already freshening their paint. The Sagamore, stripped
+for battle, barring clout and sporran, stood tall and powerfully
+magnificent in his white and vermilion hue of war. On his broad chest
+the scarlet Ghost Bear reared; on his crest the scarlet feathers
+slanted low. The Yellow Moth was unbelievably hideous in the poisonous
+hue of a toad-stool; his crest and all his skin glistened yellow,
+shining like the sulphurous belly of a snake. But the Grey-Feather was
+ghastly; his bony features were painted like a skull, spine, ribs, and
+limb-bones traced out heavily in yellowish white so that he seemed a
+stalking and articulated skeleton as he moved in the dim twilight of
+the trees. And I could see that he was very proud of the effect.
+
+As for the young and ambitious Night Hawk, he had simply made one
+murderous symbol of himself-- a single and terrific emblem of his
+entire body, for he was painted black from head to foot like an
+Iroquois executioner, and his skin glistened as the plumage of a sleek
+crow shines in the sunlight of a field. Every scalp-lock was neatly
+braided and oiled; every crown shaven; every knife and war-axe and
+rifle-barrel glimmered silver bright under the industrious rubbing;
+flints had been renewed; with finest priming powder pans reprimed; and
+now all my Indians squatted amiably together in perfect accord, very
+loquacious in their guarded voices, Iroquois, Mohican, and
+Stockbridge, foregathering as though there had never been a feud in
+all the world.
+
+Through the early dusk of morning, Lois had stolen away, having
+discovered a spring pool to bathe in, the creek water being dark and
+bitter; and I had freshened myself, too, when she returned, her soft
+cheeks abloom, and the crisp curls still wet with spray.
+
+When we had eaten, the Sagamore rose and moved noiselessly down the
+height of land to the trail level, where our path entered the ghostly
+gloom of the evergreens. I followed; Lois followed me, springing
+lightly from tussock to rotting log, from root to bunchy swale, swift,
+silent footed, dainty as a lithe and graceful panther crossing a
+morass dry-footed.
+
+Behind her trotted in order the Yellow Moth, Tohoontowhee, and lastly
+the Grey-Feather-- "Like Father Death herding us all to destruction,"
+whispered Lois in my ear, as I halted while the Sagamore surveyed the
+trail ahead with cautious eyes.
+
+As we moved forward once more, I glanced around at Lois and thought I
+never had seen such fresh and splendid vigor in any woman. Nor had I
+ever seen her in such a bright and happy spirit, as though the
+nearness to the long sought goal was changing her every moment, under
+my very eyes, into a lovelier and more radiant being than ever had
+trod this war-scarred world.
+
+While we had eaten our hasty morning meal, I had told her what I had
+learned of the Vale Yndaia; and this had excited her more than
+anything I ever saw to happen to her, so that her grey eyes sparkled
+with brilliant azure lights, and the soft colour flew from throat to
+brow, waxing and waning with every quick-drawn breath.
+
+She wore also, and for the first time, the "moccasins for flying
+feet"-- and ere she put them on she showed them to me with eager and
+tender pride, kissing each soft and beaded shoe before she drew it
+over her slender foot. Around her throat, lying against her heart,
+nestled her father's faded picture. And as we sped I could hear her
+murmuring to herself:
+
+"Jean Coeur! Jean Coeur! Enfin! Me voici en chemin!"
+
+North, always north we journeyed, moving swiftly on a level runway,
+or, at fault, checked until the Sagamore found the path, sometimes
+picking our dangerous ways over the glistening bog, from swale to log,
+now leaping for some solid root or bunch of weed, now swinging across
+quicksands, hanging to tested branches by our hands.
+
+Duller grew the light as the foliage overhead became denser, until we
+could scarce see the warning glimmer of the bog. Closer, taller, more
+unkempt grew the hemlocks on very hand. In the ghostly twilight we
+could not distinguish their separate spectral trunks, so close they
+grew together. And it seemed like two solid walls through which wound
+a dusky corridor of mud and bitter tasting water.
+
+Then, far ahead a level gleam caught my eye. Nearer it grew and
+brighter; and presently out of the grewsome darkness of the swamp we
+stepped into a lovely oval intervale of green ferns and grasses, set
+with oak trees, and a clear, sweet thread of water dashing through it,
+and spraying the tall ferns along its banks so that they quivered and
+glistened with the sparkling drops. And here we saw a little bird
+flitting-- the first we had seen that day.
+
+At the western end of the oval glade a path ran straight away as far
+as we could see, seeming to pierce the western wall of the hills. The
+little brook followed at.
+
+As Lois knelt to drink, the Sagamore whispered to me:
+
+"This is the pass to the Vale Yndaia! You shall not tell her yet-- not
+till we have dealt with Amochol."
+
+"Not till we have dealt with Amochol," I repeated, staring at the
+narrow opening which crossed this black and desolate region like a
+streak of sunshine across burnt land.
+
+Tahoontowhee examined the trail; nothing had passed since the last
+rain, save deer and fox.
+
+So I went over to where Lois was bathing her flushed face in the tiny
+stream, and lay down to drink beside her.
+
+"The water is cold and sweet," she said, "not like that bitter water
+in the swamp." She held her cupped hands for me to drink from. And I
+kissed the fragrant cup.
+
+As we rose and I shouldered my rifle, the Grey-Feather began to sing
+in a low, musical, chanting voice; and all the Indians turned merry
+faces toward Lois and me as they nodded time to the refrain:
+
+  "Continue to listen and hear the truth,
+  Maiden Hidden and Hidden Youth.
+  The song of those who are 'more than men'!
+  *Thi-ya-en-sa-y-e-ken!"
+
+  [* "They will (live to) see it again!"]
+
+"It is the chant of the Stone Throwers-- the Little People!" said
+Mayaro, laughing. "Ye two are fit to hear it."
+
+"They are singing the Song of the Hidden Children," I whispered to
+Lois. "Is it not strangely pretty?"
+
+"It is wild music, but sweet," she murmured, "-- the music of the
+Little People-- che-kah-a-hen-wah."
+
+"Can you catch the words?"
+
+"Aye, but do not understand them every one."
+
+"Some day I will make them into an English song for you. Listen! 'The
+Voices' are beginning! Listen attentively to the Chant of
+*Ta-neh-u-weh-too!"
+
+[* "Hidden in the Husks."]
+
+The Night Hawk was singing now, as he walked through the sunlit glade,
+hip-deep in scented ferns and jewel-weed. Two brilliant humming-birds
+whirled around him as he strode.
+
+  A VOICE
+
+  "Who shall find my Hidden Maid
+  Where the tasselled corn is growing?
+  Let them seek her in Kandaia,
+  Let them seek her in Oswaya,
+  Where the giant pines are growing,
+  Let them seek and be afraid!
+  Where the Adriutha flowing
+  Splashes through the forest glade,
+  Where the Kennyetto flowing
+  Thunders through the hemlock shade,
+  Let them seek and be afraid,
+  From Oswaya To Yndaia,
+  All the way to Carenay!"
+
+  ANOTHER VOICE
+
+  "Who shall find my Hidden Son
+  Where the tasselled corn is growing?
+  Let them seek my Hidden One
+  From the Silver Horicon
+  North along the Saguenay,
+  Where the Huron cocks are crowing,
+  Where the Huron maids are mowing
+  Hay along the Saguenay;
+  Where the Mohawk maids are hoeing
+  Corn along the Carenay,
+  Let them seek my Hidden Son,
+  West across the inland seas,
+  South to where the cypress trees
+  Quench the flaming scarlet flora
+  Of the painted Esaurora,
+  Drenched in rivers to their knees!
+  *Honowehto! Like Thendara!
+  [* "They have vanished."]
+  Let them hunt to Danascara
+  Back along the Saguenay,
+  On the trail to Carenay,
+  Through the Silver Horicon
+  Till the night and day are one!
+  Where the Adriutha flowing
+  Sings below Oswaya glowing.
+  Where the sunset of Kandaia
+  Paints the meadows of Yndaia,
+  Let them seek my Hidden Son
+  'Till the sun and moon are one!"
+
+  *TE-KI-E-HO-KEN
+  [* "Two Voices (together)."]
+
+  *"Nai Shehawa! She lies sleeping,
+  [* "Behold thy children!"]
+  Where the green leaves closely fold her!
+  He shall wake first and behold her
+  Who is given to his keeping;
+  He shall strip her of her leaves
+  Where she sleeps amid the sheaves,
+  Snowy white, without a stain,
+  Nothing marred of wind or rain.
+  So from slumber she shall waken,
+  And behold the green robe shaken
+  From his shoulders to her own!
+  *Ye-ji-se-way-ad-kerone!"
+  [*"So ye two are laid together."]
+
+The pretty song of the Hidden Children softened to a murmur and died
+out as our trail entered the swamp once more, north of the oval glade.
+And into its sombre twilight we passed out of the brief gleam of
+sunshine. Once more the dark and bitter water coiled its tortuous
+channel through the slime; huge, gray evergreens, shaggy and
+forbidding, towered above, closing in closer and closer on every side,
+crowding us into an ever-narrowing trail.
+
+But this trail, since we had left the sunny glade, had become harder
+under foot, and far more easy to travel; and we made fast time along
+it, so that early in the afternoon we suddenly came out into that vast
+belt of firm ground and rocky, set with tremendous oaks and pines and
+hemlocks, on the northern edge of which lies Catharines-town, on both
+banks of the stream.
+
+And here the stream rushed out through this country as though
+frightened, running with a mournful sound into the northern forest;
+and the pines were never still, sighing and moaning high above us, so
+that the never ceasing plaint of wind and water filled the place.
+
+And here, on a low, bushy ridge, we lay all day, seeing in the forest
+not one living thing, nor any movement in that dim solitude, save
+where the grey and wraith-like water tossed a flat crest against some
+fallen tree, or its dull and sullen surface gleamed like lead athwart
+the valley far ahead.
+
+My Indians squatted, or sprawled prone along the ridge; Lois lay flat
+on her stomach beside me, her chin resting on her clasped hands. We
+talked of many things that afternoon-- of life as we had found it, and
+what it promised us-- of death, if we must find it here in these woods
+before I made her mine. And of how long was the spirit's trail to
+God-- if truly it were but a swift, upward flight like to the rushing
+of an arrow already flashing out of sight ere the twanging buzz of the
+bow-string died on the air. Or if it were perhaps a long, slow,
+painful journey through thick night, toilsome, blindly groping, wings
+adroop trailing against bruised heels. Or if we two must pass by hell,
+within sight and hearing of the thunderous darkness, and feel the
+rushing wind of the pit hot on one's face.
+
+Sometimes, like a very child, she prattled of happiness, which she had
+never experienced, but meant to savour, wedded or not-- talked to me
+there of all she had never known and would now know and realize within
+her mother's tender arms.
+
+"And sometimes, Euan, dreaming of her I scarce see how, within my
+heart, I can find room for you also. Yet, I know well there is room
+for both of you, and that one without the other would leave my
+happiness but half complete.... I wonder if I resemble her? Will she
+know me-- and I her? How shall we meet, Euan-- after more than a score
+of years? She will see my moccasins, and cry out! She will see my face
+and know me, calling me by name! Oh, happiness! Oh, miracle! Will the
+night never come!"
+
+"Dear maid and tender! You should not build your hopes too high, so
+that they crush you utterly if they must fall to earth again."
+
+"I know. Amochol may have slain her. We will learn all when you take
+Amochol-- when God delivers him into your hands this night.... How
+will you do it, Euan?"
+
+"Take him, you mean?"
+
+"Aye."
+
+"We lie south, just outside the fire-ring's edge. Boyd watches them
+from the north. His signal to us begins the business. We leap straight
+for the altar and take Amochol at its very foot, the while Boyd's
+heavy rifles deal death on every side, keeping the others busy while
+we are securing Amochol. Then we all start south for the army, God
+willing, and meet our own people on the high-ridge east of us."
+
+"But Yndaia!"
+
+"That we will scour the instant we have Amochol."
+
+"You promise?"
+
+"Dearest, I promise solemnly. Yet-- I think-- if your mother lives--
+she may be here in Catharines-town tonight. This is the Dream Feast,
+Lois. I and my Indians believe that she has bought her life of Amochol
+by dreaming for them. And if this be true, and she has indeed become
+their Prophetess and Interpreter of Dreams, then this night she will
+be surely here to read their dreams for them,"
+
+"Will we see her before you begin the attack?"
+
+"Little Lois, how can I tell you such things? We are to creep up close
+to the central fire-- as close as we dare."
+
+"Will there be crowds of people there?"
+
+"Many people."
+
+"Warriors?"
+
+"Not many. They are with Hiokatoo and Brant. There will be hunters and
+Sachems, and the Cat-People, and the Andastes pack, and many women.
+The False Faces will not be there, nor the Wyoming Witch, nor the Toad
+Woman, because all these are now with Hiokatoo and Walter Butler. For
+which I thank God and am very grateful."
+
+"How shall I know her in this fire-lit throng?" murmured Lois, staring
+ahead of her where the evening dusk had now veiled the nearer trees
+with purple.
+
+Before I could reply, the Sagamore rose from his place on my left, and
+we all sprang lightly to our feet, looked to our priming, covered our
+pans, and trailed arms.
+
+"Now!" he muttered, passing in front of me and taking the lead; and we
+all filed after him through the open forest, moving rapidly, almost on
+a run, for half a mile, then swung sharply out to the right, where the
+trees grew slimmer and thinner, and plunged into a thicket of hazel
+and osier.
+
+"I smell smoke," whispered Lois, keeping close to me.
+
+I nodded. Presently we halted and stood in silence, minute after
+minute, while the purple dusk deepened swiftly around us, and overhead
+a few stars came out palely, as though frightened.
+
+Then Mayaro dropped noiselessly to the ground and began to crawl
+forward over the velvet moss; and we followed his example, feeling our
+way with our right hands to avoid dry branches and rocks. From time to
+time we paused to regain our strength and breathe; and the last time
+we did so the aromatic smell of birch-smoke blew strong in our
+nostrils, and there came to our ears a subdued murmur like the
+stirring of pine-tops in a steady breeze. But there were no pines
+around us now, only osier, hazel, and grey-birch, and the deep moss
+under foot.
+
+"A house!" whispered the Yellow Moth, pointing.
+
+There it stood, dark and shadowy against the north. Another loomed
+dimly beyond it; a haystack rose to the left.
+
+We were in Catharines-town.
+
+And now, as we crawled forward, we could see open country on our left,
+and many unlighted houses and fields of corn, dim and level against
+the encircling forest. The murmur on our right had become a sustained
+and distinct sound, now swelling in the volume of many voices, now
+subsiding, then waxing to a dull tumult. And against the borders of
+the woods, like a shining crimson curtain shifting, we could see the
+red reflection of a fire sweeping across the solid foliage.
+
+With infinite precautions, we moved through the thicket toward it, the
+glare growing yellower and more brilliant as we advanced. And now we
+remained motionless and very still.
+
+Massed against the flare of light were crowded many people in a vast,
+uneven circle ringing a great central fire, except at the southern
+end. And here, where the ring was open so that we could see the huge
+fire itself, stood a great, stone slab on end, between two round
+mounds of earth. It was the altar of Amochol, and we knew it
+instantly, where it stood between the ancient mounds raised by the
+Alligewi.
+
+The drums had not yet begun while we were still creeping up, but they
+began now, muttering like summer thunder, the painted drummers
+marching into the circle and around it twice before they took their
+places to the left of the altar, squatting there and ceaselessly
+beating their hollow sounding drums. Then, in file, the eight Sachems
+of the dishonoured Senecas filed into the fiery circle, chanting and
+timing their slow steps to the mournful measure of their chant. All
+wore the Sachem's crest painted white; their bodies were most
+barbarously striped with black and white, and their blankets were pure
+white, crossed by a single blood-red band.
+
+What they chanted I could not make out, but that it was some blasphemy
+which silently enraged my Indians was plain enough; and I laid a
+quieting hand on the Sagamore's shaking arm, cautioning him; and he
+touched the Oneidas and the Stockbridge, one by one, in warning.
+
+Opposite us, the ruddy firelight played over the massed savages,
+women, children, and old men mostly, gleaming on glistening eyes,
+sparkling on wampum and metal ornaments. To the right and left of us a
+few knives and hatchets caught the firelight, and many multi-coloured
+plumes and blankets glowed in its shifting brilliancy.
+
+The eight Sachems stood, tall and motionless, behind the altar; the
+drumming never ceased, and from around the massed circle rose a low
+sing-song chant, keeping time to the hollow rhythm of the drums:
+
+  *"Onenh are oya
+    Egh-des-ho-ti-ya-do-re-don
+  Nene ronenh
+    'Ken-ki-ne ne-nya-wenne!"
+
+  [* "Now again they decided and said: 'This shall be done!'"]
+
+Above this rumbling undertone sounded the distant howling of dogs in
+Catharines-town; and presently the great forest owls woke up, yelping
+like goblins across the misty intervale. Strangely enough, the dulled
+pandemonium, joined in by dog and owl and drum and chanting savages,
+made but a single wild and melancholy monotone seeming to suit the
+time and place as though it were the voice of this fierce wilderness
+itself.
+
+Now into the circle, one by one, came those who had dreamed and must
+be answered-- not as in the old-time and merry Feast of Dreams, where
+the rites were harmless and the mirth and jollity innocent, if rough--
+for Amochol had perverted the ancient and innocent ceremony, making of
+a fourteen-day feast a sinister rite which ended in a single night.
+
+I understood this more clearly now, as I lay watching the proceedings,
+for I had seen this feast in company with Guy Johnson on the
+Kennyetto, and found in it nothing offensive and no revolting license
+or blasphemy, though others may say this is not true.
+
+Yet, how can a rite which begins with three days religious services,
+including confession of sins on wampum, be otherwise than decent? As
+for the rest of the feast, the horse-play, skylarking, dancing,
+guessing contests-- the little children's dance on the tenth day, the
+Dance for Four on the eleventh, the Dance for the Eight Thunders on
+the thirteenth-- the noisy, violent, but innocent romping of the False
+Faces-- all this I had seen in the East, and found no evil in it and
+no debauchery.
+
+But what was now already going on I had never seen at any Iroquois
+feast or rite, and what Amochol had made of this festival I dared not
+conjecture as I gazed at the Dreamers now advancing into the circle
+with an abandon and an effrontery scarcely decent.
+
+Six young girls came first, naked except for a breadth of fawn-skin
+falling from waist to instep. Their bodies were painted vermilion from
+brow to ankle; they carried in their hands red harvest apples, which
+they tossed one to another as they move lightly across the open space
+in a slow, springy, yet not ungraceful dance.
+
+Behind them came a slim maid, wearing only a black fox-head, and the
+soft pelt dangling from her belt, and the tail behind. She was painted
+a ruddy yellow everywhere except a broad line of white in front, like
+a fox's belly; and, like a fox, too, her feet and hands were painted
+black.
+
+Following her came eight girls plumed in spotless white and clothed
+only in white feathers-- aping the Thunders, doubtless; but even to
+me, a white man and a Christian, it was a sinister and evil sight to
+see this mockery as they danced forward, arms entwined, and the snowy
+plumes floating out in the firelight, disclosing the white painted
+bodies which the firelight tinted with rose and amber lights.
+
+Then came dancing other girls, dressed in most offensive mockery of
+the harmless and ancient rite-- first the Fire Keeper, crowned with
+oak leaves instead of wild cherry, and wearing a sewed garment made of
+oak twigs and tufted leaves, from which the acorns hung. Followed two
+girls in cloaks of shimmering pine-needles, and wearing wooden masks,
+dragging after them the carcasses of two white dogs, to "Clothe the
+Moon Witch!" they cried to the burly Erie acolyte who followed them,
+his heavy knife shining in his hand.
+
+Then the Erie disemboweled the strangled dogs, cast their entrails
+into the fire, and kicked aside the carcasses, shouting:
+
+"Atensi stands naked upon the Moon! What shall she wear to cover her?"
+
+"The soft hide of a Hidden Child!" answered a Sachem from behind the
+altar. "We have so dreamed it."
+
+"It shall be done!" cried the Erie; and, lifting himself on tip toe,
+he threw back his brutal head and gave the Panther Cry so that his
+voice rang hideously through the night.
+
+Instantly into the circle came scurrying the Andastes, some wearing
+the heads of bulls, some of wolves, foxes, bears, their bodies painted
+horribly in raw reds and yellows, and running about like a pack of
+loosened hounds. All their movements were wild and aimless, and like
+animals, and they seemed to smell their way as they ran about hither
+and thither, sniffing, listening, but seldom looking long or directly
+at any one thing.
+
+I was sorely afraid that some among them might come roving and
+muzzling into the bushes where we lay; but they did not, gradually
+gathering into an uneasy pack and settling on their haunches near the
+dancing girls, who played with them, and tormented them with branches
+of hazel, samphire and green osier.
+
+Suddenly a young girl, jewelled with multi-coloured diamonds of paint,
+and jingling all over with little bells, came dancing into the ring,
+beating a tiny, painted drum as she advanced. She wore only a narrow
+sporran of blue-birds' feathers to her knees, glistening blue
+moccasins of the same plumage, and a feathered head dress of the
+scarlet fire-bird. Behind her filed the Cat-People, Amochol's hideous
+acolytes, each wearing the Nez Perce ridge of porcupine-like hair, the
+lynx-skin cloak and necklace of claws; and all howling to the measure
+of the little painted drum. I could feel Mayaro beside me, quivering
+with eagerness and fury; but the time was not yet, and he knew it, as
+did his enraged comrades.
+
+For behind the Eries, moving slowly, came a slender shape, shrouded in
+white. Her head was bent in the shadow of her cowl; her white wool
+vestments trailed behind her. Both hands were clasped together under
+her loose robe. On her cowl was a wreath of nightshade, with its dull
+purple fruit and blossoms clustering around her shadowed brow.
+
+"Who is that?" whispered Lois, beginning to tremble, "God knows," I
+said. "Wait!"
+
+The shrouded shape moved straight to the great stone altar and stood
+there a moment facing it; then, veiling her face with her robe, she
+turned, mounted the left hand mound, and seated herself, head bowed.
+
+Toward her, advancing all alone, was now approaching a figure,
+painted, clothed, and plumed in scarlet. Everything was scarlet about
+him, his moccasins, his naked skin, the fantastic cloak and blanket,
+girdle, knife-hilt, axe shaft, and the rattling quiver on his back--
+nay, the very arrows in it were set with scarlet feathers, and the
+looped bowstring was whipped with crimson sinew.
+
+The Andastes came moaning, cringing, fawning, and leaping about his
+knees; he noticed them not at all; the Cat-People, seated in a
+semicircle, looked up humbly as he passed; he ignored them.
+
+Slowly he moved to the altar and laid first his hand upon it, then
+unslung his bow and quiver and laid them there. A great silence fell
+upon the throng. And we knew we were looking at last upon the Scarlet
+Priest.
+
+Yes, this was Amochol, the Red Sachem, the vile, blaspheming,
+murderous, and degraded chief who had made of a pure religion a
+horror, and of a whole people a nation of unspeakable assassins.
+
+As the firelight flashed full in his face, I saw that his features
+were not painted; that they were delicate and regular, and that the
+skin was pale, betraying his French ancestry.
+
+And good God! What a brood of demons had that madman, Frontenac, begot
+to turn loose upon this Western World! For there appeared to be a
+Montour in every bit of devil's work we ever heard of-- and it seemed
+as though there was no end to their number. One, praise God, had been
+slain before Wyoming-- which some said enraged the Witch, his mother,
+to the fearsome deeds she did there-- and one was this man's sister,
+Lyn Montour-- a sleek, lithe girl of the forest, beautiful and
+depraved. But the Toad Woman, mother of Amochol, was absent, and of
+all the Montours only this strange priest had remained at
+Catharines-town. And him we were now about to take or slay.
+
+"Amochol!" whispered the Sagamore in my ear.
+
+"I know," I said. "It is strange. He is not like a monster, after
+all."
+
+"He is beautiful," whispered Lois.
+
+I stared at the pale, calm face over which the firelight played. The
+features seemed almost perfect, scarcely cruel, yet there was in the
+eyes a haunting beauty that was almost terrible when they became
+fixed.
+
+To his scarlet moccasins crept the Andastes, one by one, and squatted
+there in silence.
+
+Then a single warrior entered the ring. He was clad in the ancient
+arrow-proof armour of the Iroquois, woven of sinew and wood. His face
+was painted jet black, and he wore black plumes. He mounted the
+eastern mound, strung his bow, set an arrow to the string, and seated
+himself.
+
+The red acolytes came forward, and the slim Prophetess bent her head
+till the long, dark hair uncoiled and fell down, clouding her to the
+waist in shadow.
+
+"Hereckenes!" cried Amochol in a clear voice; and at the sound of
+their ancient name the Cat-People began a miauling chant.
+
+"Antauhonorans!" cried Amochol.
+
+Every Seneca took up the chant, and the drums timed it softly and
+steadily.
+
+"Prophetess!" said Amochol in a ringing voice. "I have dreamed that
+the Moon Witch and her grandson Iuskeha shall be clothed. With what,
+then, shall they be clothed, O Woman of the Night Sky? Explain to my
+people this dream that I have dreamed."
+
+The slim, white-cowled figure answered slowly, with bowed head,
+brooding motionless in the shadow of her hair:
+
+"Two dogs lie yonder for Atensi and her grandson. Let them be painted
+with the sun and moon. So shall the dream of Amochol come true!"
+
+"Sorceress!" he retorted fiercely. "Shall I not offer to Atensi and
+Iuskeha two Hidden Children, that white robes may be made of their
+unblemished skins to clothe the Sun and Moon?"
+
+"Into the eternal wampum it is woven that the soft, white skins shall
+clothe their bodies till the husks fall from the silken corn."
+
+"And then, Witch of the East? Shall I not offer them when the husks
+are stripped?"
+
+"I see no further than you dream, O Amochol!"
+
+He stretched out his arm toward her, menacingly:
+
+"Yet they shall both be strangled here upon this stone!" he said.
+"Look, Witch! Can you not see them lying there together? I have
+dreamed it."
+
+She silently pointed at the two dead dogs.
+
+"Look again!" he cried in a loud voice. "What do you see?"
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"Answer!" he said sharply.
+
+"I have looked. And I see only the eternal wampum lying at my feet--
+lacking a single belt."
+
+With a furious gesture the Red Priest turned and stared at the dancing
+girls who raised their bare arms, crying:
+
+"We have dreamed, O Amochol! Let your Sorceress explain our dreams to
+us!"
+
+And one after another, as their turns came, they leaped up from the
+ground and sprang forward. The first, a tawny, slender, mocking thing,
+flung wide her arms.
+
+"Look, Sorceress! I dreamed of a felled sapling and a wolverine! What
+means my dream?"
+
+And the slim, white figure, head bowed in her dark hair, answered
+quietly:
+
+"O dancer of the Na-usin, who wears okwencha at the Onon-hou-aroria,
+yet is no Seneca, the felled sapling is thou thyself. Heed lest the
+wolverine shall scent a human touch upon thy breast!" And she pointed
+at the Andastes.
+
+A dead silence followed, then the girl, horror struck, shrank back,
+her hands covering her face.
+
+Another sprang forward and cried:
+
+"Sorceress! I dreamed of falling water and a red cloud at sunset
+hanging like a plume!"
+
+"Water falls, daughter of Mountain Snakes. Every drop you saw was a
+dead man falling. And the red cloud was red by reason of blood; and
+the plume was the crest of a war chief."
+
+"What chief!" said Amochol, turning his deadly eyes on her.
+
+"A Gate-Keeper of the West."
+
+The shuddering silence was broken by the eager voice of another girl,
+bounding from her place-- a flash of azure and jewelled paint.
+
+"And I, O Sorceress! I dreamed of night, and a love song under the
+million stars. And of a great stag standing in the water."
+
+"Had the stag no antlers, little daughter?"
+
+"None, for it was spring time."
+
+"You dreamed of night. It shall be night for a long while-- for ages
+and ages, ere the stag's wide antlers crown his head again. For the
+antlers were lying upon a new made grave. And the million stars were
+the lights of camp-fires. And the love-song was the Karenna. And the
+water you beheld was the river culled Chemung."
+
+The girl seemed stunned, standing there plucking at her fingers,
+scarlet lips parted, and her startled eyes fixed upon the white-draped
+sibyl.
+
+"Executioner! Bend your bow!" cried Amochol, with a terrible stare at
+the Sorceress.
+
+The man in woven armour raised his bow, bent it, drawing the arrow to
+the tip. At the same instant the Prophetess rose to her feet, flung
+back her cowl, and looked Amochol steadily in the eyes from the shadow
+of her hair.
+
+So, for a full minute in utter silence, they stared at each other;
+then Amochol said between his teeth:
+
+"Have a care that you read truly what my people dream!"
+
+"Shall I lie?" she asked in even tones. And, quivering with impotent
+rage and superstition, the Red Priest found no word to answer.
+
+"O Amochol," she said, "let the armoured executioner loose his shaft.
+It is poisoned. Never since the Cat-People were overthrown has a
+poisoned arrow been used within the Long House. Never since the
+Atotarho covered his face from Hiawatha-- never since the snakes were
+combed from his hair-- has a Priest of the Long House dared to doubt
+the Prophetess of the Seneca nation. Doubt-- and die!"
+
+Amochol's face was like pale brown marble; twice he half turned toward
+the executioner, but gave no signal. Finally, he laid his hand flat on
+the altar; the executioner unbent his bow and the arrow drooped from
+the painted haft and dangled there, its hammered iron war-head
+glinting in the firelight.
+
+Then the Prophetess turned and stood looking out over the throng
+through the thick, aromatic smoke from the birch-fire, and presently
+her clear voice rang through the deathly silence:
+
+"O People of the Evening Sky! Far on the Chemung lie many dead men. I
+see them lying there in green coats and in red, in feathers and in
+paint! Through forests, through mountains, through darkness, have my
+eyes beheld this thing. There is a new thunder in the hills, and red
+fire flowers high in the pines, and a hail falls, driving earthward in
+iron drops that slay all living things.
+
+"New clouds hang low along the river; and they are not of the water
+mist that comes at twilight and ascends with the sun. Nor is this new
+thunder in the hills the voice of the Eight White Plumed Ones; nor is
+the boiling of the waters the stirring of the Serpent Bride.
+
+"Red run the riffles, yet the sun is high; and those who would cross
+at the ford have laid them down to dam the waters with their bodies.
+
+"And I see fires along the flats; I see flames everywhere, towns on
+fire, corn burning, hay kindling to ashes under a white ocean of
+smoke-- the Three Sisters scorched, trampled, and defiled!" She lifted
+one arm; her spellbound audience never stirred.
+
+"Listen!" she cried, "I hear the crashing of many feet in northward
+flight! I hear horses galloping, and the rattle of swords. Many who
+run are stumbling, falling, lying still and crushed and wet with
+blood. I, Sorceress of the Senecas, see and hear these things; and as
+I see and hear, so must I speak my warning to you all!"
+
+She whirled on Amochol, flinging back her hair. Her skin was as white
+us my own!
+
+With a stifled cry Lois sprang to her feet; but I caught her and held
+her fast.
+
+"Good God!" I whispered to the Sagamore. "Where is Boyd?"
+
+The executioner had risen, and was bending his bow; the Sorceress
+turned deathly pale but her blue eyes flashed, never swerving from the
+cruel stare of Amochol.
+
+"Where is Boyd?" I whispered helplessly. "They mean to murder her!"
+
+"Kill that executioner!" panted Lois, struggling in my arms. "In God's
+name, slay him where he stands!"
+
+"It means our death," said the Sagamore.
+
+The Night Hawk came crouching close to my shoulder. He had unslung and
+strung his little painted bow of an adolescent, and was fitting the
+nock of a slim arrow to the string.
+
+He looked up at me; I nodded; and as the executioner clapped his heels
+together, straightened himself, and drew the arrow to his ear, we
+heard a low twang! And saw the black hand of the Seneca pinned to his
+own bow by the Night Hawk's shaft.
+
+So noiselessly was it done that the fascinated throng could not at
+first understand what had happened to the executioner, who sprang into
+the air, screamed, and stood clawing and plucking at the arrow while
+his bow hung dripping with blood, yet nailed to his shrinking palm.
+
+Amochol, frozen to a scarlet statue, stared at the contortions of the
+executioner for a moment, then, livid, wheeled on the Prophetess,
+shaking from head to foot.
+
+"Is this your accursed magic?" he shouted. "Is this your witchcraft,
+Sorceress of Biskoonah? Is it thus you strike when threatened? Then
+you shall burn! Take her, Andastes!"
+
+But the Andastes, astounded and terrified, only cowered together in a
+swaying pack.
+
+Restraining Lois with all my strength, I said to the Mohican:
+
+"If Boyd comes not before they take her, concentrate your fire on
+Amochol, for we can not hope to make him prisoner----"
+
+"Hark!" motioned the Sagamore, grasping my arm. I heard also, and so
+did the others. The woods on our left were full of noises, the trample
+of people running, the noise of crackling underbrush.
+
+We all thought the same thing, and stood waiting to see Boyd's onset
+break from the forest. The Red Priest also heard it, for he had turned
+where he stood, his rigid arm still menacing the White Sorceress.
+
+Suddenly, into the firelit circle staggered a British soldier,
+hatless, dishevelled, his scarlet uniform in rags.
+
+For a moment he stood staring about him, swaying where he stood, then
+with a hopeless gesture he flung his musket from him and passed a
+shaking hand across his eyes.
+
+"O Amochol!" cried the Sorceress, pointing a slim and steady finger at
+the bloody soldier. "Have I dreamed lies or have I dreamed the truth?
+Hearken! The woods are full of people running! Do you hear? And have I
+lied to you, O Amochol?"
+
+"From whence do you come?" cried Amochol, striding toward the soldier.
+
+"From the Chemung. Except for the dead we all are coming-- Butler and
+Brant and all. Bring out your corn, Seneca! The army starves."
+
+Amochol stared at the soldier, at the executioner still writhing and
+struggling to loose his hand from the bloody arrow, at the Sorceress
+who had veiled her face.
+
+"Witch!" he cried, "get you to Yndaia. If you stir elsewhere you shall
+burn!"
+
+He had meant to say more, I think, but at that moment, from the
+southern woods men came reeling out into the fire-circle-- ghastly,
+bloody, ragged creatures in shreds of uniforms, green, red, and
+brown-- men and officers of Sir John's regiment, men of Butler's
+Rangers, British regulars. On their heels glided the Seneca warriors,
+warriors of the Cayugas, Onondagas, Caniengas, Esauroras, and here and
+there a traitorous Oneida, and even a few Hurons.
+
+Pell-mell this mob of fighting men came surging through the
+fire-circle, and straight into Catharines-town, while I and my Indians
+crouched there, appalled and astounded.
+
+I saw Sir John Johnson come up with the officers of his two battalions
+and a captain, a sergeant, a corporal, and fifteen British regulars.
+
+"Clear me out this ring of mummers!" he said in his cold, penetrating
+voice. "And thou, Amochol, if this damned town of thine be stocked,
+bring out the provisions and set these Eries a-roasting corn!"
+
+I saw McDonald storming and cursing at his irregulars, where the poor
+brutes had gathered into a wavering rank; I saw young Walter Butler
+haranguing his Rangers and Senecas; I saw Brant, calm, noble, stately,
+standing supported by two Caniengas while a third examined his wounded
+leg.
+
+The whole place was a tumult of swarming savages and white men;
+already the Seneca women, crowding among the men, were raising the
+death wail. The dancing girls huddled together in a frightened and
+half-naked group; the Andastes cowered apart; the servile Eries were
+staggering out of the corn fields laden with ripe ears; and the
+famished soldiers were shouting and cursing at them and tearing the
+corn from their arms to gnaw the raw and milky grains.
+
+How we were to withdraw and escape destruction I did not clearly see,
+for our path must cross the eastern belt of forest, and it was still
+swarming with fugitives arriving, limping, dragging themselves in from
+the disaster of the Chemung.
+
+Hopeless to dream of taking or slaying Amochol now; hopeless to think
+of warning Boyd or even of finding him. Somewhere in the North he had
+met with obstacles which delayed him. He must scout for himself, now,
+for the entire Tory army was between him and us.
+
+"There is but one way now," whispered the Mohican.
+
+"By Yndaia," I said.
+
+My Indians were of the same opinion.
+
+"I should have gone there anyway," said Lois, still all a-quiver, and
+shivering close to my shoulder. I put my arm around her; every muscle
+of her body was rigid, taut, yet trembling, as a smooth and finely
+turned pointer trembles with eagerness and powerful self-control.
+
+"Amochol has driven her thither," she whispered. "Shall we not be on
+our way?"
+
+"Can you lead, Mayaro?" I whispered.
+
+The Mohican turned and crawled southward on his hands and knees,
+moving slowly.
+
+"For God's sake let them hear no sound in this belt of bush," I
+whispered to Lois.
+
+"I am calm, Euan. I am not afraid."
+
+"Then fallow the Sagamore."
+
+One by one we turned and crept away southward; and I was ever fearful
+that some gleam from the fire, catching our rifle-barrels or
+axe-heads, might betray us. But we gained the denser growth
+undiscovered, then rose to our feet in the open forest and hurried
+forward in file, crowding close to keep in touch.
+
+Once Lois turned and called back in a low, breathless voice;
+
+"I thank Tahoontowhee from my heart for his true eye and his avenging
+arrow."
+
+The young warrior laughed; but I knew he was the proudest youth in all
+the West that night.
+
+The great cat-owls were shrieking and yelping through the forest as we
+sped southward. My Indians, silent and morose, their vengeance
+unslaked and now indefinitely deferred, moved at a dog trot through
+the forest, led by the Sagamore, whose eyes saw as clearly in the dark
+as my own by day.
+
+And after a little while we noticed the stars above us, and felt ferns
+and grass under our feet, and came out into that same glade from
+whence runs the trail to Yndaia through the western hill cleft.
+
+"People ahead!" whispered the Sagamore. "Their Sorceress and six
+Eries!"
+
+"Are you certain?" I breathed, loosening my hatchet.
+
+"Certain, Loskiel. Yonder they are halted within the ferns. They are
+at the stream, drinking."
+
+I caught Lois by the wrist.
+
+"Come with me-- hurry!" I said, as the Indians darted away and began
+to creep out and around the vague and moving group of shadows. And as
+we sped forward I whispered brokenly my instructions, conjuring her to
+obey.
+
+We were right among them before they dreamed of our coming; not a
+war-cry was uttered; there was no sound save the crashing blows of
+hatchets, the heavy, panting breathing of those locked in a death
+struggle, the deep groan and coughing as a knife slipped home.
+
+I flung a clawing Erie from me ere his blood drenched me, and he fell
+floundering, knifed through and through, and tearing a hole in my
+rifle-cape with his teeth as he fell. Two others lay under foot; my
+Oneidas were slaying another in the ferns, and the Sagamore's hatchet,
+swinging like lightning, dashed another into eternity.
+
+The last one ran, but stumbled, with three arrows in his burly neck
+and spine; and the Night Hawk's hatchet flew, severing the thread of
+life far him and hurling him on his face. Instantly the young Oneida
+leaped upon the dead man's shoulders, pulled back his heavy head, and
+tore the scalp off with a stifled cry of triumph.
+
+"The Black-Snake!" said the Sagamore at my side, breathing heavily
+from his bloody combat, and dashing the red drops from the scalp he
+swung. "Look yonder, Loskiel! Our little Rosy Pigeon has returned at
+last!"
+
+I had seen it already, but I turned to look. And I saw the White
+Sorceress and my sweetheart close locked in each other's arms-- so
+close and motionless that they seemed but a single snowy shape there
+under the lustre of the stars.
+
+  CHAPTER XX
+
+ YNDAIA
+
+At the mouth of the pass which led to the Vale Yndaia I lay with my
+Indians that night, two mounting guard, then one, then two more, and
+the sentinels changed every three hours throughout the night. But all
+were excited and all slept lightly.
+
+Within the Vale Yndaia, perhaps a hundred yards from the mouth of the
+pass, stood the lonely little house of bark in which Madame de
+Contrecoeur had lived alone for twenty years.
+
+And here, that night, Lois lay with her mother; and no living thing
+nearer the dim house than we who mounted guard-- except for the little
+birds asleep that Madame de Contrecoeur had tamed, and the small
+forest creatures which had learned to come fearlessly at this lonely
+woman's low-voiced call. And these things I learned not then, but
+afterwards.
+
+Never had I seen such utter loneliness-- for it had been less a
+solitude, it seemed to me, had the little house not stood there under
+the pale lustre of the stars.
+
+On every side lofty hills enclosed the valley, heavily timbered to
+their crests; and through the intervale the rill ran, dashing out of
+the pass and away into that level, wooded strip to the fern-glade
+which lay midway between the height of land and Catharines-town; and
+there joined the large stream which flowed north. I could see in the
+darkness little of the secret and hidden valley called Yndaia, only
+the heights silhouetted against the stars, a vague foreground sheeted
+with mist, and the dark little house standing there all alone under
+the stars.
+
+All night long the great tiger-owls yelped and hallooed across the
+valley; all night the spectral whip-poor-will whispered its husky,
+frightened warning. And long after midnight a tiny bird awoke and sang
+monotonously for an hour or more.
+
+Awaiting an attack from Catharines-town at any moment, we dared not
+make a fire or even light a torch. Rotten trunks which had fallen
+across the stream we dragged out and piled up across the mouth of the
+pass to make a defence; but we could do no more than that; and, our
+efforts ended, my Indians sat in a circle cross-legged, quietly
+hooping and stretching their freshly taken scalps by the dim light of
+the stars, and humming their various airs of triumph in low,
+contented, and purring voices. All laboured under subdued excitement,
+the brief and almost silent slaughter in the ferns having thoroughly
+aroused them. But the tension showed only in moments of abrupt gaiety,
+as when Mayaro challenged them to pronounce his name, and they could
+not, there being no letter "M" in the Iroquois language-- neither "P"
+nor "B" either, for that matter-- so they failed at "Butler" too, and
+Philip Schuyler, which aroused all to nervous merriment.
+
+The Yellow Moth finished braiding his trophy first, went to the
+stream, and washed the blood from his weapons and his hands, polished
+up knife and hatchet, freshened his priming and covered it, and then,
+being a Christian, said his prayers on his knees, rolled over on his
+blanket, and instantly fell asleep.
+
+One by one the others followed his example, excepting the Sagamore,
+who yawning with repressed excitement, picked up his rifle, mounted
+the abattis, and squatted there, his chin on a log, motionless and
+intent as a hunting cat in long grass. I joined him; and there we sat
+unstirring, listening, peering ahead into the mist-shot darkness,
+until our three hours' vigil ended.
+
+Then we noiselessly summoned the Grey-Feather, and he crept up to the
+log defence, rifle in hand, to sit there alone until his three hours'
+duty was finished, when the Yellow Moth and Tahoontowhee should take
+his place.
+
+It was already after sunrise when I was awakened by the tinkle of a
+cow-bell. A broad, pinkish shaft of sunshine slanted through the pass
+into the hidden valley; and for the first time in my life I now beheld
+the Vale Yndaia in all the dewy loveliness of dawn. A milch cow fed
+along the brook, flank-deep in fern. Chickens wandered in its wake,
+snapping at gnats and tiny, unseen creatures under the leaves.
+
+Dainty shreds of fog rose along the stream, films of mist floated
+among sun-tipped ferns and bramble sprays. The little valley,
+cup-shaped and green, rang with the loud singing of birds. The
+pleasant noises of the brook filled my ears. All the western hills
+were now rosy where the rising sun struck their crests; north and
+south a purplish plum-bloom still tinted velvet slopes, which
+stretched away against a saffron sky untroubled by a cloud.
+
+But the pretty valley and its green grass and ferns and hills held my
+attention only at moments, for my eyes ever reverted to the low bark
+house, with its single chimney of clay, now stained orange by the sun.
+
+All the impatience and tenderness and not ignoble curiosity so long
+restrained assailed me now, as I gazed upon that solitary dwelling,
+where the unhappy mother of Lois de Contrecoeur had endured captivity
+for more than twenty years.
+
+Vines of the flowering scarlet bean ran up the bark sides of the
+house, and over the low doorway; and everywhere around grew wild
+flowers and thickets of laurel and rhododendron, as in a cultivated
+park. And I saw that she had bordered a walk of brook-pebbles with
+azaleas and marsh-honeysuckles, making a little path to the brook over
+which was a log bridge with hand rails.
+
+But laurel, azalea, and rhododendron bloomed no longer; the flowers
+that now blossomed in a riot of azure, purple, and gold on every side
+were the lovely wild asters and golden-rod; and no pretty garden set
+with formal beds and garnished artfully seemed to compare with this
+wild garden in the Vale Yndaia.
+
+As the sun warmed the ground, the sappy perfume of tree and fern and
+grass mounted, scenting the pure, cool air with warm and balm-like
+odours. Gauzy winged creatures awoke, flitted, or hung glittering to
+some frail stem. The birds' brief autumn music died away; only the dry
+chirring of a distant squirrel broke the silence, and the faint tinkle
+of the cow-bell.
+
+My Indians, now all awake, were either industriously painting their
+features or washing their wounds and scratches and filling them with
+balsam and bruised witch-hazel, or were eating the last of our parched
+corn and stringy shreds of leathery venison. All seemed as complacent
+as a party of cats licking their rumpled fur; and examining their
+bites, scratches, bruises, and knife wounds, I found no serious injury
+among them, and nothing to stiffen for very long the limbs of men in
+such a hardy condition.
+
+The youthful Night Hawk was particularly proud of an ugly knife-slash,
+with which the Black Snake had decorated his chest-- nay, I suspected
+him of introducing sumac juice to make it larger and more showy-- but
+said nothing, as these people knew well enough how to care for their
+bodies.
+
+Doubtless they were full as curious as was I concerning Madame de
+Contrecoeur-- perhaps more so, because not one of them but believed
+her the Sorceress which unhappy circumstances had obliged her to
+pretend to be. Pagan or Christian, no Indian is ever rid of
+superstition.
+
+Yet, devoured by curiosity, not one of them betrayed it, forbearing,
+at least in my presence, even to mention the White Prophetess of the
+Senecas, though they voiced their disappointment freely enough
+concerning the escape of Amochol.
+
+So we ate our corn and dried meat, and drank at the pretty rill, and
+cleansed us of mud and blood, each after his own fashion-- discussing
+the scalping of the Eries the while, the righteous death of the
+Black-Snake, the rout of Butler's army, and how its unexpected arrival
+had saved Amochol. For none among us doubted that, another half hour
+at most, and we had heard the cracking signal of Boyd's rifles across
+the hideous and fiery space.
+
+We were not a whit alarmed concerning Boyd and his party.
+Reconnoitring Catharines-town from the north, they must have very
+quickly discovered the swarm of partly crippled hornets, so
+unexpectedly infesting the nest; and we felt sure that they had
+returned in safety to watch and keep in touch with the beaten army.
+
+Yet, beaten at Chemung, exhausted after a rapid and disorderly
+retreat, this same defeated Tory army was still formidable and
+dangerous. We had seen enough of them to understand that. Fewer men
+than these at Catharines-town had ambuscaded Braddock; fewer still had
+destroyed another British expedition; while in the north Abercrombie
+had been whipped by an enemy less than a quarter as strong as his own
+force.
+
+No, we veteran riflemen knew that this motley army of Butler and
+McDonald, if it had indeed lost a few rattles, had however parted with
+none of its poison fangs. Also, Amochol still lived. And it had been
+still another Montour of the wily and accursed Frontenac breed--
+"Anasthose the Huron"-- who had encompassed the destruction of
+Braddock.
+
+That the night had passed without a sign of an enemy, and the dawn had
+heralded no yelling onset, we could account for either because no
+scouts from Catharines-town had as yet discovered the scalped bodies
+of the Eries in the glade, or because our own pursuing army was so
+close that no time could be taken by the Senecas to attack a narrow
+pass held by five resolute men.
+
+Now that the sun had risen I worried not at all over our future
+prospects, believing that we would hear from our advancing army by
+afternoon; and the Sagamore was of my opinion.
+
+And even while we were discussing these chances, leaning against our
+log abattis in the sunshine, far away across the sunlit flat-woods we
+saw a man come out among the ferns from the southward, and lie down.
+And then another man came creeping from the south, and another, and
+yet another, the sunlight running red along their rifle barrels.
+
+After them went both Oneidas, gliding swiftly out and speeding forward
+just within the encircling cover, taking every precaution, although we
+were almost certain that the distant scouts were ours.
+
+And they proved to be my own men-- a handful of Morgan's-- pushing far
+in advance to reconnoitre Catharines-town from the south, although our
+main army was marching by the western ridges, where Boyd had marked a
+path for them.
+
+A corporal in my corps, named Baily, came back with the Oneidas,
+climbed with them over the logs, sprang down inside, and saluted me
+coolly enough.
+
+His scout of four, he admitted, had made a bad job of the swamp
+trail-- and his muddy and disordered dress corroborated this. But the
+news he brought was interesting.
+
+He had not seen Boyd. The Battle of the Chemung had ended in a
+disorderly rout of Butler's army, partly because we had outflanked
+their works, partly because Butler's Indians could not be held to face
+our artillery fire, though Brant displayed great bravery in rallying
+them. We had lost few men and fewer officers; grain-fields,
+hay-stacks, and Indian towns were afire everywhere along our line of
+march.
+
+Detachments followed every water-course, to wipe out the lesser towns,
+gardens, orchards, and harvest fields on either flank, and gather up
+the last stray head of the enemy's cattle. The whole Iroquois Empire
+was now kindling into flames and the track our army left behind it was
+a blackened desolation, as horrible to those who wrought it as to the
+wretched and homeless fugitives who had once inhabited it.
+
+He added to me in a lower voice, glancing at my Indians with the
+ineradicable distrust of the average woodsman, that our advanced guard
+had discovered white captives in several of the Indian towns-- in one
+a young mother with a child at her breast. She, her husband, and five
+children had been taken at Wyoming. The Indians and Tories had
+murdered all save her and her baby. Her name was Mrs. Lester.
+
+In one town, he said, they found a pretty little white child, terribly
+emaciated, sitting on the grass and playing with a chicken. It could
+speak only the Iroquois language. Doubtless its mother had been
+murdered long since. So starved was the little thing that had our
+officers not restrained it the child might have killed itself by too
+much eating.
+
+Also, they found a white prisoner-- a man taken at Wyoming, one Luke
+Sweatland; and it was said in the army that another young white girl
+had been found in company with her little brother, both painted like
+Indians, and that still another white child was discovered, which
+Captain Machin had instantly adopted for his own.
+
+The Corporal further said that our army was proceeding slowly, much
+time being consumed in laying the axe to the plum, peach, and apple
+orchards; and that it was a sad sight to see the heavily fruited trees
+fall over, crushing the ripe fruit into the mud.
+
+He thought that the advanced guard of our army might be up by evening
+to burn Catharines-town, but was not certain. Then he asked permission
+to go back and rejoin the scout which he commanded; which permission I
+gave, though it was not necessary; and away he went, running like a
+young deer that has lagged from the herd-- a tall, fine, wholesome
+young fellow, and as sturdy and active as any I ever saw in
+rifle-dress and ruffles.
+
+My Indians lay down on their bellies, stretching themselves out in the
+sun across the logs, and, save for the subdued but fierce glimmer
+under their lazy lids, they seemed as pleasant and harmless as four
+tawny pumas a-sunning on the rocks.
+
+As for me, I wandered restlessly along the brook, as far as the
+bridge, and, seating myself here, fished out writing materials and my
+journal from my pouch, and filled in the events of the preceding days
+as briefly and exactly as I knew how. Also I made a map of
+Catharines-town and of Yndaia from memory, resolving to correct it
+later when Mr. Lodge and his surveyors came up, if opportunity
+permitted.
+
+As I sat there musing and watching the chickens loitering around the
+dooryard, I chanced to remember the milch cow.
+
+Casting about for a receptacle, I discovered several earthen jars of
+Seneca make set in willow baskets and standing by the stream. These I
+washed in the icy water, then slinging two of them on my shoulder I
+went in quest of the cow.
+
+She proved tame enough and glad, apparently, to be relieved of her
+milk, I kneeling to accomplish the business, having had experience
+with the grass-guard of our army on more than one occasion.
+
+Lord! How sweet the fragrance of the milk to a man who had seen none
+in many days. And so I carried back my jars and set them by the door
+of the bark house, covering each with a flat stone. And as I turned
+away, I saw smoke coming from the chimney; and heard the shutters on
+the southern window being gently opened.
+
+Lord! What a sudden leap my heart gave as the door before me moved
+with the soft sliding of the great oak bolt, and was slowly opened
+wide to the morning sunshine.
+
+For a moment I thought it was Lois who stood there so white and still,
+looking at me with grey, unfathomable eyes; then I stepped forward
+uncertainly, bending in silence over the narrow, sun-tanned hand that
+lay inert under the respectful but trembling salute I offered.
+
+"Euan Loskiel," she murmured in the French tongue, laying her other
+hand over mine and looking me deep in the eyes. "Euan Loskiel, a
+soldier of the United States! May God ever mount guard beside you for
+all your goodness to my little daughter."
+
+Tears filled her eyes; her pale, smooth cheeks were wet.
+
+"Lois is still asleep," she said. "Come quietly with her mother and
+you shall see her where she sleeps."
+
+Cap in hand, coon-tail dragging, I entered the single room on silent,
+moccasined feet, set my rifle in a corner, and went over to the couch
+of tumbled fawn-skin and silky pelts.
+
+As I stood looking down at the sweetly flushed face, her mother lifted
+my brier-scarred hand and pressed her lips to it; and I, hot and
+crimson with happiness and embarrassment, found not a word to utter.
+
+"My little daughter's champion!" she murmured. "Brave, and pure of
+heart! Ah, Monsieur, chivalry indeed is of no nation! It is a broader
+nobility which knows neither race nor creed nor ancestry nor birth....
+How the child adores you!"
+
+"And you, Madame. Has ever history preserved another such example of
+dauntless resolution and filial piety as Lois de Contrecoeur has shown
+us all?"
+
+Her mother's beautiful head lifted a little:
+
+"The blood of France runs in her veins, Monsieur." Then, for the first
+time, a pale smile touched her pallour. "Quand meme! No de Contrecoeur
+tires of endeavour while life endures.... Twenty-two years, Monsieur.
+Look upon her!... And for one and twenty years I have forced myself to
+live in hope of this moment! Do you understand?" She made a vague
+gesture and shook her head. "Nobody can understand-- not even I,
+though I have lived the history of many ages."
+
+Still keeping my hand in hers, she stood there silent, looking down at
+her daughter. Then, silently, she knelt beside her on the soft
+fawnskin, drawing me gently to my knees beside her.
+
+"And you are to take her from me," she murmured.
+
+"Madame----"
+
+"Hush, soldier! It must be. I give her to you in gratitude-- and
+tears.... My task is ended; yours at last begins. Out of my arms you
+shall take her as she promised. What has been said shall be done this
+day in the Vale Yndaia.... May God be with us all."
+
+"Madame-- when I take her-- one arm of mine must remain empty-- as
+half her heart would be-- if neither may hold you also to the end."
+
+She bent her head; her grey eyes closed, and I saw the tears steal out
+along the long, soft lashes.
+
+"Son, if you should come to love me----"
+
+"Madame, I love you now."
+
+She covered her face with her slim hands; I drew it against my
+shoulder. A moment later Lois unclosed her eyes, looked up at us; then
+rose to her knees in her white shift and put both bare arms around her
+mother's neck. And, kneeling so, turned her head, offering her
+untouched lips to me. Thus, for the first time in our lives, we kissed
+each other.
+
+
+There was milk, ash-bread, corn, and fresh laid eggs for all our party
+when Lois went to the door and called, in a clear, sweet voice:
+
+* "Nai! Mayaro! Yon-kwa-ken-nison!"
+
+[* "Oh, Mayaro! We are all assembled!"]
+
+Never have I seen any Indian eat as did my four warriors-- the Yellow
+Moth cleaning his bark platter, where he sat on guard upon the logs at
+the pass, the others in a circle at our threshold.
+
+Had we a siege to endure in this place, there was a store of plenty
+here, not only in apple-pit and corn-pit, but in the good, dry cellar
+with which the house was provided.
+
+Truly, the Senecas had kept their Prophetess well provided; and now,
+before the snow of a not distant winter choked this pass, the place
+had been provisioned from the harvest against November's wants and
+stress.
+
+And it secretly amused me to note the ever latent fear born of respect
+which my Indians endeavoured not to betray when in the presence of
+Madame de Contrecoeur; nor could her gentle dignity and sweetness
+toward them completely reassure them. To them a sorceress was a
+sorceress, and must ever remain a fearsome and an awesome personage,
+even though it were plain that she was disposed toward them most
+agreeably.
+
+So they replied to her cautiously, briefly, but very respectfully, nor
+could her graciousness to the youthful Night Hawk for his unerring
+arrow, nor her quiet kindness toward the others, completely reassure
+them. They were not accustomed to converse, much less to take their
+breakfast, with a Sorceress of Amochol, and though this dread fact did
+nothing alter their appetites, it discouraged any freedom of
+conversation.
+
+Lois and her mother and I understood this; Lois and I dared not laugh
+or rally them; Madame de Contrecoeur, well versed, God knows, in
+Indian manners and customs, calmly and pleasantly accepted the
+situation; and I think perhaps quietly enjoyed it.
+
+But neither mother nor daughter could keep their eyes from each other
+for any length of time, nor did their soft hand-clasp loosen save for
+a moment now and then.
+
+Later, Lois came to me, laid both hands over mine, looked at me a
+moment in silence too eloquent to misunderstand, then drew her mother
+with her into the little house. And I went back on guard to join my
+awed red brethren.
+
+So the soft September day wore away with nothing untoward to alarm us,
+until late in the afternoon we saw smoke rising above the hills to the
+southwest. This meant that our devastating army was well on its way,
+and, as usual, laying waste the Indian towns and hamlets which its
+flanking riflemen discovered; and we all jumped up on our breastworks
+to see better.
+
+For an hour we watched the smoke staining the pure blue sky; saw where
+new clouds of smoke were rising, always a little further northward. At
+evening it rolled, glowing with sombre tints, in the red beams of the
+setting sun; then dusk came and we could see the reflection on it of
+great fires raging underneath.
+
+And where we were watching it came a far, dull sound which shook the
+ground, growing louder and nearer, increasing to a rushing, thundering
+gallop; and presently we heard our riflemen running through the
+flat-woods after the frightened herds of horses which were bred in
+Catharines-town for the British service, and which had now been
+discovered and frightened by our advance.
+
+Leaving the Mohican and the Oneidas on guard, I went out with the
+Stockbridge, and soon came in touch with our light troops, stealing
+westward through the flat-woods to surround Catharines-town.
+
+When I returned to our breastworks, Lois and her mother were standing
+there, looking at the fiery smoke in the sky, listening to the noise
+of the unseen soldiery. But on my explaining the situation, they went
+back to the little house together, after bidding us all good night.
+
+So I set the first watch for the coming night, rolled myself in my
+blanket, and went to sleep with the lightest heart I had carried in my
+breast for many a day.
+
+At dawn I was awakened by the noise of horses and cattle and the
+shouting of the grass-guard, where they were rounding to the half-wild
+stock from Catharines-town, and our own hoofed creatures which had
+strayed in the flat-woods.
+
+A great cloud of smoke was belching up above the trees to the
+northward; and we knew that Catharines-town was on fire, and the last
+lurking enemy gone.
+
+Long before Lois was astir, I had made my way through our swarming
+soldiery to Catharines-town, where there was the usual orderly
+confusion of details pulling down houses or firing them, troops
+cutting the standing corn, hacking apple-trees, kindling the stacked
+hay into roaring columns of flame.
+
+Regiment after regiment paraded along the stream, discharged its
+muskets, filling the forests with crashing echoes and frightening our
+cattle into flight again; but they were firing only to clean out their
+pieces, for the last of our enemies had pulled foot before sunset, and
+the last howling Indian dog had whipped his tail between his legs and
+trotted after them.
+
+Suddenly in the smoke I saw General Sullivan, mounted, and talking
+with Boyd; and I hastened to them and reported, standing at salute.
+
+"So that damned Red Sachem escaped you?" said the General, biting his
+lip and looking now at me, now at Boyd.
+
+Boyd said, glancing curiously at me:
+
+"When we came up we found the entire Tory army here. I must admit,
+sir, that we were an hour late, having been blocked by the passage of
+two hundred Hurons and Iroquois who crossed our trail, cutting us from
+the north."
+
+"What became of them?"
+
+"They joined Butler, Brant, and Hiokatoo at this place, General."
+
+Then the General asked for my report; and I gave it as exactly as I
+could, the General listening most attentively to my narrative, and
+Boyd deeply and sombrely interested.
+
+When I ended he said:
+
+"We have taken also a half-breed, one Madame Sacho. You say that
+Madame de Contrecoeur is at the Vale Yndaia with her daughter?"
+
+"Guarded by my Indians, General."
+
+"Very well, sir. Today we send back ten wagons, our wounded, and four
+guns of the heavier artillery, all under proper escort. You will
+notify Madame de Contrecoeur that there will be a wagon for her and
+her daughter."
+
+"Yes, General."
+
+He gathered his bridle, leaned from his saddle, and looked coldly at
+Boyd and me.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, "I shall expect you to take Amochol, dead or
+alive, before this command marches into the Chinisee Castle. How you
+are to accomplish this business is your own affair. I leave you full
+liberty, except," turning to Boyd, "you, sir, are not to encumber
+yourself again with any such force as you now have with you. Twenty
+men are too many for a swift and secret affair. Four is the limit--
+and four of Mr. Loskiel's Indians."
+
+He sat still, gnawing at his lip for a moment, then:
+
+"I am sorry that, through no fault apparently of your own, this
+Sorcerer, Amochol, escaped. But, gentlemen, the service recognizes
+only success. I am always ready to listen to how nearly you failed,
+when you have succeeded; I have no interest in hearing how nearly you
+succeeded when you have failed. That is all, gentlemen."
+
+We stood at salute while he wheeled, and, followed by his considerable
+staff, walked his fine horse away toward the train of artillery which
+stood near by, the gun-teams harnessed and saddled, the guns limbered
+up, drivers and cannoneers in their saddles and seats.
+
+"Well," said Boyd heavily, "shall we be about this matter of Amochol?"
+
+"Yes.... Will you aid me in placing Madame de Contrecoeur and her
+daughter in the wagon assigned them?"
+
+He nodded, and together we started back toward the Vale Yndaia in
+silence.
+
+After a long while he looked up at me and said:
+
+"I know her now."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I recognize your pretty Lois de Contrecoeur. For weeks I have been
+troubled, thinking of her and how I should have known her face. And
+last night, lying north of Catharines-town, it came to me suddenly,"
+
+I was silent.
+
+"She is the ragged maid of the Westchester hills," he said.
+
+"She is the noblest maid that ever breathed in North America," I said.
+
+"Yes, Loskiel.... And, that being true, you are the fittest match for
+her the world could offer."
+
+I looked up, surprised, and flushed; and saw how colourless and wasted
+his face had grown, and how in his eyes all light seemed quenched.
+Never have I gazed upon so hopeless and haunted a visage as he turned
+to me.
+
+"I walk the forests like a damned man," he said, "already conscious of
+the first hot breath of hell.... Well-- I had my chance, Loskiel."
+
+"You have it still."
+
+But he said no more, walking beside me with downcast countenance and
+brooding eyes fixed on our long shadows that led us slowly west.
+
+  CHAPTER XXI
+
+ CHINISEE CASTLE
+
+For twelve days our army, marching west by north, tore its terrible
+way straight through the smoking vitals of the Iroquois Empire,
+leaving behind it nearly forty towns and villages and more than two
+hundred cabins on fire; thousands and thousands of bushels of grain
+burning, thousands of apple, peach, pear, and plum trees destroyed,
+thousands of acres of pumpkins, beans, peas, corn, potatoes, beets,
+turnips, carrots, watermelons, muskmelons, strawberry, black-berry,
+raspberry shrubs crushed and rotting in the trampled gardens under the
+hot September sun.
+
+In the Susquehanna and Chinisee Valleys, not a roof survived unburnt,
+not a fruit tree or an ear of corn remained standing, not a domestic
+animal, not a fowl, was left. And, save for the aged squaw we left at
+Chiquaha in a new hut of bark, with provisions sufficient for her
+needs, not one living soul now inhabited the charred ruins of the Long
+House behind us, except our fierce soldiery. And they, tramping
+doggedly forward, voluntarily and cheerfully placing themselves on
+half rations, were now terribly resolved to make an end for all time
+of the secret and fruitful Empire which had nourished so long the
+merciless marauders, red and white, who had made of our frontiers but
+one vast slaughter-house and bloody desolation.
+
+Town after town fell in ashes as our torches flared; Kendaia,
+Kanadesaga, Gothsunquin, Skoi-yase, Kanandaigua, Haniai, Kanasa; acre
+after acre was annihilated. So vast was one field of corn that it took
+two thousand men more than six hours to destroy it. And the end was
+not yet, nor our stern business with our enemies ended.
+
+As always on the march, the division of light troops led; the advance
+was piloted by my guides, reinforced by Boyd with four riflemen of
+Morgan's-- Tim Murphy, David Elerson, and Garrett Putnam, privates,
+and Michael Parker, sergeant.
+
+Close behind us, and pretty well ahead of the rifle battalion, under
+Major Parr, and the pioneers, followed Mr. Lodge, the surveyor, and
+his party-- Thomas Grant with the Jacob-staff, four chain-carriers,
+and Corporal Calhawn. Usually we remained in touch with them while
+they ran their lines through the wilderness, but sometimes we were
+stealing forward, far ahead and in touch with the retreating Tory
+army, patiently and persistently contriving plans to get at Amochol.
+But the painted hordes of Senecas enveloped the Sorcerer and his
+acolytes as with a living blanket; and, prowling outside their picket
+fires at night, not one ridged-crest did we see during those twelve
+days of swift pursuit.
+
+Boyd, during the last few days, had become very silent and morose; and
+his men and my Indians believed that he was brooding over his failure
+to take the Red Priest at Catharines-town. But my own heavy heart told
+me a different story; and the burden of depression which this young
+officer bore so silently seemed to weight me also with vague and
+sinister apprehensions.
+
+I remember, just before sunset, that our small scout of ten were
+halted by a burnt log bridge over a sluggish inlet to a lake. The miry
+trail to the Chinisee Castle led over it, swung westward along the
+lake, rising to a steep bluff which was gashed with a number of deep
+and rocky ravines.
+
+It was plain that the retreating Tory army had passed over this
+bridge, and that their rearguard had set it afire.
+
+I said to Boyd, pointing across the southern end of the lake:
+
+"From what I have read of Braddock's Field, yonder terrain most
+astonishingly resembles it. What an ambuscade could Butler lay for our
+army yonder, within shot of this crossing!"
+
+"Pray God he lays it," said Boyd between his teeth.
+
+"Yet, we could get at him better beyond those rocky gashes," I
+muttered, using my spyglass.
+
+"Butler is there," said the Mohican, calmly.
+
+Both Boyd and I searched the wooded bluffs in vain for any sign of
+life, but the Sagamore and the other Indians quietly maintained their
+opinion, because, they explained, though patches of wild rice grew
+along the shore, the wild ducks and geese had left their feeding coves
+and were lying half a mile out in open water. Also, the blue-jays had
+set up a screaming in the yellowing woods along the western shore, and
+the tall, blue herons had left their shoreward sentry posts, and now
+mounted guard far to the northward among the reeds, where solitary
+black ducks dropped in at intervals, quacking loudly.
+
+Boyd nodded; the Oneidas drew their hatchets and blazed the trees; and
+we all sat down in the woods to await the coming of our advanced
+guard.
+
+After a little while, our pioneers appeared, rifles slung, axes
+glittering on their shoulders, and immediately began to fell trees and
+rebuild the log bridge. Hard on their heels came my rifle battalion;
+and in the red sunshine we watched the setting of the string of
+outposts.
+
+Far back along the trail behind us we could hear the halted army
+making camp; flurries of cheery music from the light infantry
+bugle-horns, the distant rolling of drums, the rangers penetrating
+whistle, lashes of wagoners cracking, the melancholy bellow of the
+beef herd.
+
+Major Parr came and talked with us for a few minutes, and went away
+convinced that Butler's people lay watching us across the creek.
+Ensign Chambers came a-mincing through the woods, a-whisking the snuff
+from his nose with the only laced hanker in the army; and:
+
+"Dear me!" says he. "Do you really think we shall have a battle,
+Loskiel? How very interesting and enjoyable it will be."
+
+"Who drilled your pretty hide, Benjamin?" said I bluntly, noting that
+he wore his left arm in a splint.
+
+"Lord!" says he. "'Twas a scratch from a half-ounce ball at the
+Chemung. Dear, dear, how very disappointing was that affair, Loskiel!
+Most annoying of them not to stand our charge!" And, "Dear, dear,
+dear," he murmured, mincing off again with all the air of a Wall
+Street beau ogling the pretty dames on Hanover Square.
+
+"Where is this damned Castle?" growled Boyd. "Chinisee, Chenussio,
+Genesee-- whatever it is called? The name keeps buzzing in my head--
+nay, for the last three days I have dreamed of it and awakened to hear
+it sounding in my ears, as though beside me some one stooped and
+whispered it."
+
+I pulled out our small map, which we had long since learned to
+distrust, yet even our General had no better one.
+
+Here was marked the Chinisee Castle, near the confluence of Canaseraga
+Creek and the Chinisee River; and I showed the place to Boyd, who
+looked at it curiously.
+
+Mayaro, however, shook his crested head:
+
+"No, Loskiel," he said. "The Chinisee Castle stands now on the western
+shore. The Great Town should stand here!"-- placing his finger on an
+empty spot on the map. "And here, two miles above, is another town."
+
+"And you had better tell that to the General when he comes," remarked
+Boyd. And to me he said: "If we are to take Amochol at all, it will be
+this night or at dawn at the Chinisee Castle."
+
+"I am also of that opinion," said I.
+
+"I shall want twenty riflemen," he said.
+
+"If it can not be done with four, and my Indians, we need not attempt
+it."
+
+"Why?" he asked sullenly.
+
+"The General has so ordered."
+
+"Yes, but if I am to catch Amochol I must do it in my own way. I know
+how to do it. And if I risk taking my twenty riflemen, and am
+successful, the General will not care how it was accomplished."
+
+I said nothing, because Boyd ranked me, but what he proposed made me
+very uneasy. More than once he had interpreted orders after his own
+fashion, and, being always successful in his enterprises, nothing was
+said to him in reproof.
+
+My Indians had made a fire, I desiring to let the enemy suppose that
+we suspected nothing of his ambuscade so close at hand; and around
+this we lay, munching our meagre meal of green corn roasted on the
+coals, and ripe apples to finish.
+
+As we ended, the sun set behind the western bluffs, and our evening
+gun boomed good-night in the forest south of us. And presently came,
+picking their way through the trail-mire, our General, handsomely
+horsed as usual, attended by Major Adam Hoops, of his staff, and
+several others.
+
+We instantly waited on him and told him what we knew and suspected;
+and I showed him my map and warned him of the discrepancy between its
+marked places and the report of the Mohican Sagamore.
+
+"Damnation!" he said. "Every map I have had lies in detail, misleading
+and delaying me when every hour empties our wagons of provisions. Were
+it not for your Indians, Mr. Loskiel, and that Sagamore in particular,
+we had missed half the game as it lies."
+
+He sat his saddle in silence for a while, looking at the unfinished
+log bridge and up at the bluffs opposite.
+
+"I feel confident that Butler is there," he said bluntly. "But what I
+wish to know is where this accursed Chinisee Castle stands. Boyd, take
+four men, move rapidly just before midnight, find out where this
+castle stands, and report to me at sunrise."
+
+Boyd saluted, hesitated, then asked permission to speak. And when the
+General accorded it, he explained his plan to take Amochol at the
+Chinisee Castle, and that this matter would neither delay nor
+interfere with a prompt execution of his present orders.
+
+"Very well," nodded the General, "but take no more than four men, and
+Mr. Loskiel and his Indians with you; and report to me at sunrise."
+
+I heard him say this; Major Hoops heard him also. So I supposed that
+Boyd would obey these orders to the letter.
+
+When the mounted party had moved away, Boyd and I went back to the
+fire and lay down on our blankets. We were on the edge of the trees;
+it was still daylight; the pioneers were still at work; and my Indians
+were freshening their paint, rebraiding their scalp-locks, and shining
+up hatchet, rifle, and knife.
+
+"Look at those bloodhounds," muttered Boyd. "They did not hear what we
+were talking about, but they know by premonition."
+
+"I do not have any faith in premonitions," said I.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I have dreamed I was scalped, and my hair still grows."
+
+"You are not out of the woods yet," he said, sombrely.
+
+"That does not worry me."
+
+"Nor me. Yet, I do believe in premonition."
+
+"That is old wives' babble."
+
+"Maybe, Loskiel. Yet, I know I shall not leave this wilderness alive."
+
+"Lord!" said I, attempting to jest. "You should set up as a rival to
+Amochol and tell us all our fortunes."
+
+He smiled-- and the effort distorted his pale, handsome face.
+
+"I think it will happen at Chinisee," he said quietly.
+
+"What will happen?"
+
+"The end of the world for me, Loskiel."
+
+"It is not like you, Boyd, to speak in such a manner. Only lately have
+I ever heard from you a single note of such foreboding."
+
+"Only lately have I been dowered with the ominous clairvoyance. I am
+changed, Loskiel."
+
+"Not in courage."
+
+"No," he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders that set ruffles and
+thrums a-dancing on his rifle-dress.
+
+We were silent for a while, watching the Indians at their polishing.
+Then he said in a low but pleasant voice:
+
+"How proud and happy must you be with your affianced. What a splendour
+of happiness lies before you both! An unblemished past, an innocent
+passion, a future stretching out unstained before you-- what more can
+God bestow on man and maid?... May bright angels guard you both,
+Loskiel."
+
+I made to thank him for the wish, but suddenly found I could not
+control my voice, so lay there in silence and with throat contracted,
+looking at this man whose marred young life lay all behind him, and
+whose future, even to me, lowered strangely and ominously veiled.
+
+And as we lay there, into our fire-circle came a dusty, mud-splashed,
+and naked runner, plucking from his light skin-pouch two letters, one
+for Boyd and one for me.
+
+I read mine by the flickering fire; it was dated from Tioga Point:
+
+
+"Euan Loskiel, my honoured and affianced husband, and my lover,
+worshipped and adored, I send you by this runner my dearest
+affections, my duties, and my most sacred sentiments.
+
+"You must know that this day we have arrived at the Fort at Tioga
+Point without any accident or mischance of any description, and,
+indeed, not encountering one living creature between Catharines-town
+and this post.
+
+"My beloved mother desires her particular and tender remembrances to
+be conveyed to you, her honoured son-in-law to be, and further
+commands that I express to you, as befittingly as I know how, her deep
+and ever-living gratitude and thanks for your past conduct in regard
+to me, and your present and noble-minded generosity concerning the
+dispositions you have made for us to remain under the amiable
+protection of Mr. Hake in Albany.
+
+"Dear lad, what can I say for myself? You are so glorious, so
+wonderful-- and in you it does seem that all the virtues, graces, and
+accomplishments are so perfectly embodied, that at moments, thinking
+of you, I become afraid, wondering what it is in me that you can
+accept in exchange for the so perfect love you give me.
+
+"I fear that you may smile on perusing this epistle, deeming it,
+perhaps, a trifle flowery in expression-- but, Euan, I am so torn
+between the wild passion I entertain for you, and a desire to address
+you modestly and politely in terms of correspondence, as taught in the
+best schools, that I know not entirely how to conduct. I would not
+have you think me cold, or too stiffly laced in the formalities of
+polite usage, so that you might not divine my heart a-beating under
+the dress that covers me, be it rifle-frock or silken caushet. I would
+not have you consider me over-bold, light-minded, or insensible to the
+deep and sacred tie that already binds me to you evermore-- which
+even, I think, the other and tender tie which priest and church shall
+one day impose, could not make more perfect or more secure.
+
+"So I must strive to please you by writing with elegance befitting,
+yet permitting you to perceive the ardent heart of her who thinks of
+you through every blessed moment of the day.
+
+"I pray, as my dear mother prays, that God, all armoured, and with His
+bright sword drawn, stand sentinel on your right hand throughout the
+dangers and the trials of this most just and bloody war. For your
+return I pray and wait.
+
+"Your humble and dutiful and obedient and adoring wife to be,
+
+                        "Lois de Contrecoeur.
+
+"Post scriptum: The memory of our kiss fades not from my lips. I will
+be content when circumstances permit us the liberty to repeat it."
+
+
+When I had read the letter again and again, I folded it and laid it in
+the bosom of my rifle-shirt. Boyd still brooded over his letter, the
+red firelight bathing his face to the temples.
+
+After a long while he raised his eyes, saw me looking at him, stared
+at me for a moment, then quietly extended the letter toward me.
+
+"You wish me to read it?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, read it, Loskiel, before I burn it," he said drearily. "I do not
+desire to have it discovered on my body after death."
+
+I took the single sheet of paper and read:
+
+
+  "Lieutenant Thomas Boyd,
+      "Rifle Corps,
+          "Sir:
+
+  "For the last time, I venture to importune you in behalf of one for
+  whose present despair you are entirely responsible. Pitying her
+  unhappy condition, I have taken her as companion to me since we are
+  arrived at Easton, and shall do what lies within my power to make
+  her young life as endurable as may be.
+
+  "You, sir, on your return from the present campaign, have it in
+  your power to make the only reparation possible. I trust that your
+  heart and your sense of honour will so incline you.
+
+  "As for me, Mr. Boyd, I make no complaint, desire no sympathy,
+  expect none. What I did was my fault alone. Knowing that I was
+  falling in love with you, and at the same time aware what kind of
+  man you had been and must still be, I permitted myself to drift
+  into deeper waters, too weak of will to make an end, too miserable
+  to put myself beyond the persuasion of your voice and manner. And
+  perhaps I might never have found courage to give you up entirely
+  had I not been startled into comprehension by what I learned
+  concerning the poor child in whose behalf I now am writing.
+
+  "That instantly sobered me, ending any slightest spark of hope that
+  I might have in my secret heart still guarded. For, with my new and
+  terrible knowledge, I understood that I must pass instantly and
+  completely out of your life; and you out of mine. Only your duty
+  remained-- not to me, but to this other and more unhappy one. And
+  that path I pray that you will follow when a convenient opportunity
+  arises.
+
+  "I am, sir y' ob't, etc., etc.
+
+                                                   "Magdalene Helmer.
+
+  "P. S. If you love me, Tom, do your full duty in the name of God!
+
+                                "Lana."
+
+I handed the letter back to him in silence. He stared at it, not
+seeing the written lines, I think, save as a blurr; and after a long
+while he leaned forward and laid it on the coals.
+
+"If I am not already foredoomed," he said to me, "what Lana bids me do
+that I shall do. It is best, is it not, Loskiel?"
+
+"A clergyman is fitter to reply to you than I."
+
+"Do you not think it best that I marry Dolly Glenn?"
+
+"God knows. It is all too melancholy and too terrible for me to
+comprehend the right and wrong of it, or how a penitence is best made.
+Yet, as you ask me, it seems to me that what she will one day become
+should claim your duty and your future. The weakest ever has the
+strongest claim."
+
+"Yes, it-is true. I stand tonight so fettered to an unborn soul that
+nothing can unloose me.... I wish that I might live."
+
+"You will live! You must live!"
+
+"Aye, 'must' and 'will' are twins of different complexions,
+Loskiel.... Yet, if I live, I shall live decently and honestly
+hereafter in the sight of God and-- Lana Helmer."
+
+
+We said nothing more. About ten o'clock Boyd rose and went away all
+alone. Half an hour later he came back, followed by some score and
+more of men, a dozen of our own battalion, half a dozen musket-men of
+the 4th Pennsylvania Regiment, three others, two Indians, Hanierri,
+the headquarters Oneida guide, and Yoiakim, a Stockbridge.
+
+"Volunteers," he said, looking sideways at me. "I know how to take
+Amochol; but I must take him in my own manner."
+
+I ventured to remind him of the General's instructions that we find
+the Chinisee Castle and report at sunrise.
+
+"Damn it, I know it," he retorted impatiently, "but I have my own
+plans; and the General will bear me out when I fling Amochol's scalp
+at his feet."
+
+The Grey-Feather drew me aside and said in a low, earnest voice:
+
+"We are too many to surprise Amochol. Before Wyoming, with only three
+others I went to Thenondiago, the Castle of the Three Clans-- The
+Bear, The Wolf, and The Turtle-- and there we took and slew
+Skull-Face, brother of Amochol, and wounded Telenemut, the husband of
+Catrine Montour. By Waiandaia we stretched the scalp of Skull-Face; at
+Thaowethon we painted it with Huron and Seneca tear-drops; at Yaowania
+we peeled three trees and wrote on each the story so that the Three
+Clans might read and howl their anguish. Thus should it be done
+tonight if we are to deal with Amochol!"
+
+Once more I ventured to protest to Boyd.
+
+"Leave it to me, Loskiel," he said pleasantly. And I could say no
+more.
+
+At eleven our party of twenty-nine set out, Hanierri, the Oneida, from
+headquarters, guiding us; and I could not understand why Boyd had
+chosen him, for I was certain he knew less about this region than did
+Mayaro, However, when I spoke to Boyd, he replied that the General had
+so ordered, and that Hanierri had full instructions concerning the
+route from the commander himself.
+
+As General Sullivan was often misinformed by his maps and his scouts,
+I was nothing reassured by Boyd's reply, and marched with my Indians,
+feeling in my heart afraid. And, without vaunting myself, nor meaning
+to claim any general immunity from fear, I can truly say that for the
+first time in my life I set forth upon an expedition with the most
+melancholy forebodings possible to a man of ordinary courage and
+self-respect.
+
+We followed the hard-travelled war-trail in single file; and Hanierri
+did not lose his way, but instead of taking, as he should have done,
+the unused path which led to the Chinisee Castle, he passed it and
+continued on.
+
+I protested most earnestly to Boyd; the Sagamore corroborated my
+opinion when summoned. But Hanierri remained obstinate, declaring that
+he had positive information that the Chinisee Castle lay in the
+direction we were taking.
+
+Boyd seemed strangely indifferent and dull, making apparently no
+effort to sift the matter further. So strange and apathetic had his
+manner become, so unlike himself was he, that I could make nothing of
+him, and stood in uneasy wonderment while the Mohican and the Oneida,
+Hanierri, were gravely disputing.
+
+"Come," he said, in his husky and altered voice, "let us have done
+with this difference in opinion. Let the Oneida guide us-- as we
+cannot have two guides' opinions. March!"
+
+In the darkness we crept past Butler's right flank, silently and
+undiscovered; nor could we discover any sign of the enemy, though now
+not one among us doubted that he lay hidden along the bluffs, waiting
+for our army to move at sunrise into the deadly trap that the nature
+of the place had so perfectly provided.
+
+All night long we moved on the hard and trodden trail; and toward dawn
+we reached a town. Reconnoitering the place, we found it utterly
+abandoned. If the Chinisee Castle lay beyond it, we could not
+determine, but Hanierri insisted that it was there. So Boyd sent back
+four men to Sullivan to report on what we had done; and we lay in the
+woods on the outskirts of the village, to wait for daylight.
+
+When dawn whitened the east, it became plain to us all that we had
+taken the wrong direction. The Chinisee Castle was not here. Nothing
+lay before us but a deserted village.
+
+I knew not what to make of Boyd, for the discovery of our mistake
+seemed to produce no impression on him. He stood at the edge of the
+woods, gazing vacantly across the little clearing where the Indian
+houses straggled on either side of the trail.
+
+"We have made a bad mistake," I said in a low voice.
+
+"Yes, a bad one," he said listlessly.
+
+"Shall we not start on our return?" I asked.
+
+"There is no hurry."
+
+"I beg your pardon, but I have to remind you that you are to report at
+sunrise."
+
+"Aye-- if that were possible, Loskiel."
+
+"Possible!" I repeated, blankly. "Why not?"
+
+"Because," he said in a dull voice, "I shall never see another sunrise
+save this one that is coming presently. Let me have my fill of it
+unvexed by Generals and orders."
+
+"You are not well, Boyd," I said, troubled.
+
+"As well as I shall ever be-- but not as ill, Loskiel."
+
+At that moment the Sagamore laid his hand on my shoulder and pointed.
+I saw nothing for a moment; then Boyd and Murphy sprang forward,
+rifles in hand, and Mayaro after them, and I after them, running into
+the village at top speed. For I had caught a glimpse of a most unusual
+sight; four Iroquois Indians on horseback, riding into the northern
+edge of the town. Never before, save on two or three occasions, had I
+ever seen an Iroquois mounted on a horse.
+
+We ran hard to get a shot at them, and beyond the second house came in
+full view of our enemies. Murphy fired immediately, knocking the
+leading Indian from his horse; I fired, breaking the arm of the next
+rider; both my Indians fired and missed; and the Iroquois were off at
+full speed. Boyd had not fired.
+
+We ran to where the dead man was lying, and the Mohican recognized him
+as an Erie named Sanadaya. Murphy coolly took his scalp, with an
+impudent wink at the Sagamore and a grin at Boyd and me.
+
+In the meanwhile, our riflemen and Indians had rushed the town and
+were busy tearing open the doors of the houses and setting fire to
+them. In vain I urged Boyd to start back, pointing out that this was
+no place for us to linger in, and that our army would burn this
+village in due time.
+
+But he merely shrugged his shoulders and loitered about, watching his
+men at their destruction; and I stood by, a witness to his strange and
+inexplicable delay, a prey to the most poignant anxiety because the
+entire Tory army lay between us and our own army, and this smoke
+signal must draw upon us a very swarm of savages to our inevitable
+destruction.
+
+At last Boyd sounded the recall on his ranger's whistle, and ordered
+me to take my Indians and reconnoiter our back trail. And no sooner
+had I entered the woods than I saw an Indian standing about a hundred
+yards to the right of the trail, and looking up at the smoke which was
+blowing southward through the tree-tops.
+
+His scarlet cloak was thrown back; he was a magnificent warrior, in
+his brilliant paint, matching the flaming autumn leaves in colour. My
+Indians had not noticed him where he stood against a crimson and
+yellow maple bush. I laid my rifle level and fired. He staggered,
+stood a moment, turning his crested head with a bewildered air, then
+swayed, sank at the knee joints, dropped to them, and very slowly laid
+his stately length upon the moss, extending himself like one who
+prepared for slumber.
+
+We ran up to where he lay with his eyes closed; he was still
+breathing. A great pity for him seized me; and I seated myself on the
+moss beside him, staring into his pallid face.
+
+And as I sat beside him while he was dying, he opened his eyes, and
+looked at me. And I knew that he knew I had killed him. After a few
+moments he died.
+
+"Amochol!" I said under my breath. "God alone knows why I am sorry for
+this dead priest." And as I rose and stared about me, I caught sight
+of two pointed ears behind a bush; then two more pricked up sharply;
+then the head of a wolf popped up over a fallen log. But as I began to
+reload my rifle, there came a great scurrying and scattering in the
+thickets, and I heard the Andastes running off, leaving their dead
+master to me and to my people, who were now arriving.
+
+I do not know who took his scalp; but it was taken by some Indian or
+Ranger who came crowding around to look down upon this painted dead
+man in his scarlet cloak.
+
+"Amochol is dead," I said to Boyd.
+
+He looked at me with lack-lustre eyes, nodding. We marched on along
+the trail by which we had arrived.
+
+For five miles we proceeded in silence, my Indians flanking the file
+of riflemen. Then Boyd gave the signal to halt, and sent forward the
+Sagamore, the Grey-Feather, and Tahoontowhee to inform the General
+that we would await the army in this place.
+
+The Indians, so coolly taken from my command, had gone ere I came up
+from the rear to find what Boyd had done.
+
+"Are you mad?" I exclaimed, losing my temper, "Do you propose to halt
+here at the very mouth of the hornet's nest?"
+
+He did not rebuke me for such gross lack of discipline and respect--
+in fact, he seemed scarcely to heed at all what I said, but seated
+himself at the foot of a pine tree and lit his pipe. As I stood biting
+my lip and looking around at the woods encircling us, he beckoned two
+of his men, gave them some orders in a low voice, crossed one leg over
+the other, and continued to smoke the carved and painted Oneida pipe
+he carried in his shot-pouch.
+
+I saw the two riflemen shoulder their long weapons and go forward in
+obedience to his orders; and when again I approached him he said:
+
+"They will make plain to Sullivan what your Indians may garble in
+repeating-- that I mean to await the army in this place and save my
+party these useless miles of travelling. Do you object?"
+
+"Our men are not tired," I said, astonished, "and our advanced guard
+can not be very far away. Do you not think it more prudent for us to
+continue the movement toward our own people?"
+
+"Very well-- if you like," he said indifferently.
+
+After a few minutes' inaction, he rose, sounded his whistle; the men
+got to their feet, fell in, and started, rifles a-trail. But we had
+proceeded scarcely a dozen rods into the big timber when we discovered
+our two riflemen, who had so recently left us, running back toward us
+and looking over their shoulders as they ran. When they saw us, they
+halted and shouted for us to hasten, as there were several Seneca
+Indians standing beside the trail ahead.
+
+In a flash of intuition it came to me that here was a cleared runway
+to some trap.
+
+"Don't leave the trail!" I said to Boyd. "Don't be drawn out of it
+now. For God's sake hold your men and don't give chase to those
+Indians."
+
+"Press on!" said Boyd curtly; and our little column trotted forward.
+
+Something crashed in a near thicket and went off like a deer. The men,
+greatly excited, strove to catch a glimpse of the running creature,
+but the bush was too dense.
+
+Suddenly a rifleman, who was leading our rapid advance, caught sight
+of the same Senecas who had alarmed him and his companion; and he
+started toward them with a savage shout, followed by a dozen others.
+
+Hanierri turned to Boyd and begged him earnestly not to permit any
+pursuit. But Boyd pushed him aside impatiently, and blew the
+view-halloo on his ranger's whistle; and in a moment we all were
+scattering in full pursuit of five lithe and agile Senecas, all in
+full war-paint, who appeared to be in a panic, for they ran through
+the thickets like terrified sheep, huddling and crowding on one
+another's heels.
+
+"Boyd!" I panted, catching up with him. "This whole business looks
+like a trap to me. Whistle your men back to the trail, for I am
+certain that these Senecas are drawing us toward their main body."
+
+"We'll catch one of them first," he said; and shouted to Murphy to
+fire and cripple the nearest. But the flying Senecas had now vanished
+into a heavily-wooded gully, and there was nothing for Murphy to fire
+at.
+
+I swung in my tracks, confronting Boyd.
+
+"Will you halt your people before it is too late?" I demanded. "Where
+are your proper senses? You behave like a man who has lost his mental
+balance!"
+
+He gave me a dazed look, where he had been within his rights had he
+cut me down with his hatchet.
+
+"What did you say?" he stammered, passing his hand over his eyes as
+though something had obscured his sight.
+
+"I asked you to sound the recall. Those Indians we chase are leading
+us whither they will. What in God's name ails you, Boyd? Have you
+never before seen an ambush?"
+
+He stood motionless, as though stupefied, staring straight ahead of
+him. Then he said, hesitatingly, that he desired Tim Murphy to cripple
+one of the Senecas and fetch him in so that we might interrogate him.
+
+Such infant's babble astounded and sickened me, and I was about to
+retort when a shout from one of our men drew our attention to the
+gully below. And there were our terrified Indians peering out
+cunningly at us like so many foxes playing tag with an unbroken puppy
+pack.
+
+"Come, sir," said I in deepest anxiety, "the game is too plain for
+anybody but a fool to follow. Sound your recall!"
+
+He set his whistle to his lips, and as I stood there, thunderstruck
+and helpless, the shrill call rang out: "Forward! Hark-away!"
+
+Instantly our entire party leaped forward; the Indians vanished; and
+we ran on headlong, pell-mell, hellward into the trap prepared for our
+destruction.
+
+The explosion of a heavy rifle on our right was what first halted us,
+I think. One of the soldiers from the 4th Pennsylvania was down in the
+dead leaves kicking and scuffling about all over blood. Before he had
+rolled over twice, a ragged but loud volley on our left went through
+our disordered files, knocking over two more soldiers. The screaming
+of one poor fellow seemed to bring Boyd to his senses. He blew the
+recall, and our men fell back, and, carrying the dead and wounded,
+began to ascend the wooded knoll down which we had been running when
+so abruptly checked.
+
+There was no more firing for the moment; we reached the top of the
+knoll, laid our dead and wounded behind trees, loaded, freshened our
+priming, and stood awaiting orders.
+
+Then, all around us, completely encircling the foot of our knoll,
+woods, thickets, scattered bushes, seemed to be literally moving in
+the vague forest light.
+
+"My God!" exclaimed Elerson to Murphy. "The woods are crawling with
+savages!"
+
+A dreadful and utter silence fell among us; Boyd, pale as a corpse,
+motioned his men to take posts, forming a small circle with our dead
+and wounded in the centre.
+
+I saw Hanierri, the Oneida guide, fling aside his blanket, strip his
+painted body to the beaded clout, draw himself up to his full and
+superb height, muttering, his eyes fixed on the hundreds of dark
+shapes stealing quietly among the thickets below our little hill.
+
+The two Stockbridge Indians, the Yellow Moth and Yoiakim, pressed
+lightly against me on either side, like two great, noble dogs, afraid,
+yet trusting their master, and still dauntless in the threatening face
+of duty.
+
+Through the terrible stillness which had fallen upon us all, I could
+hear the Oneida guide muttering his death-song; and presently my two
+Christian Indians commenced in low voices to recite the prayers for
+the dying.
+
+The next moment, Murphy and Elerson began to fire, slowly and
+deliberately; and for a little while these two deadly and unerring
+rifles were the only pieces that spoke from our knoll. Then my distant
+target showed for a moment; I fired, reloaded, waited; fired again;
+and our little circle of doomed men began to cheer as a brilliantly
+painted warrior sprang from the thicket below, shouted defiance, and
+crumpled up as though smitten by lightning when Murphy's rifle roared
+out its fatal retort.
+
+Then, for almost every soul that stood there, the end of the world
+began; for a thousand men swarmed out of the thickets below,
+completely surrounding us; and like a hurricane shrilling through
+naked woods swept the death-halloo of five hundred Iroquois in their
+naked paint.
+
+On every side the knoll was black with them as they came leaping
+forward, hatchets glittering; while over their heads the leaden hail
+of Tory musketry pelted us from north and south and east and west.
+
+Down crashed Yoiakim at my side, his rifle exploding in mid-air as he
+fell dead and rolled over and over down the slope toward the masses of
+his enemies below.
+
+As a Seneca seized the rolling body, set his foot on the dead
+shoulders and jerked back the head to scalp him, the Yellow Moth
+leaped forward, launching his hatchet. It flew, sparkling, and struck
+the scalper full in the face. The next instant the Yellow Moth was
+among them, snarling, stabbing, raging, almost covered by Senecas who
+were wounding one another in their eagerness to slay him.
+
+For a moment it seemed to me that there was a chance in this melee for
+us to cut our way through, and I caught Boyd by the arm and pointed. A
+volley into our very backs staggered and almost stupefied us; through
+the swirling powder gloom, our men began to fall dead all around me. I
+saw Sergeant Hungerman drop; privates Harvey, Conrey, Jim McElroy,
+Jack Miller, Benny Curtin and poor Jack Putnam.
+
+Murphy, clubbing his rifle, was bawling to his comrade, Elerson:
+
+"To hell wid this, Davey! Av we don't pull foot we're a pair o' dead
+ducks!"
+
+"For God's sake, Boyd!" I shouted. "Break through there beside the
+Yellow Moth!"
+
+Boyd, wielding his clubbed rifle, cleared a circle amid the crowding
+savages; Sergeant Parker ran out into the yelling crush; the two
+gigantic riflemen, Murphy and Elerson, swinging their terrible weapons
+like flails, smashed their way forward; behind them, using knife,
+hatchet, and stock, I led out the last men living on that knoll-- Ned
+McDonald, Garrett Putnam, Jack Youse, and a French coureur-de-bois
+whose name I have never learned.
+
+All around us raged and yelled the maddened Seneca pack, slashing each
+other again and again in their crazed attempts to reach us. The Yellow
+Moth was stabbed through and through a hundred times, yet the ghastly
+corpse still kept its feet, so terrible was the crushing pressure on
+every side.
+
+Suddenly, tearing a path through the frenzied mob, I saw a mob of
+cursing, sweating, green-coated soldiers and rangers, struggling
+toward us-- saw one of Butler's rangers seize Sergeant Parker by the
+collar of his hunting shirt, bawling out:
+
+"Hurrah! Hurrah! Prisoner taken from Morgan's corps!"
+
+Another, an officer of British regulars, I think, threw himself on
+Boyd, shouting:
+
+"By heaven! It's Boyd of Derry! Are you not Tom Boyd, of Derry,
+Pennsylvania?"
+
+"Yes, you bloody-backed Tory!" retorted Boyd, struggling to knife him
+under his gorget. "And I'm Boyd of Morgan's, too!"
+
+I aimed a blow at the red-coated officer, but my rifle stock broke off
+across the skull of an Indian; and I began to beat a path toward Boyd
+with the steel barrel of my weapon, Murphy and Elerson raging forward
+beside me in such a very whirlwind of half-crazed fury that the
+Indians gave way and leaped aside, trying to shoot at us.
+
+Headlong through this momentary opening rushed Garrett Putnam, his
+rifle-dress torn from his naked body, his heavy knife dripping in the
+huge fist that clutched it. After him leaped Ned McDonald, the
+coureur-de-bois, and Jack Youse, letting drive right and left with
+their hatchets. And, as the painted crowd ahead recoiled and shrank
+aside, Murphy, Elerson, and I went through, smashing out the way with
+our heavy weapons.
+
+How we got through God only knows. I heard Murphy bellowing to
+Elerson:
+
+"We're out! We're out! Pull foot, Davey, or the dirty Scutts will take
+your hair!"
+
+A Pennsylvania soldier, running heavily down hill ahead of me, was
+shot, sprang high into the air in one agonized bound, like a stricken
+hare, and fell forward under my very feet, so that I leaped over him
+as I ran. The Canadian coureur-de-bois was hit, but the bullet stung
+him to a speed incredible, and he flew on, screaming with pain, his
+broken arm flapping.
+
+Behind me I dared not look, but I knew the Seneca warriors were after
+us at full speed. Bullets whined and whizzed beside us, striking the
+trees on every side. A long slope of open woods now slanted away below
+us.
+
+As I ran, far ahead of me, among the trees, I saw men moving, yet
+dared not change my course. Then, as I drew nearer, I recognized Mr.
+Lodge, our surveyor, and Thomas Grant with the Jacob-staff, the four
+chain-bearers with the chain, and Corporal Calhawn, all standing stock
+still and gazing up the slope toward us.
+
+The next moment Grant dropped his Jacob-staff, turned and ran; the
+chain-men flung away their implements, and Mr. Lodge and the entire
+party, being totally unarmed, turned and fled, we on their heels, and
+behind us a score of yelling Senecas, now driven to frenzy by the
+sight of so much terrified game in flight.
+
+I saw poor Calhawn fall; I saw Grant run into the swamp below,
+shouting for help. Mr. Lodge, closely chased by a young warrior, ran
+toward a distant sentinel, and so eager was the Seneca to slay him
+that he chased the fleeing surveyor past the sentinel, and was shot in
+the back by the amazed soldier.
+
+And now, all along the edge of the morass where our pickets were
+posted, the bang! bang! bang! of musketry began. Murphy and Elerson
+bounded into safety; Ned McDonald, Garrett Putnam, the
+coureur-de-bais, and Jack Youse went staggering and reeling into the
+swamp. I attempted to follow them, but three Senecas cut me out, and,
+with bursting heart, I sheered off and ran parallel with them,
+striving to reach our lines, the sentinels firing at my pursuers and
+running forward to intercept them. Yet, so intent were these Seneca
+bloodhounds on my destruction that they never swerved under the
+running fire of musketry; and I was forced out and driven into the
+woods again to the northwest of our lines.
+
+Farther and farther away sounded the musketry in my ears, until the
+pounding pulses deadened and finally obliterated the sound. I could no
+longer carry the shattered and bloody fragment of my rifle, and
+dropped it. Bullet-pouch, shot-pouch, powder-horn, water-bottle,
+hatchet I let fall, keeping only my knife, belt, and the thin, flat
+wallet which contained my letters from Lois and my journal. Even my
+cap I flung away, moving always forward on a dog-trot, and ever
+twisting my sweat-drenched head to look behind.
+
+Several times I caught distant glimpses of my pursuers, and saw that
+they walked sometimes, as though exhausted. Yet, I dared not bear to
+the South, not knowing how many of them had continued on westward to
+cut me off from a return; so I jogged on northward, my heart nigh
+broken with misery and foreboding, sickened to the very soul with the
+memory of our slaughtered men upon the knoll. For of some thirty-odd
+riflemen, Indians, line soldiers, and scouts that Boyd had led out the
+night before, only Elerson, Murphy, McDonald, Youse, the
+coureur-de-bois, and I remained alive or untaken. Boyd was a prisoner,
+together with Sergeant Parker; all the others were dead to a man,
+excepting possibly my three Indians, Mayaro, Grey-Feather, and
+Tahoontowhee, who Boyd had sent in to report us before we had sighted
+the Senecas, and who might possibly have escaped the ambuscade.
+
+As I plodded on, I dared not let my imagination dwell on Boyd and
+Parker, for a dreadful instinct told me that the dead men on the knoll
+were better off. Yet, I tried to remember that a red-coated officer
+had taken Boyd, and one of Sir John's soldiers had captured Michael
+Parker. But I could find no comfort, no hope in this thought, because
+Walter Butler was there, and Hiokatoo, and McDonald, and all that
+bloody band. The Senecas would surely demand the prisoners. There was
+not one soul to speak a word for them, unless Brant were near. That
+noble and humane warrior alone could save them from the Seneca stake.
+And I feared he was at the burnt bridge with his Mohawks, facing our
+army as he always faced it, dauntless, adroit, resourceful, and
+terrible.
+
+A little stony stream ran down beside the trackless course I travelled
+and I seized the chance of confusing the tireless men who tracked me,
+and took to the stones, springing from one step to the next, taking
+care not to wet my moccasins, dislodge moss or lichen, or in any
+manner mark the stones I trod on or break or disturb the branches and
+leaves above me.
+
+The stream ran almost north as did all the little water-courses
+hereabouts, and for a long while I followed it, until at last, to my
+great relief, it divided; and I followed the branch that ran
+northeast. Again this branch forked; I took the eastern course until,
+on the right bank, I saw long, naked beds of rock stretching into low
+crags and curving eastward.
+
+Over this rock no Seneca could hope to track a cautious and hunted
+man. I walked sometimes, sometimes trotted; and so jogged on, bearing
+ever to the east and south, meaning to cross the Chinisee River north
+of the confluence, and pass clear around the head of the lake.
+
+Here I made my mistake by assuming that, as our pioneers must still be
+working on the burnt bridge, the enemy that had merely enveloped our
+party by curling around us his right flank, would again swing back to
+their bluffs along the lake, and, though hope of ambuscade was over,
+dispute the passage of the stream and the morass with our own people.
+
+But as I came out among the trees along the river bank, to my
+astonishment and alarm I saw an Indian house, and smoke curling from
+the chimney. So taken aback was I that I ran south to a great oak tree
+and stood behind it, striving to collect my thoughts and make out my
+proper bearings. But off again scattered every idea I had in my head,
+and I looked about me in a very panic, for I heard close at hand the
+barking of Indian dogs and a vast murmur of voices; and, peering out
+again from behind my tree I could see other houses close to the strip
+of forest where I hid, and the narrow lane between them was crowded
+with people.
+
+Where I was, what this town might be, I could not surmise; nor did I
+perceive any way out of this wasp's nest where I was now landed,
+except to retrace my trail. And that I dared not do.
+
+There was now a great shouting in the village as though some person
+had just made a speech and his audience remained in two nods
+concerning its import.
+
+Truly, this seemed to be no place for me; the woods were very open-- a
+sugar bush in all the gorgeous glory of scarlet, yellow, and purple
+foliage, heavily fringed with thickets of bushes and young hardwood
+growth, which for the moment had hid the town from me, and no doubt
+concealed me from the people close at hand. To retreat through such a
+strip of woodland was impossible without discovery. Besides, somewhere
+on my back trail were enemies, though just where I could not know. For
+a moment's despair, it seemed to me that only the wings of a bird
+could save me now; then, as I involuntarily cast my gaze aloft, the
+thought to climb followed; and up I went into the branches, where the
+blaze of foliage concealed me; and lay close to a great limb looking
+down over the top of the thicket to the open river bank. And what I
+saw astounded me; the enemy's baggage wagons were fording the river;
+his cattle-drove had just been herded across, and the open space was
+already full of his gaunt cows and oxen.
+
+Rangers and Greens pricked them forward with their bayonets, forcing
+them out of the opening and driving them northwest through the
+outskirts of the village. The wagons, horses, and vehicles, in a
+dreadful plight, followed the herd-guard. After them marched Butler's
+rear-guard, rangers, Greens, renegades, Indians sullenly turning their
+heads to listen and to gaze as the uproar from the village increased
+and burst into a very frenzy of diabolical yelling.
+
+Suddenly, out through the narrow lane or street surged hundreds of
+Seneca warriors, all clustering and crowding around something in the
+centre of the mass; and as the throng, now lurching this way, now
+driving that way, spread out over the cleared land up to the edges of
+the very thicket which I overlooked, my blood froze in my veins.
+
+For in the centre of that mass of painted, capering demons, walked
+Boyd and Parker, their bloodless faces set and grim, their heads
+carried high.
+
+Into this confusion drove the baggage wagons; the herd-guards began to
+shout angrily and drive back the Indians; the wagons drove slowly
+through the lane, the drivers looking down curiously at Boyd and his
+pallid companion, but not insulting them.
+
+One by one the battered and rickety wagons jolted by; then came the
+bloody and dishevelled soldiery plodding with shouldered muskets
+through the lanes of excited warriors, scarcely letting their haggard
+eyes rest on the two prisoners who stood, unpinioned in the front
+rank.
+
+A mounted officer, leaning from his saddle, asked the Senecas what
+they meant to do with these prisoners; and the ferocious response
+seemed to shock him, for he drew bridle and stared at Boyd as though
+fascinated.
+
+So near to where I lay was Boyd standing that I could see the checked
+quiver of his lips as he bit them to control his nerves before he
+spoke. Then he said to the mounted officer, in a perfectly even and
+distinct voice:
+
+"Can you not secure for us, sir, the civilized treatment of prisoners
+of war?"
+
+"I dare not interfere," faltered the officer, staring around at the
+sea of devilish faces.
+
+"And you, a white man, return me such a cowardly answer?"
+
+Another motley company came marching up from the river, led by a
+superb Mohawk Indian in full war-paint and feathers; and, blocked by
+the mounted officer in front, halted.
+
+I saw Boyd's despairing glance sweep their files; then suddenly his
+eyes brightened.
+
+"Brant!" he cried.
+
+And then I saw that the splendid Mohawk leader was the great
+Thayendanegea himself.
+
+"Boyd," he said calmly, "I am sorry for you. I would help you if I
+could. But," he added, with a bitter smile, "there are those in
+authority among us who are more savage than those you white men call
+savages. One of these-- gentlemen-- has overruled me, denying my more
+humane counsel.... I am sorry, Boyd."
+
+"Brant!" he said in a ringing voice. "Look at me attentively!"
+
+"I look upon you, Boyd."
+
+Then something extraordinary happened; I saw Boyd make a quick sign;
+saw poor Parker imitate him; realized vaguely that it was the Masonic
+signal of distress.
+
+Brant remained absolutely motionless for a full minute; suddenly he
+sprang forward, pushed away the Senecas who immediately surrounded the
+prisoners, shoving them aside right and left so fiercely that in a
+moment the whole throng was wavering and shrinking back.
+
+Then Brant, facing the astonished warriors, laid his hand on Boyd's
+head and then on Parker's.
+
+"Senecas!" he said in a cold and ringing voice. "These men are mine;
+Let no man dare interfere with these two prisoners. They belong to me.
+I now give them my promise of safety. I take them under my
+protection-- I, Thayendanegea! I do not ask them of you; I take them.
+I do not explain why. I do not permit you-- not one among you to-- to
+question me. What I have done is done. It is Joseph Brant who has
+spoken!"
+
+He turned calmly to Boyd, said something in a low voice, turned
+sharply on his heel, and marched forward at the head of his company of
+Mohawks and halfbreeds.
+
+Then I saw Hiokatoo come up and stand glaring at Boyd, showing his
+teeth at him like a baffled wolf; and Boyd laughed in his face and
+seated himself on a log beside the path, coolly and insolently turning
+his back on the Seneca warriors, and leisurely lighting his pipe.
+
+Parker came and seated himself beside him; and they conversed in
+voices so low that I could not hear what they said, but Boyd smiled at
+intervals, and Parker's bruised visage relaxed.
+
+The Senecas had fallen back in a sullen line, their ferocious eyes
+never shifting from the two prisoners. Hiokatoo set four warriors to
+guard them, then, passing slowly in front of Boyd, spat on the ground.
+
+"Dog of a Seneca!" said Boyd fiercely. "What you touch you defile,
+stinking wolverine that you are!"
+
+"Dog of a white man!" retorted Hiokatoo. "You are not yet in your own
+kennel! Remember that!"
+
+"But you are!" said Boyd. "The stench betrays the wolverine! Go tell
+your filthy cubs that my young men are counting the scalps of your
+Cat-People and your Andastes, and that the mangy lock of Amochol shall
+be thrown to our swine!"
+
+Struck entirely speechless by such rash effrontery and by his own
+fury, the dreaded Seneca war-chief groped for his hatchet with
+trembling hands; but a warning hiss from one of his own Mountain
+Snakes on guard brought him to his senses.
+
+Such an embodiment of devilish fury I had never seen on any human
+countenance; only could it be matched in the lightning snarl of a
+surprised lynx or in the deadly stare of a rattlesnake. He uttered no
+sound; after a moment the thin lips, which had receded, sheathed the
+teeth again; and he walked to a tree and stood leaning against it as
+another company of Sir John's Royal Greens marched up from the river
+bank and continued northwest, passing between the tree where I lay
+concealed, and the log where Boyd and Parker sat.
+
+McDonald, mounted, naked claymore in his hand, came by, leading a
+company of his renegades. He grinned at Boyd, and passed his
+basket-hilt around his throat with a significant gesture, then grinned
+again.
+
+"Not yet, you Scotch loon!" said Boyd gently. "I'll live to pepper
+your kilted tatterdemalions so they'll beg for the mercies of
+Glencoe!"
+
+After that, for a long while only stragglers came limping by-- lank,
+bloody, starved creatures, who never even turned their sick eyes on
+the people they passed among.
+
+Then, after nearly half an hour, a full battalion of Johnson's Greens
+forded the river, and behind them came Butler's Rangers.
+
+Old John Butler, squatting his saddle like a weather-beaten toad, rode
+by with scarcely a glance at the prisoners; and Greens and Rangers
+passed on through the village and out of sight to the northwest.
+
+I had thought the defile was ended, when, looking back, I saw some
+Indians crossing the ford, carrying over a white officer. At first I
+supposed he was wounded, but soon saw that he had not desired to wet
+his boots.
+
+What had become of his horse I could only guess, for he wore spurs and
+sword, and the sombre uniform of the Rangers.
+
+Then, as he came up I saw that he was Walter Butler.
+
+As he approached, his dark eyes were fixed on the prisoners; and when
+he came opposite to them he halted.
+
+Boyd returned his insolent stare very coolly, continuing to smoke his
+pipe. Slowly the golden-brown eyes of Butler contracted, and into his
+pale, handsome, but sinister face crept a slight colour.
+
+"So you are Boyd!" he said menacingly.
+
+"Yes, I am Boyd. What next?"
+
+"What next?" repeated Walter Butler. "Well, really I don't know, my
+impudent friend, but I strongly suspect the Seneca stake will come
+next."
+
+Boyd laughed: "We gave Brant a sign that you also should recognize. We
+are now under his protection."
+
+"What sign?" demanded Butler, his eyes becoming yellow and fixed. And,
+as Boyd carelessly repeated the rapid and mystical appeal, "Oh!" he
+said coolly. "So that is what you count on, is it?"
+
+"Naturally."
+
+"With me also?"
+
+"You are a Mason."
+
+"Also," snarled Butler, "I am an officer in his British Majesty's
+service. Now, answer the questions I put to you. How many cannon did
+your Yankee General send back to Tioga after Catharines-town was
+burnt, and how many has he with him?"
+
+"Do you suppose that I am going to answer your questions?" said Boyd,
+amused.
+
+"I think you will, Come, sir; what artillery is he bringing north with
+him?"
+
+And as Boyd merely looked at him with contempt, he stepped nearer,
+bent suddenly, and jerked Boyd to his feet.
+
+"You Yankee dog!" he said; "Stand up when your betters stand!"
+
+Boyd reddened to his temples.
+
+"Murderer!" he said. "Does a gentleman stand in the presence of the
+Cherry Valley butcher?" And he seated himself again on his log.
+
+Butler's visage became deathly, and for a full minute he stood there
+in silence. Suddenly he turned, nodded to Hiokatoo, pointed at Boyd,
+then at Parker. Both prisoners rose as a yell of ferocious joy split
+the air from the Senecas. Then, wheeling on Boyd:
+
+"Will you answer my questions?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Do you refuse to answer the military questions put to you by an
+officer?"
+
+"No prisoner of war is compelled to do that!"
+
+"You are mistaken; I compel you to answer on pain of death!"
+
+"I refuse."
+
+Both men were deadly pale. Parker also had risen and was now standing
+beside Boyd.
+
+"I claim the civilized treatment due to an officer," said Boyd
+quietly.
+
+"Refused unless you answer!"
+
+"I shall not answer. I am under Brant's protection!"
+
+"Brant!" exclaimed Butler, his pallid visage contorted. "What do I
+care for Brant? Who is Brant to offer you immunity? By God, sir, I
+tell you that you shall answer my questions-- any I think fit to ask
+you-- every one of them-- or I turn you over to my Senecas!"
+
+"You dare not!"
+
+"Answer me, or you shall soon learn what I dare and dare not do!"
+
+Boyd, pale as a sheet, said slowly:
+
+"I do believe you capable of every infamy, Mr. Butler. I do believe,
+now, that the murderer of little children will sacrifice me to these
+Senecas if I do not answer his dishonorable questions. And so,
+believing this, and always holding your person in the utmost loathing
+and contempt, I refuse to reveal to you one single item concerning the
+army in which I have the honour and privilege to serve."
+
+"Take him!" said Butler to the crowding Senecas.
+
+
+I have never been able to bring myself to write down how my comrade
+died. Many have written something of his death, judging the manner of
+it from the condition in which his poor body was discovered the next
+day by our advance. Yet, even these have shrunk from writing any but
+the most general details, because the horror of the truth is
+indescribable, and not even the most callous mind could endure it all.
+
+God knows how I myself survived the swimming horror of that hellish
+scene-- for the stake was hewn and planted full within my view.... And
+it took him many hours to die-- all the long September afternoon....
+And they never left him for one moment.
+
+No, I can not write it, nor could I even tell my comrades when they
+came up next day, how in detail died Thomas Boyd, lieutenant in my
+regiment of rifles. Only from what was left of him could they draw
+their horrible and unthinkable conclusions.
+
+I do not know whether I have more or less of courage than the usual
+man and soldier, but this I do know, that had I possessed a rifle
+where I lay concealed, long before they wrenched the first groan from
+his tortured body I would have fired at my comrade's heart and trusted
+to my Maker and my legs.
+
+No torture that I ever heard of or could ever have conceived-- no
+punishment, no agony, no Calvary ever has matched the hellish
+hideousness of the endless execution of this young man.... He was only
+twenty-two years old; only a lieutenant among the thousands who served
+their common motherland. No man who ever lived has died more bravely;
+none, perhaps, as horribly and as slowly. And it seemed as though in
+that powerful, symmetrical, magnificent body, even after it became
+scarcely recognizable as human, that the spark of life could not be
+extinguished even though it were cut into a million shreds and
+scattered to the winds like the fair body of Osiris.
+
+And this is all I care to say how it was that my comrade died, save
+that he endured bravely; and that while consciousness remained, not
+one secret would he reveal; not one plea for mercy escaped his lips.
+
+Parker died more swiftly and mercifully.
+
+It was after sunset when the Senecas left the place, but the sky above
+was still rosy. And as they slowly marched past the corpses of the two
+men whom they had slain, every Seneca drew his hatchet and shouted:
+
+"Salute! O Roya-neh!" fiercely honoring the dead bodies of the bravest
+men who had ever died in the Long House.
+
+
+On the following afternoon I ventured from my concealment, and was
+striving to dig a grave for my two comrades, using my knife to do it,
+when the riflemen of our advance discovered me across the river.
+
+A moment later I looked up, my eyes blinded by tears, as the arm of
+the Sagamore was flung round my shoulders, and the hands of the
+Grey-Feather and Tahoontowhee timidly sought mine.
+
+"Brother!" they said gently.
+
+*"Tekasenthos, O Sagamore!!' I whispered, dropping my head on his
+broad shoulder. "Issi tye-y-ad-akeron, akwah de-ya-kon-akor-on-don!"
+
+[* "I weep, O Sagamore! Yonder are lying bodies, yea, and of chiefs!"]
+
+  CHAPTER XXII
+
+ MES ADIEUX
+
+For my acquaintances in and outside of the army, and for my friends
+and relatives, this narrative has been written; and if in these pages
+I have seemed to present myself, my thoughts, and behaviour as matters
+of undue importance, it is not done so purposely or willingly, but
+because I knew no better method of making from my daily journal the
+story of the times and of the events witnessed by me, and of which I
+was a small and modest part.
+
+It is very true that no two people, even when standing shoulder to
+shoulder, ever see the same episode in the same manner, or draw
+similar conclusions concerning any event so witnessed. Yet, except
+from hearsay, how is an individual to describe his times except in the
+light of personal experience and of the emotions of the moment so
+derived?
+
+In active events, self looms large, even in the crisis of supreme
+self-sacrifice. In the passive part, which even the most active among
+us play for the greater portion of our lives, self is merged in the
+detached and impersonal interest which we take in what passes before
+our eyes. Yet must we describe these things only as they are designed
+and coloured by our proper eyes, and therefore, with no greater hope
+of accuracy than to approximate to the general and composite truth.
+
+Of any intentional injustice to our enemies, their country, and their
+red allies, I do not hesitate to acquit myself; yet, because I have
+related the history of this campaign as seen through the eyes of a
+soldier of the United States, so I would not deny that these same and
+daily episodes, as seen by a British soldier, might wear forms and
+colours very different, and yet be as near to the truth as any
+observations of my own.
+
+Therefore, without diffidence or hesitation-- because I have explained
+myself-- and prejudiced by an unalterable belief in the cause which I
+have had the honour and happiness to serve, it is proper that I bring
+my narrative of these three months to a conclusion.
+
+With these same three months the days of my youth also ended. No
+stripling could pass through those scenes and emerge still immature.
+The test was too terrible; the tragedy too profound; the very setting
+of the tremendous scene-- all its monstrous and gigantic accessories--
+left an impression ineradicable upon the soul. Adolescence matured to
+manhood in those days of iron; youthful ignorance became stern
+experience, sobering with its enduring leaven the serious years to
+come.
+
+
+I remember every separate event after the tragedy of Chenundana, where
+they found me dazed with grief and privation, digging with my broken
+hunting knife a grave for my dead companions.
+
+The horror of their taking off passed from my shocked brain as the
+exigencies of the perilous moments increased, demanding of me constant
+and untiring effort, and piling upon my shoulders responsibilities
+that left no room for morbid brooding or even for the momentary
+inaction of grief.
+
+From Tioga, Colonel Shreve sent forward to us a wagon train of
+provisions, even wines and delicacies for our sick and wounded; but
+even with this slight aid our men remained on half rations; and for
+all our voluntary sacrifice we could not hope now to reach Niagara and
+deliver the final blow to that squirming den of serpents.
+
+True, Amochol was dead; but Walter Butler lived. And there was now no
+hope of reaching him. Bag and baggage, horse, foot, and Indians, he
+had gone clear out of sight and sound into a vast and trackless
+wilderness which we might not hope to penetrate because, even on half
+rations, we had now scarcely enough flour left to take us back to the
+frontiers of civilization.
+
+Of our artillery we had only a light piece or two left, and the
+cohorn; of cattle we had scarcely any; of wagons and horses very few,
+having killed and eaten the more worn-out animals at Horseheads. Only
+the regimental wagons contained any flour; half our officers were
+without mounts; ammunition was failing us; and between us and our
+frontiers lay the ashes of the Dark Empire and hundreds of miles of a
+wilderness so dreary and so difficult that we often wondered whether
+it was possible for human endurance to undergo the endless marches of
+a safe return.
+
+But our task was ended; and when we set our faces toward home, every
+man in our ragged, muddy, brier-torn columns knew in his heart that
+the power of the Iroquois Empire was broken forever. Senecas, Cayugas,
+Onondagas, might still threaten and even strike like crippled snakes;
+but the Long House lay in ashes, and the heart of every Indian in it
+was burnt out.
+
+Swinging out our wings east and west as we set our homeward course,
+burning and destroying all that we had hitherto spared, purposely or
+by accident, we started south; and from the fifteenth of September
+until the thirtieth the only living human being we encountered was the
+aged squaw we had left at Catharines.
+
+Never had I seen such a desolation of utter destruction, for amid the
+endless ocean of trees every oasis was a blackened waste, every town
+but a heap of sodden ashes, every garden a mass of decay, rotting
+under the autumn sun.
+
+On the 30th of September, we marched into Tioga Fort, Colonel Shreve's
+cannon thundering their welcome, and Colonel Proctor's artillery band
+playing a most stirring air. But Lord! What a ragged, half-starved
+army it was! Though we cared nothing for that, so glad were we to see
+our flag flying and the batteaux lying in the river. And the music of
+the artillery filled me with solemn thoughts, for I thought of Lois
+and of Lana; and of Boyd, where he lay in his solitary grave under the
+frosty stars.
+
+On the third of October, the army was in marching order once more;
+Colonel Shreve blew up the Tioga military works; the invalids, women
+and children, and some of the regiments went by batteaux; but we
+marched for Wyoming, passing through it on the tenth, and arriving at
+Easton on the fifteenth.
+
+And I remember that, starved as we were, dusty, bloody with briers,
+and half naked, regiment after regiment halted, sent back for their
+wagons, combed out and tied their hair, and used the last precious
+cupfulls of flour to powder their polls, so that their heads, at least
+might make a military appearance as they marched through the
+stone-built town of Easton.
+
+And so, with sprigs of green to cock their hats, well floured hair,
+and scarce a pair of breeches to a company, our rascals footed it
+proudly into Easton town, fifes squealing, drums rattling, and all the
+church bells and the artillery of the place clanging and booming out a
+welcome to the sorriest-clad army that ever entered a town since
+Falstaff hesitated to lead his naked rogues through Coventry.
+
+Here the thanksgiving service was held; and Lord, how we did eat
+afterward! But for the rest or repose which any among us might have
+been innocent enough to suppose the army had earned, none was meted
+out. Nenny! For instead, marching orders awaited us, and sufficient
+clothing to cool our blushes; and off we marched to join His
+Excellency's army in the Highlands; for what with the new Spanish
+alliance and the arrival of the French fleet, matters were now stewing
+and trouble a-brewing for Sir Henry. They told us that His Excellency
+required pepper for the dose, therefore had he sent for us to mix us
+into the red-hot draught that Sir Henry and my Lord Cornwallis must
+presently prepare to swallow.
+
+I had not had a letter or any word from Lois at Fort Tioga. At Easton
+there was a letter which, she wrote, might not reach me; but in it she
+said that they had taken lodgings in Albany near to the house of Lana
+Helmer; that Mr. Hake had been more than kind; that she and her dear
+mother awaited news of our army with tenderest anxiety, but that up to
+the moment of writing no news was to be had, not even any rumours.
+
+Her letter told me little more, save that her mother and Mr. Hake had
+conferred concerning the estate of her late father; and that Mr. Hake
+was making preparations to substantiate her mother's claim to the
+small property of the family in France-- a house, a tiny hamlet, and
+some vineyards, called by the family name of Contrecoeur, which meant
+her mother was her father's wedded wife.
+
+"Also," she wrote, "my mother has told me that there are in the house
+some books and pictures and pretty joyeaux which were beloved by my
+father, and which he gave to her when she came to Contrecoeur, a
+bride. Also that her dot was still untouched, which, with her legal
+interest in my father's property, would suffice to properly endow me,
+and still leave sufficient to maintain her.
+
+"So you see, Euan, that the half naked little gypsy of Poundridge camp
+comes not entirely shameless to her husband after all. Oh, my own
+soldier, hasten-- hasten! Every day I hear drums in Albany streets and
+run out to see; every evening I sit with my mother on the stoop and
+watch the river redden in the sunset. Over the sandy plains of pines
+comes blowing the wind of the Western wilderness. I feel its breath on
+my cheek, faintly frosty, and wonder if the same wind had also touched
+your dear face ere it blew east to me."
+
+Often I read this letter on the march to the Hudson; ever wondering at
+the history of this sweet mistress of my affections, marvelling at its
+mystery, its wonders, and eternally amazed at this young girl's
+courage, her loyalty and chaste devotion.
+
+I remember one day when we were halted at a cavalry camp, not far from
+the Hudson, conversing with three soldiers-- Van Campen, Perry, and
+Paul Sanborn, they being the three men who first discovered poor
+Boyd's body; and then noticed me a-digging in the earth with bleeding
+fingers and a broken blade.
+
+And they knew the history of Lois, and how she had dressed her in
+rifle-dress, and how she had come to French Catharines. And they told
+me that in the cavalry camp there was talk of a young English girl,
+not yet sixteen, who had clipped her hair, tied it in a queue,
+powdered it, donned jack-boots, belt, and helmet, and come across the
+seas enlisted in a regiment of British Horse, with the vague idea of
+seeking her lover who had gone to America with his regiment.
+
+Further, they told me that, until taken by our men in a skirmish, her
+own comrades had not suspected her sex; that she was a slim, boyish,
+pretty thing; that His Excellency had caused inquiry to be made; and
+that it had been discovered that her lover was serving in Sir John's
+regiment of Royal Greens.
+
+This was a true story, it seemed; and that very morning His Excellency
+had sent her North to Haldimand with a flag, offering her every
+courtesy and civility and recommendation within his power.
+
+Which pretty history left me very thoughtful, revealing as it did to
+me that my own heart's mistress was not the solitary and bright
+exception in a sex which, like other men, I had deemed inferior in
+every virile and mental virtue, and only spiritually superior to my
+own. And I remembered the proud position of social and political
+equality enjoyed by the women of the Long House; and vaguely thought
+it was possible that in this matter the Iroquois Confederacy was even
+more advanced in civilization than the white nations, who regarded its
+inhabitants as debased and brutal savages.
+
+In three months I had seen an Empire crash to the ground; already in
+the prophetic and visionary eyes of our ragged soldiery, a mightier
+empire was beginning to crumble under the blasts from the blackened
+muzzles of our muskets. Soon kings would live only in the tales of
+yesterday, and the unending thunder of artillery would die away, and
+the clouds would break above the smoky field, revealing as our very
+own all we had battled for so long-- the right to live our lives in
+freedom, self-respect, and happiness.
+
+And I wondered whether generations not yet born would pay to us the
+noble tribute which the sons of the Long House so often and reverently
+offered to the dead who had made for them their League of Peace--
+alas! now shattered for all time.
+
+And in my ears the deep responses seemed to sound, solemnly and low,
+as the uncorrupted priesthood chanted at Thendara:
+
+  "Continue to listen,
+  Thou who wert ruler,
+    Ayonhwahtha!
+  Continue to listen,
+  Thou who wert ruler,
+    Shatekariwate!
+
+  This was the roll of you,
+  You who have laboured,
+  You who completed
+  The Great League!
+
+  Continue to listen,
+  Thou who wert ruler,
+    Sharenhaowane!
+  Continue to listen,
+  Thou who wert ruler-- "
+
+And the line of their noble hymn, the "Karenna": "I come again to
+greet and thank the women!"
+
+Lord! A great and noble civilization died when the first cancerous
+contact of the lesser scratched its living Eastern Gate.
+
+* "Hiya-thondek! Kahiaton. Kadi-kadon."
+
+[* "Listen! It is written. Therefore, I speak."]
+
+My commission as lieutenant in the 6th company of Morgan's Rifles
+afforded me only mixed emotions, but became pleasurable when I
+understood that staff duty as interpreter and chief of Indian guides
+permitted me to attach to my person not only Mayaro, the Mohican
+Sagamore, but also my Oneidas, Grey-Feather and Tahoontowhee.
+
+Mounted service the two Oneidas abhorred, preferring to trot along on
+either side of me; but the Sagamore, being a Siwanois, was a horseman,
+and truly he presented a superb figure as the handsome General and his
+staff led the New York brigade into the city of Albany, our battered
+old drums thundering, our fifes awaking the echoes in the old Dutch
+city, and our pretty faded colors floating in the primrose light of
+early evening.
+
+Right and left I glanced as we rode up the hilly street; and suddenly
+saw Lois! And so craned my head and twisted my neck and fidgeted that
+the General, who was sometimes humorous, and who was perfectly
+acquainted with my history, said to me that I had his permission to
+ride standing on my head if I liked, but for the sake of military
+decency he preferred that I dismount at once and make my manners
+otherwise to my affianced wife.
+
+Which I lost no time in doing, not noticing that my Indians were
+following me, and drew bridle at the side-path and dismounted.
+
+But where, in the purple evening light, Lois had been standing on her
+stoop, now there was nobody, though the front door was open wide. So I
+ran across the street between the passing ranks of Gansevoort's
+infantry, sprang up the steps, and entered the dusky house. Through
+the twilight of the polished hallway she came forward, caught me
+around the neck with a low cry, clung to me closer as I kissed her,
+holding to me in silence.
+
+Outside, the racketting drums of a passing regiment filled the house
+with crashing echoes. When the noise had died away again, and the
+drums of the next regiment were still distant, she loosened her arms,
+whispering my name, and framing my face with her slim hands.
+
+Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of three tall
+and shadowy figures hovering in the doorway. Lois saw them, too, and
+stretched out one hand. One after another my three Indians came to
+her, bent their stately crests in silence, took her small hand, and
+laid it on their hearts.
+
+"Shall I bid them to dine with us tomorrow?" she whispered.
+
+"Bid them."
+
+So she asked them a trifle shyly, and they thanked her gravely, turned
+one by one to take a silent leave of me, then went noiselessly out
+into the early dusk.
+
+"Euan, my dear mother is awaiting you in our best room."
+
+"I will instantly pay my duties and----"
+
+"Lana is there also."
+
+"Does she know?"
+
+"Yes. God help her and the young thing she has taken to her heart. The
+news came by courier a week ago."
+
+"How he died? Does she know?"
+
+"Oh, Euan! Yes, we all know now!... I have scarce slept since I heard,
+thinking of you.... When you have paid your respects to my mother and
+to Lana, come quietly away with me again. Lana has been weeping-- what
+with the distant music of the approaching regiments, and the memory of
+him who will come no more----"
+
+"I understand."
+
+She lifted her face to mine, laying her hands upon my shoulders.
+
+"Dost thou truly love me, Lois?" I asked.
+
+* "Sat-kah-tos," she murmured.
+
+[* "Thou seest."]
+
+* "Se-non-wes?" I insisted.
+
+[* "Dost thou love?"]
+
+* "Ke-non-wes, O Loskiel." Her arms tightened around my neck, "Ai-hai!
+Ae-saya-tyen-endon! Ae-sah-hah-i-yen-en-hon----"
+
+[* "I love thee, O Loskiel... Ah, thou mightest have been destroyed!
+If thou hadst perished by the wayside----"]
+
+"Hush, dearest-- dearest maid. 'Twixt God and Tharon, nothing can harm
+us now."
+
+And I heard the faint murmur of her lips on mine:
+
+"Etho, ke-non-wes. Nothing can harm us now."
+
+                               THE END
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE HIDDEN CHILDREN ***
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<title>The Hidden Children</title>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
+"text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<style type="text/css">
+<!--
+body {margin:10%; text-align:justify}
+blockquote {font-size:14pt}
+P {font-size:14pt}
+-->
+</style>
+</head>
+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hidden Children, by Robert
+W. Chambers</h1>
+
+<pre>
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
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+header without written permission.
+
+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
+important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
+how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
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+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: The Hidden Children
+
+Author: Robert W. Chambers
+
+Release Date: January, 2004  [EBook #4984]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 7, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE HIDDEN CHILDREN ***
+
+
+
+
+This eBook was produced by Jim Weiler, xooqi.com.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<h1>The Hidden Children</h1>
+
+<h2>by Robert W. Chambers, 1914</h2>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p align="center" class="center">TO MY MOTHER</p>
+
+<p align="center" class="center">Whatever merit may lie in this
+book is due to her wisdom, her sympathy and her teaching</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p align="center" class="center"><i>AUTHOR'S PREFACE</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>In the four romances&#151; of which, though written last of
+all, this is the third, chronologically speaking&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>BROADALBIN,</p>
+
+<p class="right" align="right"><i>Early Spring,</i> 1913.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<p class="center" align="center"><i>NOTE</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p class="right" align="right">R. W. C.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p class="center" align="center">149 WEST EIGHTY-EIGHTH
+STREET,</p>
+
+<p class="center" align="center">NEW YORK CITY.</p>
+
+<p>MRS. HELEN DODGE KNEELAND:</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>These verses have been published a number of times. About
+three years ago by chance I read them in the December <i>National
+Magazine,</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>Should you be in New York any time, I will take pleasure in
+showing you the original manuscripts.</p>
+
+<p class="center" align="center">Very truly yours,</p>
+
+<p class="right" align="right">ROBERT S. MORRIS, M.D.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>MR. ROBERT CHAMBERS,</p>
+
+<p class="center" align="center">New York.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>Trusting that you will appreciate the interest we have shown
+in this matter, I am</p>
+
+<p class="center" align="center">Sincerely yours,</p>
+
+<p class="right" align="right">HELEN DODGE KNEELAND.</p>
+
+<p class="center" align="center">May 21st, 1914.</p>
+
+<p class="center" align="center">Ann Arbor, Michigan.</p>
+
+<p class="center" align="center">MRS. FRANK G. KNEELAND,</p>
+
+<p class="center" align="center">727 E. University Avenue.</p>
+
+<hr>
+<blockquote>
+<p><br>
+</p>
+
+<p>THE LONG HOUSE</p>
+
+<p> <br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="left" align="left">"Onenh jatthondek
+sewarih-wisa-anongh-kwe kaya-renh-kowah!<br>
+ Onenh wa-karigh-wa-kayon-ne.<br>
+ Onenh ne okne joska-wayendon.<br>
+ Yetsi-siwan-enyadanion ne<br>
+ Sewari-wisa-anonqueh."<br>
+</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p class="left" align="left"><i>"Now listen, ye who established
+the Great League!<br>
+ Now it has become old.<br>
+ Now there is nothing but wilderness.<br>
+ Ye are in your graves who established it."<br>
+</i></p>
+
+<p><br>
+</p>
+
+<p>"At the Wood's Edge."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr>
+<blockquote>
+<p class="left" align="left"><br>
+<b>NENE KARENNA</b></p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p class="left" align="left">When the West kindles red and
+low,<br>
+Across the sunset's sombre glow,<br>
+The black crows fly&#151; the black crows fly!<br>
+High pines are swaying to and fro<br>
+In evil winds that blow and blow.<br>
+The stealthy dusk draws nigh&#151; draws nigh,<br>
+Till the sly sun at last goes down,<br>
+And shadows fall on Catharines-town.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p class="left" align="left"><i>Oswaya swaying to and
+fro.</i></p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p class="left" align="left">By the Dark Empire's Western
+gate<br>
+Eight stately, painted Sachems wait<br>
+For Amochol&#151; for Amochol!<br>
+Hazel and samphire consecrate<br>
+The magic blaze that burns like Hate,<br>
+While the deep witch-drums roll&#151; and roll.<br>
+Sorceress, shake thy dark hair down!<br>
+The Red Priest comes from Catharines-town.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p class="left" align="left"><i>Ha-ai! Karenna! Fate is
+Fate.</i></p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p class="left" align="left">Now let the Giants clothed in
+stone<br>
+Stalk from Biskoonah; while, new grown,<br>
+The Severed Heads fly high&#151; fly high!<br>
+White-throat, White-throat, thy doom is known!<br>
+O Blazing Soul that soars alone<br>
+Like a Swift Arrow to the sky,<br>
+High winging&#151; fling thy Wampum down,<br>
+Lest the sky fall on Catharines-town.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p class="left" align="left"><i>White-throat, White-throat, thy
+course is flown.</i><br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="right" align="right">R. W. C.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr>
+<h3>CHAPTER I</h3>
+
+<h4>THE BEDFORD ROAD</h4>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Also," he nodded, "I can still smell the smoky wood. The
+damage is fresh enough. Look at your map."</p>
+
+<p>He pushed his horse straight up to the closed door, continuing
+to examine the dismantled sign which hung motionless, there being
+no wind stirring.</p>
+
+<p>"This should be Hays's Tavern," he said, "unless they lied to
+us at Ossining. Can you make anything of the sign, Mr.
+Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"I see him," said Boyd coolly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And to us the silent house seemed to say: "Gentlemen,
+gentlemen! Look at the plight <i>I'm</i> in&#151; 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
+<i>you</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>Boyd broke silence with an effort; and his voice was once more
+cool and careless, if a little forced:</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Either there is a man or a ghost within," I said again,
+"Whatever it is has moved."</p>
+
+<p>"A man," said Boyd, "or what the inhumanity of man has left of
+him."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Cowboys and skinners, eh?" inquired Boyd, unbuckling his
+belt.</p>
+
+<p>"And leather-cape, too, sir."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I take it that you see few of our corps here below," he
+observed indulgently.</p>
+
+<p>The landlord's lack-lustre eyes rested on me for an instant,
+then on Boyd:</p>
+
+<p>"Few, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the uniform, landlord?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rifles," he said indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but <i>whose,</i> man? Whose?" insisted Boyd
+impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>The other shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," said the man vacantly.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd laughed a little:</p>
+
+<p>"And look that you hint as much to the idle young bucks
+hereabouts&#151; say it to some of your Westchester squirrel
+hunters&#151;&#151;" 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&#151;
+where women were concerned&#151; "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&#151; the genuine
+article&#151; why, send them to me, landlord&#151; Thomas Boyd,
+of Derry, Pennsylvania, lieutenant, 6th company of Morgan's&#151;
+or to my comrade here, Mr. Loskiel, ensign in the same
+corps."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; eyes that we both understood, alas&#151;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>When we two were alone again, Boyd whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>I drew the coiled linen roll from the breast of my rifle shirt
+and spread it out. We studied it, heads together.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You are still thinking of our landlord's deathly face," I
+said. "Lord! What a very shadow of true manhood crawls about this
+house!"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye&#151; 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&#151; 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is sad," I said, under my breath. "Even when a lass smiles
+on us it seems to start the tears in my throat."</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; they who
+can do nothing except endure and suffer."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not so everywhere," I said, "not yet, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>We sat staring out into the sunshine through a
+bullet-shattered window.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; but not here, Loskiel&#151; not here."</p>
+
+<p>"Our business here is like to be ended tomorrow," I
+remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>en passant,</i> I see small chance of that
+accomplishment hereabout. Will you summon the landlord, Mr.
+Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>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&#151;
+yet he did not thank us.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you not Benjamin Hays?" inquired Boyd, carelessly retying
+his purse.</p>
+
+<p>The fellow seemed startled to hear his own name pronounced so
+loudly, but answered very quietly that he was.</p>
+
+<p>"This house belongs to a great villain, one James Holmes, does
+it not?" demanded Boyd.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you come to keep an ordinary here?"</p>
+
+<p>"The town authorities required an ordinary. I took it in
+charge, as they desired."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Where is this rascal, Holmes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gone below, sir, some time since."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard so. Was he not formerly Colonel of the 4th
+regiment?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"And deserted his men, eh? And they made him
+Lieutenant-Colonel below, did they not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel&#151; of what?" snarled Boyd in disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"Of the Westchester Refugee Irregulars."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Well, look out for him and his refugees. He'll be back
+here one of these days, I'm thinking."</p>
+
+<p>"He has been back."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he do?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Was this done by the banditti from the lower party?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But they burn no houses?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, sir. They have promised to do so next time."</p>
+
+<p>"Are there no troops here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"What troops?"</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Thomas's Regiment and Sheldon's Horse and the Minute
+Men."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what the devil are they about to permit this banditti
+to terrify and ravage a peaceful land?" demanded Boyd.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Boyd, "that is true. We know how it is in the
+North&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; we Americans who had never
+known the lash&#151; we who had never learned to fear a
+master.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd said: "There is a gentleman, one Major Ebenezer Lockwood,
+hereabouts. Do you know him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"What? Why, that seems strange!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd said gravely: "You seem to doubt us, Mr. Hays," and read
+in the man's unsteady eyes distrust of everything on earth&#151;
+and little faith in God.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not blame you," said I gently. "Three years of hell burn
+deep."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "three years. And, as you say, sir, there was
+fire."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What is all that?" asked Boyd harshly.</p>
+
+<p>"The seal of the marauders, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"They burnt you? God, man, you are but one living sore! Did
+any white man do that to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"With hot horse-shoes. It will never quite heal, they
+say."</p>
+
+<p>I saw the lieutenant shudder. The only thing he ever feared
+was fire&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you hesitate to tell us where we may find Major
+Lockwood?" I asked gently.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; something already half dead within him was faintly
+reviving.</p>
+
+<p>"They have set a price on Major Lockwood's head," he said; and
+Boyd halted to listen&#151; and the man looked him in the eyes
+for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>After a silence, Hays said:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Poundridge lies to the east of Bedford?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, about five miles."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the map, Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>Again I drew it from my hunting shirt; we examined it, and
+Hays pointed out the two routes.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd looked up at Hays absently, and said: "Do you know Luther
+Kinnicut?"</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; perhaps the first
+strangers or even neighbours whom he had trusted in years.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, I know him," he said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Below&#151; on our service."</p>
+
+<p>But it was Luther Kinnicut, the spy, whom we had come to
+interview, as well as to see Major Lockwood, and Boyd frowned
+thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>I said: "The Indians hereabout are Mohican, are they not, Mr.
+Hays?"</p>
+
+<p>"They <i>were,"</i> he replied; and his very apathy gave the
+answer a sadder significance.</p>
+
+<p>"Have they all gone off?" asked Boyd, misunderstanding.</p>
+
+<p>"There were very few Mohicans to go. But they have gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Below?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, sir. They and the Stockbridge Indians, and the
+Siwanois are friendly to our party."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151;
+though many people seem to think us but a parcel of militia where
+officer and man herd cheek by jowl."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"There is some talk of the Legion Cavalry, sir&#151; Major
+Tarleton's command."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything definite?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir&#151; only the talk when men of our party meet. And
+Major Lockwood has a price on his head."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is all, sir."</p>
+
+<p>Boyd nodded laughingly, wheeled his horse, and we rode slowly
+out into the Bedford Road, the mounted rifleman dogging our
+heels.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; enemy or friend&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; though it seems
+incredible&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; yet, he was often a
+shade too easy there, also&#151; but with other officers. Those
+ranking him were not always pleased; those whom he ranked felt
+vaguely the mistake.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; handsome,
+active, perfectly fearless, and almost always gay&#151; 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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Loskiel," he said in my ear, "did you see that little maid in
+the orchard, how shyly she smiled on us?"</p>
+
+<p>"On you," I nodded, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you always say that," he retorted.</p>
+
+<p>And I always did say that, and it always pleased him.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is your reputation," I remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, damme, no!" he protested. "Don't say it is my
+reputation!"</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Thus I had left it all&#151; not then knowing who I was or why
+Guy Johnson had been kind to me; nor ever expecting to hear from
+him again.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>Thinking of these things as I rode beside Lieutenant Boyd
+through the calm Westchester sunshine, all that part of my
+life&#151; which indeed was all of my life except these last
+three battle years&#151; seemed already so far sway, so dim and
+unreal, that I could scarce realise I had not been always in the
+army&#151; had not always lived from day to day, from hour to
+hour, not knowing one night where I should pillow my head the
+next.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I now remarked as much to Boyd, who frowned, seeming to
+consider the matter for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"The blessings of peace might permit you more leisure with the
+ladies," I suggested smilingly. And he threw back his handsome
+head and laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!" he exclaimed. "What chance have I, a poor rifleman,
+who may not even wear his hair clubbed and powdered."</p>
+
+<p>Only field and staff now powdered in our corps. I said:
+"Heaven hasten your advancement, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; and now and again a
+family cat dozing on some doorstep freshly swept.</p>
+
+<p>"I had forgotten there was such calm and peace in the world,"
+said Boyd. "And the women look not unkindly on us&#151; do you
+think, Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>A mile outside the town a leather-helmeted dragoon barred our
+way, but we soon satisfied him.</p>
+
+<p>We passed by the Northwest road, crossed the Stamford highway,
+and, consulting our map, turned back and entered it, riding south
+through the village.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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,</p>
+
+<p>Yard, lawn, stables and barns were swarming with people&#151;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;
+what with our leather breeches, and saddle-reek for the only musk
+we wear. Lord! But yonder stands a handsome girl&#151; and my
+condition mortifies me so that I could slink off to the mews for
+shame and lie on straw with the hostlers."</p>
+
+<p>There was, I knew, something genuine in his pretense of hurt
+vanity, even under the merry mask he wore; but I only
+laughed.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"There is even talk of a fort for the ridge yonder," he said.
+"One may see the Sound from there."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"A shilling to a penny they kiss her yet!" he said to me
+presently, and for the second time I noticed the comedy&#151; if
+you choose to call it so&#151; for the wench was now struggling
+fiercely amid the laughing men.</p>
+
+<p>"A pound to a penny!" repeated Boyd; "Do you take me,
+Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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,</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"From a ruddied camp drab?" I asked scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Her cheeks and lips are not painted. I've discovered that,"
+he insisted, staring back at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!" said I. "Would you linger here making sheep's eyes at
+yonder ragged baggage? Come, sir, if you please."</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, I would give a half year's pay to see her washed
+and clothed becomingly!"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; perhaps because there might have been some excuse
+for this one&#151; perhaps because what a man rescues he will not
+willingly leave to another&#151; even such a poor young thing as
+this plaything of the camp&#151; for either of these reasons, or
+for none at all, this ogling of her did not please me.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>He grumbled for a while below his breath, then:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir! Sheer beauty&#151; by the roadside yonder&#151; in
+ragged ribbons and a withered rose. Only&#151; such Puritans as
+you perceive it not."</p>
+
+<p>After a silence, and as we entered the gateway to the manor
+house:</p>
+
+<p>"I swear she wore no paint, Loskiel&#151; whatever she is like
+enough to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens!" said I. "Are you brooding on her still?"</p>
+
+<p>Yet, I myself was thinking of her, too; and because of it a
+strange, slow anger was possessing me.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>A Philistine thought the same, one day&#151; if I remember
+right.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER II</h3>
+
+<h4>POUNDRIDGE</h4>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You wish to see Major Lockwood?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Boyd, "and you may say to him that we are come
+from headquarters express to speak with him on private
+business."</p>
+
+<p>"From whom in Albany do you come, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir, if you must have it, from General Clinton,"
+returned Boyd in a lower voice. "But we would not wish it
+gossipped aloud."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the contents of this letter?" he asked Boyd
+bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Major Lockwood."</p>
+
+<p>"And does Mr. Loskiel know, also?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," I answered.</p>
+
+<p>The Major sat musing, turning over and over the letter between
+thumb and forefinger.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; or dead or in prison&#151;&#151;" He made a
+significant gesture toward the south. And we thought of the
+Prison Ships and the Provost, and sat silent.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Major."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know him, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well indeed. May I inquire what it is you desire of
+Mayaro?"</p>
+
+<p>"This," said Boyd slowly; "and this is the real secret with
+which I am charged&#151; a secret not to be entrusted to
+paper&#151; 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?"</p>
+
+<p>The Major rose, opened the door into the hall, dismissed the
+sentry, closed and locked the door, and returned to us.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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, <i>they have
+guessed wrong!"</i></p>
+
+<p><i>"Not</i> Canada, then?" inquired the Major quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir!" he exclaimed, astonished.</p>
+
+<p>"Straight at the heart o! the Iroquois Confederacy, Major!
+That is what is to be done&#151; 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 <i>heard;</i> you have not <i>seen.</i> 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&#151; for I myself have seen
+scalps taken from the tender heads of cradled infants&#151; nay,
+I have seen them scalp the very hound on guard at the cabin door!
+And <i>that</i> is how it goes with us, sir. God save you, here,
+from the <i>blue-eyed</i> Indians!"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, hesitated, then, softly smiting one fist within
+the other:</p>
+
+<p>"But now I think their doom is sounding&#151; Seneca, lying
+Cayuga, traitorous Onondaga, Mohawk, painted renegade&#151; 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&#151; 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&#151;
+as many as have remained neutral or loyal to us&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence; and I for one, amazed at what I had
+heard&#151; for I had made certain that we were to have struck at
+Canada&#151; 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&#151;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Thinking of these things, my deep abstraction was broken by
+the pleasant voice of Major Lockwood.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>corps
+d'&eacute;lite."</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; I ask you, gentlemen&#151; 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&#151; I ask you how you can
+expect to draw recruits from the handful of men who have been
+holding&#151; or striving to hold&#151; this line for the last
+three years!"</p>
+
+<p>Boyd shook his head in silence. As for me, it was not my place
+to speak, nor had I anything to suggest.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment the Major said, more cheerfully:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>We all laughed a little, and Captain Fancher said:</p>
+
+<p>"Minute Men are Minute Men, Mr. Boyd. You are welcome to any
+you can enlist from my company."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro, the Mohican Sagamore, is in this vicinity."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know that, Alsop?" asked Major Lockwood
+quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw him yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"Here in Poundridge?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hunt glanced at Colonel Thomas, then with a slight colour
+mounting to his temples:</p>
+
+<p>"The Sagamore was talking to one of the camp-women last
+evening&#151; toward sundown on the Rock Hills. We were walking
+abroad for the air, my wife and I&#151;&#151;" 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.".</p>
+
+<p>"Would you know the slattern again?" asked Colonel Thomas,
+scowling.</p>
+
+<p>"I think so, Colonel. And to tell the truth she was scarce a
+slattern, whatever else she may be&#151; a young thing&#151; and
+it seemed sad to us&#151; to my wife and me."</p>
+
+<p>"And handsome?" inquired Boyd, smiling at me.</p>
+
+<p>"I may not deny it, sir," said Mr. Hunt primly. "The child
+possessed considerable comeliness."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you know her again?" inquired Colonel Thomas.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, I&#151;&#151;" 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&#151; and when Boyd
+had bidden me turn again because the girl was handsome, there had
+been no need to turn. I <i>had</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>I now corrected myself, saying coolly enough:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Colonel Thomas, on second thought I think I might know
+her if I see her."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," suggested Captain Fancher, "the wench has gone
+a-gypsying after the convoy."</p>
+
+<p>"These drabs change lovers over night," observed Colonel
+Thomas grimly. "Doubtless Sheldon's troopers are already
+consoling her."</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Sheldon, who had been fiddling uneasily with his
+sword-knot, exclaimed peevishly:</p>
+
+<p>"Good God, sir! Am I also to play chaplain to my command?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>corps d'&eacute;lite</i> to a
+village ordinary!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; who could mistake it in the sweet, fresh
+whiteness of this little roam!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; the only fear he ever knew. These
+things&#151; his brown eyes and quick, gay smile&#151; his lithe
+and supple person&#151; and his love of women&#151; these I
+remember always, even while already much that concerned this man
+and me begins to fade with the stealthy years.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Here our gallant Major made me known to his lady and to his
+numerous family&#151; 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&#151; and
+she was only seventeen, but had been two years the wife of Alsop
+Hunt.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; all save the last
+two children carding or spinning flax and tow.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; though it was her handsome,
+high-spirited daughter who should have worn the sober garb.</p>
+
+<p>"Not I," said she, laughing at Boyd. "I'd sooner don
+jack-boots and be a dragoon&#151; 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; some even carrying their
+pistols.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>About the village itself there was nothing to be seen of the
+girl, nor did I know how to make inquiries&#151; perhaps dreading
+to do so lest my quest be misunderstood or made a jest of by some
+impertinent fellow.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Under his leather helmet I saw that my dragoon was but a child
+of fifteen&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"It will rain before sundown," he said, munching on his apple;
+"best seek shelter, sir. When it comes it will come hard."</p>
+
+<p>"Where runs this road?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"To Boutonville."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is Boutonville?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's where the Boutons live&#151; a mile or two north, sir.
+They're a wild parcel."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they of our party?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, sir. But they hunt the leather-caps as we hunt
+quail&#151; scare up a company, fire, and then track down the
+scattered."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh; irregulars."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I had already turned to retrace my steps when it occurred to
+me that perhaps an inquiry of this lad might not be
+misunderstood.</p>
+
+<p>So I walked up to his horse and stood caressing the sorry
+animal while I described to him the wench I was seeking.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," he said seriously, "that's the one the boys are
+ever plaguing to make her rage."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know her?"</p>
+
+<p>"By sight, yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"She is one of the camp followers, I take it," said I
+carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"She was loitering this afternoon by the camp of Colonel
+Thomas's men," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Very like, sir. Did the men plague her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>He bit into his apple, unconcerned:</p>
+
+<p>"They are all after her. But I never saw her kind to any
+man&#151; whatever she may be."</p>
+
+<p>Why, I did not know, but what he said gave me
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know which way she went?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"With a Sagamore?"</p>
+
+<p>He continued his munching. Having swallowed what he chewed, he
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"I know nothing of savages or Sagamores. The Indian may have
+been a Sagamore."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know where he is to be found?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, I do not."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps this young girl knows?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless she does, seeing she journeys about with him on the
+ridge yonder, which we call the Rock Hills."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know her name, soldier?"</p>
+
+<p>"They call her Lois, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You need have no fear of me," I called to her pleasantly.
+"You know me now, do you not?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Child," I said, smiling at her, I know not why, "I have been
+searching for you ever since I first saw you&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>And: "What do you want of me?" said she, scarce moving her
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>"A favour."</p>
+
+<p>"Best mount your cobbler's mare and go a-jogging back, my
+pretty lad."</p>
+
+<p>The calm venom in her voice and her insolent grey eyes took me
+aback more than her saucy words.</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless," I said. "you have not recognized in me the
+officer who was at some slight pains to be of
+service&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it you desire?" said she, so rudely that I felt my
+face burn hot.</p>
+
+<p>"See here, my lass," said I sharply, "you seem to
+misunderstand my errand here."</p>
+
+<p>"And am like to," said she, "unless you make your errand short
+and plainer&#151; though I have learned that the errands which
+bring such men as you to me are not too easily
+misunderstood."</p>
+
+<p>"Such men as I&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"You and your friend with the bold, black eyes. Ask him how
+much change he had of me when he came back."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know he had seen you again," said I, still redder.
+And saw that she believed me not.</p>
+
+<p>"Birds sing; men lie," said she. "So if&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry I spoke as I did," said I, "&#151; however
+mistaken you are concerning my seeking you here."</p>
+
+<p>She said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I am wise enough&#151; after my own fashion," she said
+indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"Does a man save and then return to destroy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Many a hunter has saved many a spotted fawn from wolf and
+fox&#151; so he might kill it himself, one day."</p>
+
+<p>"You do yourself much flattery, young woman," I said, so
+unpleasantly that again the hot colour touched her throat and
+brow.</p>
+
+<p>"I reason as I have been taught," she said defiantly.
+"Doubtless you are self-instructed."</p>
+
+<p>"No; men have taught me. You witnessed, I believe, one lesson.
+And your comrade gave me still another."</p>
+
+<p>"I care to witness nothing," I said, furious; "far less desire
+to attempt your education. Is all plain now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your words are," she said, with quiet contempt.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>She shrugged her shabby shoulders and waited, her eyes, her
+expression, her very attitude indifferent, yet dully
+watchful.</p>
+
+<p>"You know the Sagamore, Mayaro?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"You say so."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he to be found?" I continued patiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you desire to know?"</p>
+
+<p>The drab was exasperating me, and I think I looked it, for the
+slightest curl of her sullen lips hinted a scornful smile.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you wish to know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I desire to consult him concerning certain
+matters."</p>
+
+<p>"What matters?"</p>
+
+<p>"Matters which do not concern you!" I snapped out.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure of that, pretty boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I sure?" I repeated, furious. "What do you mean? Will you
+answer an honest question or not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you desire to see this Sagamore?" she repeated so
+obstinately that I fairly clenched my teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Answer me," I said. "Or had you rather I fetched a file of
+men up here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fetch a regiment, and I shall tell you nothing unless I
+choose."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"You had not so named yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, then; I am Euan Loskiel, Ensign in Morgan's rifle
+regiment!"</p>
+
+<p>"You say so."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you doubt it?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; so closely that something&#151; her
+nearness&#151; I know not what&#151; seemed to stop my heart and
+breath for a second.</p>
+
+<p>Then, far on the western hills lightning glimmered; and after
+a long while it thundered.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you wish me to find this Sagamore for you?" she asked very
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you do so?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you lodge?" she asked, after a silent scrutiny of
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"This night I am a guest at Major Lockwood's. Tomorrow I
+travel north again with my comrade, Lieutenant Boyd."</p>
+
+<p>She was looking steadily at me all the time; finally she
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"Somehow, I believe you to be a friend to liberty. I know
+it&#151; somehow."</p>
+
+<p>"It is very likely, in this rifle dress I wear," said I
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet a man may dress as he pleases."</p>
+
+<p>"You mistrust me for a spy?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I turned hot and scarlet with chagrin at her cool
+presumption&#151; and would not for worlds have had her see how
+the impudence stung and shamed me.</p>
+
+<p>For a full minute she stood there watching me; then:</p>
+
+<p>"I ask pardon," she said very gravely.</p>
+
+<p>And somehow, when she said it I seemed to experience a sense
+of inferiority&#151; which was absurd and monstrous, considering
+what she doubtless was.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said I astonished, "may I not seek shelter from a storm
+in a ruined sugar-house, without asking by your leave?"</p>
+
+<p>"This sap-house is my own dwelling!" she said hotly. "It is
+where I live!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lord," said I, bewildered, "&#151; if you are like to
+take offense at everything I say, or look, or do, I'll find a
+hospitable tree somewhere&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, sir&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>She stood looking at me in the doorway, then slowly dropped
+her eyes, and in the same law voice I had heard once before:</p>
+
+<p>"I ask your pardon once again," she said. "Please to come
+inside&#151; and close the door. An open door draws
+lightning."</p>
+
+<p>It was already drawing the rain in violent gusts.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you a light hereabout?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"No,"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I went to the door, looked out into the dripping woods, and
+turned to her.</p>
+
+<p>"When will you bring the Sagamore to me?" I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not promised."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will?"</p>
+
+<p>She waited a while, then:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I will bring him."</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tonight."</p>
+
+<p>"You promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And if it rains again''</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I said to her, with a slight but reassuring smile, most kindly
+intended:</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"If I doubted that," she said, "I had rather pass the knife
+you wear around my throat than trouble myself to oblige you."</p>
+
+<p>Her words, and the quiet, almost childish voice, seemed so
+oddly at variance that I almost laughed; but changed my mind.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>Very slowly she put forth her own&#151; 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&#151; this young girl's beauty&#151; yes, despite
+her sorry mien and her rags&#151; a beauty that was fashioned to
+trouble men; and which was steadily invading my senses whether I
+would or no.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; a something&#151;
+indescribable perhaps&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Rain or no," said I, "she has promised me to send this
+Sagamore here tonight. And I am confident she will keep her
+word."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>All women liked Boyd; none was insensible to his charm.
+Handsome, gay, amusing&#151; and tender, alas!&#151; too
+often&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Major Lockwood went to him instantly, and drew him in the
+door; and they spoke together in low and rapid tones.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Lockwood murmured in my ear:</p>
+
+<p>"It's one of Luther's men. There is bad news for us from
+below, I warrant you."</p>
+
+<p>We heard the Major say:</p>
+
+<p>"You will instantly acquaint Colonels Thomas and Sheldon with
+this news. Tell Captain Fancher, too, in passing."</p>
+
+<p>The messenger turned away into the storm, and Major Lockwood
+called after him:</p>
+
+<p>"Is there no news of Moylan's regiment?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>The Major, who still stood at the door, turned around and
+glanced at his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, dear&#151; if we may know?" asked she, quite
+calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "you should know, Hannah. And it may not be
+true, but&#151; somehow, I think it is. Tarleton is out."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he headed this way, Ebenezer?" asked Mr. Hunt, after a
+shocked silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&#151; yes, so they say. Luther Kinnicut sends the
+warning. It seems to be true."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Will they make a stand, do you think?" I whispered to Boyd, "
+or shall we be sent a-packing?"</p>
+
+<p>"If there be not too many of them I make a guess that
+Sheldon's Horse will stand."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is to be our attitude?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER III</h3>
+
+<h4>VIEW HALLOO!</h4>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>As for Colonel Sheldon, booted, sashed, and helmeted, he sat
+apathetic and inert in the hall, obstinately refusing to mount
+his men.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Major Lockwood, coming in at the moment, flung aside his
+dripping riding cloak.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," said he to Sheldon, "the rumour that the Legion is
+abroad has reached your men, and they are saddling in my
+barns."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>This fiery young dragoon's plume, helmet, and cloak were
+dripping, and he impatiently dashed the water from feathers and
+folds.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir!" began Colonel Sheldon loudly, "I have as yet given no
+order to saddle!"</p>
+
+<p>And, "By God, sir," says Tallmadge, "the orders must have come
+from somebody, for they're doing it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir&#151; sir!" stammered Sheldon, "What d'ye mean by
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" says Tallmadge coolly, "I mean what I say. Orders must
+have been given by somebody."</p>
+
+<p>No doubt; for the orders came from himself, the clever trooper
+that he was&#151; and so he left Sheldon a-fuming and Major
+Lockwood and Mr. Hunt most earnestly persuading him to sanction
+this common and simple precaution.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; for no
+reason whatever, apparently, save to exhibit a petty tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Jack," said I, "this is rare weather for Colonel
+Tarleton's fox hunting."</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; and not a vidette
+out&#151; not so much as a militia picket, save for the minute
+men which Colonel Thomas and Major Lockwood have sent out
+afoot."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I could scarcely avoid smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you then, for one, believe that Colonel Tarleton will
+venture abroad on such a night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe as you do," said the rifleman coolly, "&#151; being
+some three years or more a soldier of my country."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! And what do <i>I</i> believe, Jack?"</p>
+
+<p>"Being an officer who commands as good a soldier as I am, you,
+sir, believe as I do."</p>
+
+<p>I was obliged to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Jack&#151; so you agree with me that the Legion Cavalry
+is out?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"And why is it so certain in your mind, Jack Mount?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"You mean the unexpected."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Fancher passed with a lantern, and I ventured to
+accost him and mention very modestly my present misgivings
+concerning our present situation.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Lieutenant Boyd and I have volunteered as a scout of three,"
+I said, "but Colonel Sheldon has declined our services with scant
+politeness."</p>
+
+<p>Fancher stood far a moment, his rain-smeared lantern hanging
+motionless at his side.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"It is <i>you!"</i> I exclaimed, hastening forward to draw her
+under shelter.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You use me very kindly," I said, "to venture abroad tonight
+on my behalf."</p>
+
+<p>"I am abroad," she said, "on behalf of my country."</p>
+
+<p>Only her eyes I could see over the edge of the scarlet cloak,
+and they regarded me very coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"I meant it so," I said hastily, "What of the Sagamore? Will
+he come?"</p>
+
+<p>"He will come as I promised you."</p>
+
+<p>"Here?" I said, delighted. "This very night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, here, this night."</p>
+
+<p>"How good&#151; 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, calmly, "afoot. Since when, sir, have beggars
+ridden to a tryst except in pretty fables?"</p>
+
+<p>"Had I known it, I would have taken horse and gone for you and
+brought you here riding pillion behind me."</p>
+
+<p>"Had I desired you to come for me, Mr. Loskiel, I should not
+have troubled you here."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Come nearer," she motioned.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>She said in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; good night."</p>
+
+<p>"Has he business also with Major Lockwood?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; hundreds of them&#151; in jack-boots and
+helmets."</p>
+
+<p>"Were their jackets red?"</p>
+
+<p>"He could not tell. They were too closely cloaked,"</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Moylan's dragoons?" I said anxiously. "Do you think
+so?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Even in my growing anxiety, I was conscious of the
+faithfulness that this poor girl had displayed&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Has the Sagamore spoken with Colonel Sheldon?" I asked
+gently.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you tarry here till I return?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you further use of me, Mr. Loskiel'"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>As I approached them, the Mohican turned his head and shot a
+searching glance at me. Boyd said:</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Does my brother the Sagamore believe he has seen me somewhere
+heretofore?" I asked, smilingly. "Perhaps it may have been
+so&#151; at Johnson Hall&#151; or at Guy Park, perhaps, where
+came many chiefs and sachems and Sagamores in the great days of
+the great Sir William&#151; the days that are no more, O
+Sagamore!"</p>
+
+<p>And: "My brother's given name?" inquired the savage
+bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"Euan&#151; 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?"</p>
+
+<p>The savage's eyes wavered, then sought the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro has forgotten," he replied very quietly, using the
+Delaware phrase&#151; 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:</p>
+
+<p>"Is my brother Siwanois or Mohican?"</p>
+
+<p>A cunning expression came into his features:</p>
+
+<p>"If a Siwanois marries a Mohican woman, of what nation are the
+children, my new brother, Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mohican," I said in surprise,&#151; "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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; not even had his eyes changed, which features are
+quickest to alter when Indians betray emotion.</p>
+
+<p>I said in a mortified voice:</p>
+
+<p>"The Siwanois Sagamore will believe that his new brother,
+Loskiel, meant no offense." And I saw that the compliment had
+told.</p>
+
+<p>"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
+<i>Mohican</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>Boyd, with a triumphant glance at me, said eagerly:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore's eyes flashed:</p>
+
+<p>"The belts we remember are red!" he said. "We Mohicans have
+never understood Iroquois wampum. Let the Lenape of the
+Kansonsionni bear Iroquois belts!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I began by saluting him with the most insidious and stately
+compliment I could possibly offer to a Sagamore of a conquered
+race&#151; a race which already was nearly extinct&#151;
+investing this Mohican Sagamore with the prerogatives of his very
+conquerors by the subtlety of my opening phrase:</p>
+
+<p>"O Sagamore! Roya-neh! Noble of the three free clans of a
+<i>free Mohican people!</i> Our people have need of you. The path
+is dark to Catharines-town. Terror haunts those frightful shades.
+Roya-nef! We need you!</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; my war axe
+and my knife?"</p>
+
+<p>I raised my right arm slowly, and drew with my forefinger a
+great circle in the air around us:</p>
+
+<p>"Brother! Listen attentively! Since a Sagamore has read the
+belt I <i>yesterday</i> 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&#151; now here&#151; now, in this place and on this day,
+I have returned to the Mohican fire &#151; <i>the Fire of
+Tamanund!</i> 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; an appeal to which no Huron, no
+Iroquois, no Algonquin, is ever deaf.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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;
+<i>answering my brother's words of yesterday."</i></p>
+
+<p>I could hear Boyd's deep breath of profound relief. "Thank
+God!" I thought.</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore spoke again, very quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"Brother, the road is dark to Catharines-town. There are no
+stars there, no moon, no sun&#151; 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&#151; 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&#151; 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; now, I say&#151; 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, <i>so that behind us, the steps of
+many men shall not stumble,</i> and the darkness of the Long
+House shall become redder than dawn, <i>lighted by the flames of
+a thousand rifles!</i></p>
+
+<p>"Brother! A Sagamore never lies. I have drawn my brother's
+knife! Brother, I have spoken!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Take a dozen men with you, and meet Colonel Moylan! A dozen
+will be sufficient, Major!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>As I came up with her, she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Why are the light dragoons riding on the Bedford road? Is
+aught amiss?"</p>
+
+<p>"A very large body of horse has passed our videttes, making
+toward Ridgefield. Colonel Sheldon thinks it must be Moylan's
+regiment."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It may be so."</p>
+
+<p>"And if it be the leather-caps?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then we must find ourselves in a sorry pickle."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>We watched them out of sight, then she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have awaited your pleasure, Mr. Loskiel. Pray, in what
+further manner can I be of service to&#151; my country?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;
+with a heart&#151; very full."</p>
+
+<p>"Have I then done well?" she asked slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed you have!" I replied, with such a warmth of feeling
+that it surprised myself.</p>
+
+<p>"Then why may I not understand this thing that I have
+done&#151; for my country?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I might tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"May you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I dare not."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait&#151;&#151;" I was by her side again in the same
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"May I not suitably express my gratitude to you?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"You have already done so."</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; how
+deeply we must ever remain in your debt. Yet&#151; I will attempt
+to express our thanks&#151; if you care to listen."</p>
+
+<p>After a pause: "Then&#151; if there is nothing more to say
+&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"There is, I tell you. Will you not listen?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been thanked&#151; suitably.... I will say adieu,
+sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you&#151; would you so far favour me as to make known
+to me your name?" I said, stammering a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois is my name," she said indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"No more than that?"</p>
+
+<p>"No more than that."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; some truer
+gratitude expressed&#151; some warmth.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; and
+because now we are about to go our different ways into the world
+before us&#151; I ask of you two things. May I do so?"</p>
+
+<p>After a moment, looking away from me across the meadow:</p>
+
+<p>"Ask," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the first is&#151; will you take my hand in adieu&#151;
+and let us part as good soldiers part?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"And one more thing," I said, while this strange and curious
+reluctance to let her go was now steadily invading me.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you wear a comrade's token&#151; in memory of an hour or
+two with him?"</p>
+
+<p><i>"What!"</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; blindly, now, and clumsily past all belief, my
+hand was shaking so absurdly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>At length I gathered sufficient composure to step to her side
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Once more, little comrade, good-bye," I said. "This ends it
+all."</p>
+
+<p>Again she turned her shoulder to me, but I heard her low
+reply:</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye&#151; Mr. Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>And so it ended.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; the first I had
+seen that year&#151; and God alone knows where were my thoughts
+a-gypsying, when, very far away, I heard a gun-shot.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Another dragoon appeared, riding <i>a diable</i>&#151; and a
+dozen more behind these; and on their heels a-galloping, a great
+body of red-jacketed horsemen&#151; hundreds of them&#151; the
+foremost shooting from their saddles, the great mass of them
+swinging their heavy cutlasses and spurring furiously after our
+flying men.</p>
+
+<p>I had seen far more than was necessary, and I ran for my
+horse. Other officers came running, too&#151; Sheldon, Thomas,
+Lockwood, and my Lieutenant Boyd.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"See what this damned Sheldon has done for us now! God! What
+disgrace is ours!"</p>
+
+<p>I saw Colonel Sheldon presently, pale as death, and heard him
+exclaim:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Christ! I shall be broke for this! I shall be broke!"</p>
+
+<p>I made out to say to Boyd:</p>
+
+<p>"The enemy are coming in hundreds, sir, and we have scarce
+four score men mounted by the Meeting House."</p>
+
+<p>"They'll never stand, either," he panted. "But if they do
+we'll see this matter to an end."</p>
+
+<p>"Our orders?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn our orders," said he. "We'll see this matter to an
+end."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; there was no other choice for officers
+and men&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; one captain, one cornet and a
+trumpeter lad, the remainder being rank and file, and several
+mounted militiamen.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; stole
+away!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Half a mile farther on there ran a sandy, narrow cross road
+into the woods on either side of us.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"They are not too many," said the dragoon captain coolly,
+beckoning to his little bugle-horn.</p>
+
+<p>Willows hid us until their advanced troopers were close to
+where we sat&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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&#151; and a troop of his brood mares&#151; 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&#151; God, what
+a blow!&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Somebody said in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"They've fired the church, now."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"They took Mr. Reed, too," said another. "They had a dozen
+neighbours under guard when I left."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What a pitiful mess!" whispered Boyd. "Is there nothing to be
+done but sit here and see the red beasts yonder sack the
+town?"</p>
+
+<p>Before I could answer, I caught the sound of distant firing on
+the Lewisboro road. Colonel Thomas reared stiffly in his saddle,
+and:</p>
+
+<p>"Those are my own men!" he said loudly, "or I lie like a
+Tory!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Along the road below us a column of Continental infantry
+appeared on the run, cheering us with their hats.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I know&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Surrender, you damned rebels! Pull up, there! Halt!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>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&#151;
+truly a terrific shape in the falling dusk.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; as I supposed&#151; a bear.</p>
+
+<p>And of a sudden, within me, vaguely, something stirred&#151;
+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&#151;
+and yet&#151; this bear seemed somehow different&#151; and yet
+familiar&#151; strangely familiar to me&#151; but in a manner
+which awoke within me an unrest as subtle as it was curoius.</p>
+
+<p>I drew bridle, and as the Sagamore came up, I said
+uneasily:</p>
+
+<p>"Brother, and ensign of the great bear clan of many nations,
+why is the symbol that you wear familiar to me&#151; and yet so
+strangely unfamiliar?"</p>
+
+<p>He shot a glance of lightning intelligence at me, then
+instantly his features became smoothly composed and blank
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Has my brother never before seen the Spirit Bear?" he asked
+coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a clan, Mayaro?"</p>
+
+<p>"Among the Siwanois only." "That is strange," I muttered. "I
+have never before seen a Siwanois. Where could I have seen a
+Siwanois? Where?"</p>
+
+<p>But he only shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd and Mount had pricked forward; I still lingered by the
+Mohican. And presently I said:</p>
+
+<p>"That was a brave little maid who bore our message to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>He made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been wondering," I continued carelessly, "whether she
+has no friends&#151; so poor she seems&#151; so sad and
+friendless, Have you any knowledge of her?"</p>
+
+<p>The Indian glanced at me warily, "My brother Loskiel should
+ask these questions of the maid herself."</p>
+
+<p>"But I shall never see her again, Sagamore. How can I ask her,
+then?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3>
+
+<h4>A TRYST</h4>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; his halts merely the bewilderment of
+baffled fury, his charges blind and bellowing.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; uncertain concerning his loyalty to the very verge
+of suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, of one thing I had become almost convinced: the Siwanois,
+while we slept, met and held communication with somebody outside
+our camp.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; and even in my secret heart
+believing him to be so&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Faintly&#151; oh, scarce audible at all&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>Hushed voices, whispers, undertones as soft as summer night
+winds&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; perhaps
+for a fallen branch or heap of fern and withered leaf&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly the grey shape bounded upright, and I heard a
+whispering cry of terror stifled to a sob.</p>
+
+<p>And then a stunning silence fell between us twain.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois?" I made out to whisper.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not wish to ask that privilege of&#151;&#151;" She
+hesitated, then bent her head. "&#151;&#151; of any man. What
+harm have I caused you by following?"</p>
+
+<p>I said, still amazed and wondering:</p>
+
+<p>"I understand it all now. The Sagamore brings you food. Is
+that true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"And you have kept in touch with us ever since we
+started?"</p>
+
+<p>"With Mayaro."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have told you that I had no wish to travel in your
+company."</p>
+
+<p>"But for protection&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Protection! I have heard that, too, from men. It is ever on
+men's lips&#151; that word meaning damnation. I thank you, Mr.
+Loskiel, I require no protection."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you distrust Lieutenant Boyd or me? Or what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Men! And you twain are two of them."</p>
+
+<p>"You fear such men as we are!" I demanded impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"I know nothing of you," she answered, "save that you are
+men."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean Mr. Boyd&#151; and his thoughtless
+gallantry&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean <i>men!</i> <i>All</i> 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&#151; spite of the
+Iroquois." She added bitterly; "And it is known to civilization
+that <i>the Iroquois are to be trusted where the white man is
+not!"</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Come into camp this night," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"I will not."</p>
+
+<p>"You must do so. I may not leave you here alone."</p>
+
+<p>"I can care for myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&#151; as you cared for yourself when I crept up behind
+you. And if I had been a savage&#151; then what?"</p>
+
+<p>"A quick end," she said coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"Or a wretched captivity&#151; perhaps marriage to some
+villainous Iroquois&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; but nothing worse than marriage!"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Birds sing, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you come into camp?" I repeated hotly.</p>
+
+<p>"And if I will not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, by heaven, I'll carry you in my arms! Will you
+come?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I stood watching her for a few moments, then sat down
+cross-legged before her.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you doubt me, Lois?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear sir, I do not <i>doubt</i> you," she answered with
+faintest malice.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you I am not of that stripe!" I said angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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; "&#151;&#151; proved themselves men, in
+plainer words."</p>
+
+<p>She sat eating thoughtfully, looking aloft now and then at the
+thick splendor of the firmament.</p>
+
+<p>Then, breaking a bit of corn bread, she said gravely:</p>
+
+<p>"I do not mean that you have not been kind, as men mean
+kindness. I do not even mean that I blame men.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>After a short silence, I said: "Who, in the name of heaven,
+are you, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"Does that concern you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would have it concern me&#151; if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear sir," she said very coolly, "I wish nothing of the
+kind."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not trust me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes, as I trust every man&#151; except a red one."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet, I tell you that all that animates me is a desire to
+render you a comrade's service&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"And I thank you, Mr. Loskiel, because, like other men, you
+mean it generously and well. Yet, you are an officer in the
+<i>corps d'&eacute;lite;</i> and you would be ashamed to have the
+humblest bugler in your regiment see you with such a one as
+I."</p>
+
+<p>She broke another morsel from her bread:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked up at the stare, and then quietly at me.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; as did those of your friend,
+yonder by a dead fire asleep."</p>
+
+<p>"All men are not so fashioned. Can you not believe me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You say so, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and I say that I am not."</p>
+
+<p>"Birds sing."</p>
+
+<p>"Lois, will you let me aid you?"</p>
+
+<p>"In what? The Sagamore feeds me; and the Middle Fort is not so
+far."</p>
+
+<p>"And at the Middle Fort how will you live?"</p>
+
+<p>"As I have lived; wash for the soldiers; sew for them&#151;
+contrive to find a living as I journey."</p>
+
+<p>"Whither?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is my own affair."</p>
+
+<p>"May I not aid?"</p>
+
+<p>"You could not if you would; you would not if you could."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask me, Lois."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What is your wish?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head: "It is useless to voice it&#151;
+useless."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"I travel light, Mr. Loskiel. But otherwise there is nothing
+light about me."</p>
+
+<p>"Lois, I pray you, listen. As I am a man, I can not leave you
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"For that reason, sir, you will presently take your
+leave."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I shall remain if you will not come into camp with
+us."</p>
+
+<p>She said impatiently:</p>
+
+<p>"I lie safer here than you around your fire. You mean well;
+now take your leave of me&#151; with whatever flight of fancy,"
+she added mockingly, "that my present condition invests me with
+in the eyes of a very young man."</p>
+
+<p>The rudeness of the fling burnt my face, but I answered
+civilly:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You waste time mounting sentry over me," she said in a low
+voice. "Best employ your leisure in the sleep you need."</p>
+
+<p>"I can not sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I&#151; if you remain here awake beside me."</p>
+
+<p>She raised herself on her elbow, peering through the darkness
+toward the stream.</p>
+
+<p>"The Siwanois has been standing yonder by the stream watching
+us this full hour past. Let him mount sentry if he wishes."</p>
+
+<p>"You have a tree-cat's eyes," I said. "I see nothing."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; <i>fearing myself.</i></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It may have been pride&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; know that
+I meant her kindness&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151;
+and her beauty ever a flaming danger to herself, despite her
+tatters aud because of them.</p>
+
+<p>I slept at last; I do not know how long. The stars still
+glittered overhead when I awoke, remembered, and suddenly sat
+upright.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And there I read her message: "A rose for your ring, comrade.
+And be not angry with me."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>So I lay down, leaving Jack Mount a-cooking ashen cakes, and
+yawning.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER V</h3>
+
+<h4>THE GATHERING</h4>
+
+<p>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&#151;
+our shelter and our menace also.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>We were, however, within a wolf-hound's easy run to Cherry
+Valley, Fort Hunter, and the Mohawk&#151; 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 Vlaie 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Here it lay, close on our left flank&#151; so close that its
+strange gigantic shadow fell upon us, like a vast hand, stealthy
+and chill.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; yes, even when we began to meet or
+overtake men of our own color&#151; the stupendous desolation
+yielded nothing of its brooding mystery and dumb
+magnificence.</p>
+
+<p>Westward, the green monotony of trees stretched boundless as
+an ocean, and as trackless and uncharted&#151; gigantic forests
+in the depths of which twilight had brooded since first the world
+was made.</p>
+
+<p>Here, save for the puny, man-made trail&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," said the express soberly. "Brant and his Mohawks
+are out somewhere or other, and so is Walter Butler and his
+painted crew."</p>
+
+<p>"In this same district?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"He must truly be a man of iron," said I, "if we win
+through."</p>
+
+<p>"We will win through, Loskiel," he said gaily, "&#151; to
+Catharines-town or paradise&#151; to hell or heaven. And what a
+tale to tell our children&#151; we who survive!"</p>
+
+<p>An odd expression came into his handsome face, and he said in
+a low and dreamy voice:</p>
+
+<p>"I think that almost every man will live to tell that
+story&#151; yet, I can never hear myself telling the tale in
+years to come."</p>
+
+<p>On paths and new-made highways we began to encounter people
+and cattle&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I could see that Boyd also was thinking of this ghastly
+business, as I caught his sombre eye. He seemed to shudder,
+then:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; officers, troops, batt-men&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; asking if he
+knew who she was, and where she came from, and why she journeyed,
+and whither.</p>
+
+<p>He answered&#151; when he replied at all&#151; that he had no
+knowledge of these things. And I knew he lied, but did not know
+how I might make him speak.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sagamore," I said earnestly, "this maid is no wild gypsy
+thing&#151; 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?"</p>
+
+<p>The Indian said cunningly:</p>
+
+<p>"Why has my brother Loskiel abandoned roof and fire for a bed
+on the forest moss?"</p>
+
+<p>"A man must do battle for his own people, Sagamore."</p>
+
+<p>"A white maid may do what pleases her, too, for aught I know,"
+he said indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"Why does it please her to roam abroad alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"How should I know?"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>do</i> know!"</p>
+
+<p>"Loskiel," he said, "if I know why, perhaps I know of other
+matters, too. Ask me some day&#151; before they send you into
+battle."</p>
+
+<p>"What matters do you know of?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ask me no more, Loskiel&#151; until your conch-horns blowing
+in the forest summon Morgan's men to battle. Then ask; and a
+Sagamore will answer&#151; a Siwanois Mohican&#151; of the magic
+clan. Hiero!"</p>
+
+<p>That ended it; he had spoken, and I was not fool enough to
+urge him to another word.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; tenderness,
+consciousness of some subtlety about her that attracted me&#151;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, all day long her face and slim shape haunted me&#151; a
+certain sullen sweetness of the lips, too&#151; 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?"</p>
+
+<p>Seldom, as yet, had dream of woman vexed me&#151; and when I
+dreamed at all it was but a tinselled figment that I saw&#151;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Out of the castled glory of the dawn, doubtless, I thought,
+would step one day my vision&#151; to admire my fame and riches.
+And her I'd marry&#151; after our good King had knighted me.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; or as much of it as had
+arrived&#151; from which we expected soon to be detached.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>I knew no more than did he, and liked our new quarters no
+better.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"He is staunch, I think," said I. "But for heaven's sake,
+Benny, are we to sleep in filthy barracks in July?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not you, I hear," he said, laughing, "&#151;&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll show you presently. I think that Jimmy Parr desires to
+see your gentle savage," he added flippantly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Riflemen, drovers, batt-men, frontier farmers, and some of the
+dirty flotsam&#151; trappers, forest-runners, and the like&#151;
+were continually moving about the parade, going and coming on
+petty, sordid business of their own; and there were women there,
+too&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>Presently our mincing ensign came to us again, saying that the
+Sagamore and I were to report ourselves to the Major.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I glanced at Captain Simpson and Lieutenant Boyd, hesitating
+for a moment. Then I said:</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro is a Sagamore, Major&#151; a noble and an ensign of a
+unique clan&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro is a great chief among his people&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>And to me he added bluntly:</p>
+
+<p>"Translate, Mr. Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"I think the Sagamore has understood, sir," said I. "Is it not
+so, Sagamore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro has understood," said the Indian quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Does the great Mohican Sagamore accept?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; and
+the Sagamore, too, no doubt, could rattle a flam with a wooden
+spoon."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; with Indian Butler out, and all
+that vile and painted, blue-eyed crew under McDonald.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; a steady and perceptible apprehension
+which kept me restless, giving my mind no peace, my brooding
+thoughts no rest.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; who had been but the
+comrade of an hour? Why had I been so loath to part with her whom
+I scarce had met? <i>What</i> was it in her that had fixed my
+attention? What allure? What unusual quality? What grace of mind
+or person?</p>
+
+<p>A slender, grey-eyed gypsy-thing in rags! And I could no
+longer rid my mind of her!</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; discourage, ignore,
+exterminate the last unruly trace of sentiment in her regard.</p>
+
+<p>Yet I remained there motionless, thinking, thinking&#151; her
+faded rosebud lying in my hand, drooping but still fragrant.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I stretched out above the river bank, composing my body to
+rest&#151; sleep perhaps. But flies and sun kept me awake, even
+if I could have quieted my mind.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; a superb specimen of manhood, naked save for
+clout, beaded sporran, and a pair of thigh moccasins, the most
+wonderful I had ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>I admired his war-girdle and moccasins, speaking somewhat
+carelessly of the beautiful shell-work designs as "wampum"&#151;
+an Iroquois term.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro," said I, amused, "is a battle then near at hand that
+you make so complete a preparation for it?"</p>
+
+<p>A half-smile appeared for a moment on his lips:</p>
+
+<p>"It is always well to be prepared for life or death, Loskiel,
+my younger brother."</p>
+
+<p>"Oho!" said I, smiling. "You understood the express rider when
+he said that Indians had fired on our pickets a week ago!"</p>
+
+<p>The stern and noble countenance of the Sagamore relaxed into
+the sunniest of smiles.</p>
+
+<p>"My <i>little</i> brother is very wise. He has discovered that
+the Siwanois have ears like white men."</p>
+
+<p>"Aye&#151; but, Sagamore, I was not at all certain that you
+understood in English more than 'yes' and 'no.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it because," he inquired with a merry glance at me, "my
+brother has only heard as yet the answer 'no' from Mayaro?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; human, tender, affectionate, gay, witty,
+talkative, as the moment suits.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But I had been told that Indians&#151; I mean the forest
+Indians, not the vile and filthy nomad butchers of the
+prairies&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; even when I was
+watching him so closely&#151; in my heart I really found it
+well-nigh impossible to doubt him.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; entertained, in fact, so unusual a confidence in
+me&#151; that he even permitted himself to relax and speak to me
+playfully, and with the light familiarity of an elder
+brother.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Mayaro's features became smooth and blank.</p>
+
+<p>"What maiden is this my younger brother fears for?" he asked
+mildly.</p>
+
+<p>"Her name is Lois. You know well whom I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Hai!" he exclaimed, laughing softly. "Is it still the
+rosy-throated pigeon of the forest for whom my little brother
+Loskiel is spreading nets?"</p>
+
+<p>My face reddened again, but I said, smilingly:</p>
+
+<p>"If Mayaro laughs at what I say, all must be well with her. My
+elder brother's heart is charitable to the homeless."</p>
+
+<p>"And to children, also," he said very quietly. And added, with
+a gleam of humour, "All children, O Loskiel, my <i>littlest</i>
+brother! Is not my heart open to <i>you?"</i></p>
+
+<p>"And mine to you, Mayaro, my elder brother."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet, you watched me at the fire, every night," he said, with
+keenest delight sparkling in his dark eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"And yet I tracked and caught you after all!" I said, smiling
+through my slight chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>"Is my little brother very sure I did not know he followed
+me?" he asked, amused.</p>
+
+<p><i>"Did</i> you know, Mayaro?"</p>
+
+<p>The Siwanois made a movement of slight, but good-humoured,
+disdain:</p>
+
+<p>"Can my brother who has no wings track and follow the October
+swallow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you were willing that I should see the person to whom
+you brought food under the midnight stars?"</p>
+
+<p>"My brother has spoken."</p>
+
+<p>"Why were you willing that I should see?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where there are wild pigeons there are hawks, Loskiel. But
+perhaps the rosy throat could not understand the language of a
+Siwanois."</p>
+
+<p>"You warned her not to rove alone?"</p>
+
+<p>He inclined his head quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"She refused to heed you! Is that true? She left Westchester
+in spite of your disapproval?"</p>
+
+<p>"Loskiel does not lie."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I know that you must have kept in communication
+with her&#151; though how you did so I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>The Siwanois smiled slyly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is she? What is she, Mayaro? Is she, after all, but a
+camp-gypsy of the better class? I can not believe it&#151;
+yet&#151; she roves the world in tatters, haunting barracks and
+camps. Can you not tell me something concerning her?"</p>
+
+<p>The Indian made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Has she made you promise not to?'</p>
+
+<p>He did not answer, but I saw very plainly that this was
+so.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The Siwanois said pleasantly, yet with a hidden hint of
+malice:</p>
+
+<p>"If my brother desires to walk abroad in the pleasant weather,
+Mayaro will not run away. Say so to Major Parr."</p>
+
+<p>I blushed furiously at the mocking revelation that he had
+noted and understood the precautions of Major Parr.</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro," I said, <i>"I</i> trust you. See! You are confided
+to me, I am responsible for you. If you leave I shall be
+disgraced. But&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>My heart stood still; I had never expected even to witness
+such an act&#151; never dared believe that I should participate
+in it.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>So was accomplished between this Mohican and myself the rite
+of blood brotherhood&#151; an alliance of implicit trust and
+mutual confidence which only death could end.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3>
+
+<h4>THE SPRING WAIONTHA</h4>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>A foot regiment&#151; Colonel Gansevoort's&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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&#151; the man who knew
+no fear, the officer without reproach.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Murphy and Elerson took two scalps last night. They're drying
+on hoops in the barracks. Look and see if they be truly
+Seneca."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>She had averted her head, and was now hurriedly passing on,
+and I turned sharply on my heel and came up beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois," I managed to say with a voice that was fairly steady,
+"have you forgotten me?"</p>
+
+<p>Her head remained resolutely averted; and as I continued
+beside her, she said, without looking at me:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not understand that you are disgracing yourself by
+speaking to me on the parade? Pass on, sir, for your own
+sake,"</p>
+
+<p>"I desire to speak to you," I said obstinately.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Pass on before any officers see you!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to talk with you," I said doggedly. "I shall not let
+you go this time."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you mad to so conduct under the eyes of the whole fort?"
+she whispered. "Go your way!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd be madder yet to let you get away again. My way is
+yours."</p>
+
+<p>She halted, cheeks blazing, and looked at me for the first
+time.</p>
+
+<p>"I ask you not to persist," she said, "&#151;&#151; 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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:</p>
+
+<p>"Waiontha Spring! If you needs must see me for a moment more,
+come there!"</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; Waiontha&#151; come to the Spring
+Waiontha&#151; if you needs must see me."</p>
+
+<p>On a settle before the green-log barrack, some of Schott's
+riflemen were idling, and now stood, seeing an officer.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys," I said, "where is this latest foolery of Tim Murphy
+hung to dry?"</p>
+
+<p>They seemed ashamed, but told me, As I moved on, I said
+carelessly, partly turning:</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the Spring Waiontha?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the Lake Trail, sir&#151; first branch of the
+Stoney-Kill."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there a house there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rannock's."</p>
+
+<p>"A path to find it?"</p>
+
+<p>"A sheep walk only. Rannock is dead. The destructives murdered
+him when they burned Cherry Valley. Mrs. Rannock brings us eggs
+and milk."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>She heard me behind her&#151; I took care that she
+should&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" she asked, still scrubbing, and her hair was fallen in
+curls about her brow&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"I have come," said I, "to speak most seriously."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it you wish?"</p>
+
+<p>"A comrade's privilege."</p>
+
+<p>"And what may that be, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"The right to be heard; the right to be answered&#151; and a
+comrade's privilege to offer aid."</p>
+
+<p>"I need no aid."</p>
+
+<p>"None living can truthfully say that," said I pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Do <i>you</i> then require charity from this pleasant
+world we live in?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not offer charity to you."</p>
+
+<p>"You spoke of aid," she said coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois&#151; is there in our brief companionship no memory that
+may warrant my speaking as honestly as I speak to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know of none, Do you?"</p>
+
+<p>I had been looking at her chilled pink fingers. My ring was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>"A ring for a rose is my only warrant," I said.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you desire to have it of me again?" she asked, without any
+expression on her sun-freckled face.</p>
+
+<p>"What? The ring?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye "Desire it!" I repeated, turning red. "No more than you
+desire the withered bud you left beside me while I slept."</p>
+
+<p>"What bud, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you not leave me a rose-bud?"</p>
+
+<p>"I?"</p>
+
+<p>"And a bit of silver birch-bark scratched with a knife
+point?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now that I think of it, perhaps I may have done so&#151; or
+some such thing&#151; scarce knowing what I was about&#151; and
+being sleepy. What was it that I wrote? I can not now
+remember&#151; being so sleepy when I did it."</p>
+
+<p>"And that is all you thought about it, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can one think when half asleep''</p>
+
+<p>"Here is your rose," I said angrily. "I will take my ring
+again."</p>
+
+<p>She opened her grey eyes at that.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; no!" And, bending, soaked and soaped another
+shirt.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you mock me, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"I! Mock <i>you!</i> La! Sir, you surely jest."</p>
+
+<p>"You do so! You have done so ever since we met. I ask you
+why?" I repeated, curbing my temper.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!" she murmured, shaking her head. "The young man is
+surely going stark! A girl in my condition&#151; such a girl as I
+mock at an <i>officer</i> and a <i>gentleman?</i> No, it is
+beyond all bounds; and this young man is suffering from the
+sun."</p>
+
+<p>"Were it not," said I angrily, "that common humanity brought
+me here and bids me remain for the moment, I would not endure
+this."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven save us all!" she sighed. "How very young is this
+young man who comes complaining here that he is mocked&#151; when
+all I ventured was to marvel that he had found a wild rose-bud so
+rare and precious!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The laughter had died out in her face. After a moment it
+became grave.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it to tell me this that you spoke to me in the fort, Mr.
+Loskiel?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; remembering what was done but yesterday at Cherry
+Valley?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you&#151; remember&#151; <i>me?"</i></p>
+
+<p>"Good God, yes!" I exclaimed, my nerves on edge again at the
+mere memory of her rashness. "I came here as a comrade&#151;
+wishing to be of service, and&#151; you have used
+me&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Vilely," she said, looking serenely at me.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not say <i>that,</i> Lois&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p><i>"I</i> say it, Mr. Loskiel. And yet&#151; 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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Since I have been alone," she said in a low voice, "no
+man&#151; unless by a miracle it be you&#151; 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&#151; with endless variations,
+truly, often and cunningly disguised&#151; yet ever the same and
+sorry theme.... Men are what God made them; God has seemed to
+fashion me to their liking&#151; I scarce know how&#151; seeing I
+walk in rags, unkempt, and stained with wind and rain, and leaf
+and earth and sun</p>
+
+<p>She made a childish gesture, sweeping the curls aside with
+both her hands:</p>
+
+<p>"I sheared my hair! Look at me, sir&#151; a wild thing in a
+ragged shift and tattered gown&#151; all burnt and roughened with
+the sun and wind&#151; not even clean to look on&#151; yet that I
+<i>am!</i>&#151; and with no friend to speak to save an
+Indian.... I ask you, sir, what it is in me&#151; and what lack
+of pride must lie in men that I can not trust myself to the
+company of one among them&#151; not one! Be he officer, or common
+soldier&#151; all are the same."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I think to find <i>you</i> 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&#151; with silence, or with sullen speech, or with a hardness
+far beyond my years, and a gaiety that means nothing more kind
+than insolence?"</p>
+
+<p>Again her head fell on her breast, and her hands linked
+themselves on her knees as she knelt there in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois," I said, trying to think clearly, "I do not know that
+other men and I are different. Once I believed so. But&#151;
+lately&#151; I do not know. Yet, I know this: selfish or
+otherwise, I can not endure the thought of you in peril."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me very gravely; then dropped her head once
+more.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," I said desperately, "I wish to be honest&#151;
+tell you no lie&#151; tell none to myself. I&#151; your
+beauty&#151; <i>has</i> touched me&#151; or whatever it is about
+you that attracts. And, whatever gown you go in, I scarcely see
+it&#151; somehow&#151; finding you so&#151; so strangely&#151;
+lovely&#151; in speech also&#151; and in&#151; every way.... And
+now that I have not lied to you&#151; or to myself&#151; 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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever I am," said I, "I can be what I will. Else I were no
+man. If your&#151; beauty&#151; has moved me, that need not
+concern you&#151; and surely not alarm you. A woman's beauty is
+her own affair. Men take their chance with it&#151; as I take
+mine with yours&#151; 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&#151; I mean, Lois, to be to you a real comrade, if you
+will. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>After a moment she said:</p>
+
+<p>"What was it that you said about my&#151; beauty?"</p>
+
+<p>"I take my chances that it do me no deep damage."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Am I to take my chance, too?"</p>
+
+<p>"What chance?"</p>
+
+<p>"That&#151; your kindness do <i>me</i>&#151; no damage?"</p>
+
+<p>"What senseless talk is this you utter?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head slowly, then:</p>
+
+<p>"What a strange boy! I do not fear you."</p>
+
+<p>"Fear me?" I repeated, flushing hotly. "What is there to fear?
+I am neither yokel nor beast."</p>
+
+<p>"They say a gentleman should be more dreaded."</p>
+
+<p>I stared at her, then laughed:</p>
+
+<p>"Ask yourself how far you need have dread of me&#151; when, if
+you desire it, you can leave me dumb, dismayed, lip-bound by your
+mocking tongue&#151; which God knows well I fear."</p>
+
+<p>"Is my tongue so bitter then? I did not know it."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," said I with angry emphasis. "And I tell you very
+freely that&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>She stole a curious glance at me. Something halted me&#151; an
+expression I had never yet seen there in her face, twitching at
+her lips&#151; hovering on them now&#151; parting them in a smile
+so sweet and winning that, silenced by the gracious
+transformation, unexpected, I caught my breath, astonished.</p>
+
+<p>"What is your given name?" she asked, still dimpling at me,
+and her eyes now but two blue wells of light.</p>
+
+<p>"Euan," I said, foolish as a flattered schoolboy, and as
+awkward.</p>
+
+<p>"Euan," she said, still smiling at me, "I think that I could
+be your friend&#151; if you do truly wish it. What is it you
+desire of me? Ask me once more, and make it very clear and
+plain."</p>
+
+<p>"Only your confidence; that is all I ask."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Is <i>that</i> all you ask of me?" she mimicked
+mockingly; but so sweet her smile, and soft her voice, that I did
+not mind her words.</p>
+
+<p>"Remember," said I, "that I am older than you. You are to tell
+me all that troubles you."</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you not tell me why you are alone here, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You need not use those words in the same breath when speaking
+of yourself," I answered hotly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&#151; you do not credit ill of me?" she asked, a bright
+but somewhat fixed and painful smile on her red lips.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said I bluntly. "Nor did I ever."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet I look the part, and seem to play it, too. And still
+you believe me honest?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know you are."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why should I be here alone&#151; if I am honest,
+Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know; tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"But&#151; are you quite certain that you do not ask because
+you doubt me?"</p>
+
+<p>I said impatiently: "I ask, knowing already you are good above
+reproach. I ask so I may understand how best to aid you."</p>
+
+<p>A lovely colour stole into her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"You are kind, Euan. And it is true&#151; though&#151; " 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:</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Give it," I said, more deeply moved than ever I had been.</p>
+
+<p>"I do! I <i>do!</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Come to me to-night, Euan," she said. "I lodge yonder. There
+is a poor widow there&#151; a Mrs. Rannock&#151; 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." But I could not yet speak steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Come then; I&#151; I will tell you something of my miserable
+condition&#151; 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&#151; so ill am I at moments with the pain and
+shame I've borne so long&#151; so long, Euan! Ah&#151; you do
+not&#151; know.... And it may be that when you do come to-night I
+have repented of my purposes&#151; locked up my wounded heart
+again. But I shall try to tell you&#151; something. For I need
+somebody&#151; need kindly council very sorely, Euan. And even
+the Sagamore now fails me&#151; on the threshold&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; I&#151; I need to tell you. Will you come to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"On my honour, Lois."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&#151; if you please, will you leave me now? I must do my
+washing and mending&#151; and&#151;&#151;" 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing?" she said, so coldly that I ceased
+counting the little squares of currency and looked up at her
+surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sharing my pay with you," said I. "I have no
+silver&#151; only these."</p>
+
+<p>"I can not take&#151; <i>money!"</i></p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you suppose I could?"</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades have a common purse; Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you not share with me?" I asked, very hot about the
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head and I saw her shoulders heave once or
+twice.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois," I said gravely, "did you fear I hoped for some&#151;
+<i>reward?</i> Child&#151; little comrade&#151; only the
+happiness of aiding you is what I ask for. Share with me then, I
+beg you. I am not poor."</p>
+
+<p>"No&#151; I can not, Euan," she answered in a stifled voice.
+"Is there any shame to you in sharing with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," she whispered. "Wait till you hear. And&#151; thank
+you&#151; for&#151; your kindness."</p>
+
+<p>"I will be here to-night," I said. "And when we know each
+other better we will share a common purse."</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer me.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; the
+wives of soldiers, and their mistresses.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; ended&#151;&#151;</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The lean and silent warriors came up as I approached, sullenly
+at first, not knowing what treatment to expect&#151; more shame
+to the skin we take our pride in!</p>
+
+<p>One after another took the hand I offered in self-respecting
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is true, brother."</p>
+
+<p>I smiled and turned toward the women who were listening, and
+who now looked up at me with merry faces.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Is our elder brother's little sister fat and comely?"
+inquired one giggling and over-plump Oneida maid.</p>
+
+<p>"Not plump," I said; and they all giggled.</p>
+
+<p>Another short one stood on tip-toe, asking bashfully if she
+were not the proper height to suit me.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mayaro," said I, in excellent spirits, "you still wear
+war paint hopefully, I see. But this army will never start within
+the week."</p>
+
+<p>The Siwanois smiled to himself and smoked. Then he passed the
+pipe to me. I drew it twice, rendered it.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," said I, "have you then news that we take the war-trail
+soon?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hoping to go out with the scout to-night?" I asked.
+"That would not do."</p>
+
+<p>"I go to-night with my brother Loskiel&#151; to take the air,"
+he said slyly.</p>
+
+<p>"That may not be," I protested, disconcerted. "I have business
+abroad to-night,"</p>
+
+<p>"And I," he said very seriously; but he glanced again at the
+pretty garments on my arm and gave me a merry look.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said I, smilingly, "they are for <i>her.</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>was</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; for when I signed this
+letter she would be free to take what she desired and even leave
+me destitute.</p>
+
+<p>I laughed at the thought&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>For a full minute the Indian's countenance turned full on me
+remained moon-blank. Then, like lightning, flashed his smile.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is in need, my brother."</p>
+
+<p>"Give, and pass on, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"That is not giving, O my brother."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it to give alone, Loskiel? Or is it to give&#151; that she
+may render all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, honestly to give. <i>Not</i> to <i>take."</i></p>
+
+<p>"And yet you know her not, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>"It is the truth," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then tell me her name, that I may write it to my friend in
+Albany."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know it," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"She never told you?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What question, Mayaro?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"The soldiers were not unkind; they offered food and
+fire&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," I said. "Continue."</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; but not the answer to her question. And
+one day&#151; the day you came to Poundridge-town&#151; and she
+had sought for me through that wild storm&#151; I met her by the
+house as I came from North Castle with news of horsemen riding in
+the rain."</p>
+
+<p>He leaned forward, looking at me steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Loskiel," he said, "when first I heard <i>your name</i> from
+her, and that it was <i>you</i> who wanted Mayaro, suddenly it
+seemed to me that magic was being made. And&#151; I myself gave
+her her answer&#151; the answer to the question she had asked at
+every camp."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" said I, "did <i>you,</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew," he said tranquilly, "but I did not know why this
+maiden wished to know. Therefore was I silent."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you not ask her?" But before he spake I knew why
+too.</p>
+
+<p>"Does a Sagamore ask idle questions of a woman?" he said
+coldly. "Do the Siwanois babble?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. And yet&#151; and yet&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Birds sing, maidens chatter. A Mohican considers ere his
+tongue is loosed."</p>
+
+<p>"Aye&#151; it is your nature, Sagamore.... But tell me&#151;
+what was it in the mention of my name that made you think of
+magic?"</p>
+
+<p>"Loskiel, you came two hundred miles to ask of me the question
+that this maid had asked in every camp."</p>
+
+<p>"What question?"</p>
+
+<p><i>"Where lay the trail to Catharines-town,"</i> he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Did <i>she</i> ask that?" I demanded in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"It was ever the burden of her piping&#151; this rosy-throated
+pigeon of the woods."</p>
+
+<p>"That is most strange," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"It is doubtless sorcery that she should ask of me an
+interview with you who came two hundred miles to ask of <i>me</i>
+the very question."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mayaro, she did not then know why I had come to seek
+you."</p>
+
+<p><i>"I</i> knew as quickly as I heard your name."</p>
+
+<p>"How could you know before you saw me and I had once made
+plain my business?"</p>
+
+<p>"Birds come and go; but eagles see their natal nest once more
+before they die."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not understand you, Mayaro."</p>
+
+<p>He made no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Merely to hear my name from this child's lips, you say you
+guessed my business with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, Loskiel&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>"And did you do so?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.
+<i>Some call it Catharines-town.'"</i></p>
+
+<p>I shook my head, perplexed, and understanding nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Yndaia? Did you say Yndaia, Mayaro?"</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; yet clutched in
+vain.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; been conscious of its
+nearness for an instant ere it had vanished utterly.</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore's face had become a smooth, blank mask again.</p>
+
+<p>"What has this maid, Lois, to do with Catharines-town?" I
+asked. "Devils live there in darkness."</p>
+
+<p>"She did not say."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not know?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said I, troubled, "why did she journey hither?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless," I said anxiously, "she has heard at the forts or
+hereabouts that we are to march on Catharines-town."</p>
+
+<p>"She knows it now, Loskiel"</p>
+
+<p>"And means to follow?" I exclaimed in horror.</p>
+
+<p>"My brother speaks the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"God! What urges the child thither?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; I, a Sagamore of the
+Enchanted Wolf. Who should know magic when it stirs but I, of the
+Siwanois&#151; 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&#151;&#151;" He shuddered slightly. "There by the black
+waters of the lake&#151; <i>that hag</i>&#151; and all her
+spawn!"</p>
+
+<p>"Catharine Montour!"</p>
+
+<p>"The Toad-woman herself&#151; and all her spawn."</p>
+
+<p>"The Senecas?"</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>the others,"</i> he said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden and terrible misgiving assailed me. I swallowed, and
+then said slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Amochol," I repeated under my breath. And shivered.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151;
+Eries&#151; People of the Cat&#151; a dozen, it was rumoured,
+scarcely more&#151; and demons all, serving that horrid warlock,
+Amochol, the Sorcerer of the Senecas.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>These things I had heard, but vaguely, here and there&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro," I said seriously, "do you go instantly to the fort
+and view those scalps."</p>
+
+<p>"Were the braids fastened at the roots with tree-cat
+claws?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye!"</p>
+
+<p>"No need to view them, then, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they truly Erie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cats!" He spat the word from his lips and his eyes
+blazed.</p>
+
+<p>"And&#151; Amochol!" I asked unsteadily.</p>
+
+<p>"The Cat People creep with the Seneca high priest, mewing
+under the moon."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&#151; <i>he</i> is surely here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"No bullets touch him."</p>
+
+<p>"That is nonsense, Mayaro&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you he is human! There are no sorcerers on earth.
+There never were&#151; except the Witch of Endor&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; I,
+who wear the great Witch Bear rearing in scarlet here across my
+breast!</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; old&#151; <i>old,</i> 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!</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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&#151;
+The Thunderers. And Tamanund must hear my speech and read my
+heart. And the long roll of our Mohican dead must be
+recited&#151; here and alone by me&#151; the only one who has
+that right since Uncas died and the Mohican priesthood ended,
+save for the Sagamores of the Magic Clan.</p>
+
+<p>"Go, now, my brother. Go in peace."</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3>
+
+<h4>LOIS</h4>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Lois opened it, her knitting gathered in her hand, and stood
+aside for me to enter.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>Then first I saw a slight and ghostly figure rise, take shape
+in the shadows, and move slowly into my lantern's feeble
+beams&#151;&#151; a frail and pallid woman, who made her
+reverence as though dazed, and uttered not a word.</p>
+
+<p>Lois whispered in my ear:</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>blue-eyed</i> Indian pinned
+her baby to its cradle with a bayonet."</p>
+
+<p>I crossed the room to where she stood, offering my hand; and
+she laid her thin and work-worn fingers listlessly in mine.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we be seated outside on the door-sill?" whispered Lois.
+"The only seat within is on the settle, where she sits."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the only room?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we will sit outside. But first, I bring you a little
+gift&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>She looked up quickly and drew back a step, "Oh, but such a
+little gift, Lois&#151; a nothing&#151; a mere jest of mine which
+we shall enjoy between us. Take it as I offer it, lightly, and
+without constraint."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I picked up the lantern and held it high above us.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And, "Lord!" said I, surprised by the lovely revelation. "What
+a miracle are you in your forest masquerade!"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I truly fine to please you, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>I said, disturbed, but striving to speak lightly:</p>
+
+<p>"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! <i>Onwa oyah! Na-i! A-i!</i> Lois!" And I drew my light
+war-hatchet from its sheath and raised it sparkling, in
+salute.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Then, still serious, she lifted her grey eyes to me:</p>
+
+<p>"I seem to find no words to thank you, Euan. But my heart
+is&#151; very&#151; full&#151;&#151;" She hesitated, then
+stretched forth her hand to me, smiling; and as I touched it
+ceremoniously with finger-tip and lip:</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"May we speak freely here, Lois?" I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>She cast a cautious glance at the shadowy figure, then,
+lowering her voice and leaning nearer:</p>
+
+<p>"I scarcely know whether she truly heeds and hears. She may
+not&#151; yet&#151; she may. And I do not care to share my
+confidences with anyone&#151; save you. I promised to tell you
+something about myself.... I mean to, some day."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you will not tell me now?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can I, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Is <i>this</i> then your intimate abode?" I asked,
+half-smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>you</i> were reared in comfort!" I said with sudden
+bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up quickly, then, shrugging her shoulders:</p>
+
+<p>"There is still some comfort for those who can remember their
+brief day of ease&#151; none for those who never knew it. I have
+had days of comfort."</p>
+
+<p>"What age are you, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Scarce that!" I insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I not seem so?" she asked, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Eighteen at most&#151; save for the&#151; sadness&#151; in
+your eyes that now and then surprises me&#151; if it be sadness
+that I read there."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is the wisdom I have learned&#151; a knowledge
+that means sadness, Euan. Do my eyes betray it, then, so
+plainly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," I said, A faint sound from below arrested our
+attention.</p>
+
+<p>Lois whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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&#151; Oh, Euan&#151; Euan!" Shuddering,
+she flung her arm across her face as though to shut out the
+vision.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>Through the intense stillness I could still hear the woman
+sobbing in the dark below.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois&#151; little Lois," I whispered, touching her trembling
+arm with a hand quite as unsteady.</p>
+
+<p>She dropped her arm from her face, looking up at me with eyes
+widened still in horror.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled wanly, and sat thinking for a while, her pale face
+pressed between her hands. Presently she looked up.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we so truly friends then, Euan? At the Spring Waiontha it
+almost seemed as though it could come true."</p>
+
+<p>"You know it has come true."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not know it, little Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"I seem to know it, somehow.... Tell me, Euan, does a true and
+deathless friendship with a man&#151; with <i>you</i>&#151; mean
+that I am to strip my heart of every secret, hiding nothing from
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dare you do it, Lois?" I said laughingly, yet thrilled with
+the candour of her words.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; that will be dear and wonderful&#151;&#151;" She
+drew a swift breath and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>Surprised, then touched, I met the winning honesty of her gaze
+in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless you truly know me&#151; unless you know to whom you
+give your friendship&#151; you can not give it rightly. Can you,
+Euan? You must learn all that I am and have been, Is not this
+necessary?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&#151; I ask you nothing," I stammered. "All that I know of
+you is wonderful enough&#151;&#151;" Suddenly the danger of the
+moment opened out before me, checking my very thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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. <i>"He</i> died long since. But <i>my mother</i>
+is living. And I believe she lives near Catharines-town
+to-day!"</p>
+
+<p><i>"What!</i> Why do you think so?" I exclaimed,
+astounded.</p>
+
+<p>"Is not the Vale Yndaia there, near Catharines-town?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But why&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then listen, Euan. Every year upon a certain day&#151; the
+twelfth of May&#151; 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&#151; save
+the last two&#151; 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&#151; I never yet have worn them more than to fit them on and
+take them off."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" I asked vaguely.</p>
+
+<p><i>"I save them for my journey."</i></p>
+
+<p>"What journey?"</p>
+
+<p>"The long trail through the Long House&#151; straight through
+it, Euan, to the Western Door. That is the trail I dream of."</p>
+
+<p>"Who leaves these strange moccasins at your threshold every
+year?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>"From where do you suppose they come?" I asked, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>"From Catharines-town."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe your <i>mother</i> sends them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Euan, I know it now! Until two years ago I did not
+understand. But now I know it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you so certain Lois? Is any written message sent with
+them?"</p>
+
+<p>"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:</p>
+
+<p><i>"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.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>"Pray every day for him who died in the Regiment de la
+Reine.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>"Pray too for her who waits for you, in far
+Yndaia."</i></p>
+
+<p>"What a strange message!" I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"I must heed it," she said under her breath. "The trail is
+open, and my hour is come."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Lois, that trail means death!"</p>
+
+<p>"Your army makes it safe at last. And now the time is come
+when I must follow it."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that why you have followed <i>us?"</i></p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you not tell me this at Poundridge? You should have
+camped with us," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Because of my fear of men&#151; except red men. And I had
+already quite enough of your Lieutenant Boyd."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her seriously; and she comprehended the unasked
+questions that were troubling me.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I tell you more? Shall I tell you how I have learned my
+dread of men&#151; how it has been with me since my foster
+parents found me lying at their door <i>strapped to a painted
+cradle-board?"</i></p>
+
+<p>"You!"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye; that was my shameful beginning, so they told me
+afterward&#151; long afterward. For I supposed they were my
+parents&#151; 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?"</p>
+
+<p>Quick, hot, unconsidered words flew to my lips&#151; so sweet
+and fearless were her eyes. But I only muttered:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me all."</p>
+
+<p>"From the beginning, then&#151; 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&#151; him I thought to be my father. I may not
+name him. You will understand presently why I do not."</p>
+
+<p>She looked down, pulling idly at the thrums along her beaded
+leggins.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you I was near your age&#151; twenty. But I do not
+really know how old I am, I guess that I am twenty&#151;
+thereabouts."</p>
+
+<p>"You look sixteen; not more&#151; except the haunting
+sorrow&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I can remember full that length of time.... I <i>must</i> be
+twenty, Euan. When I was perhaps seven years old&#151; or
+thereabout&#151; I went to school&#151; first in Schenectady to a
+Mistress Lydon; where were a dozen children near my age. And
+pretty Mistress Lydon taught us A&#151; B&#151; C and
+manners&#151; and nothing else that I remember now. Then for a
+long while I was at home&#151; which meant a hundred different
+lodgings&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Your foster father?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye. And my foster mother, too, was a strange woman."</p>
+
+<p>"Were they not kind to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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&#151; as often we were asked to stay as guests while
+the work lasted&#151; not very welcome guests, yet
+tolerated."</p>
+
+<p>"What <i>was</i> your foster father's business?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard so, too."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded absently, fingering her leggin-fringe; then, with a
+sudden, indrawn breath:</p>
+
+<p>"We <i>were</i> 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&#151; or tavern-signs, or wagons&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; scarcely noticed when she
+saw me&#151; almost never spake to me, and there were days and
+weeks, when I saw nobody in that silent house, and sat at meat
+alone&#151; when, indeed, anyone remembered I was a hungry,
+growing child, and made provision for me.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>She drew a long, light breath, smiled at me; then:</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;
+jails seeming to me far more terrible than death&#151; and at
+last persuaded him to the old life once more.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; I shall not tell you in what regiment. But it
+was Continental Line&#151; 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!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Euan! When I arrived, my foster father&#151; who I then
+supposed was my own father&#151; 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 <i>not</i> understand. He
+was a visionary&#151; a man of endless silences, dreamy of eye,
+gentle and vague of mind&#151; no soldier, nor fitted to
+understand a military life at all.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; and leave this petty sphere to its own vexed and
+petty wrangling, its kings and congresses, and its foolish noise
+of drums.'</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; no, not anything to weep for. In less than half an
+hour my wife and I will be together, listening while Raphael
+speaks&#151; or Christ, perhaps, or Leonardo.'</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; I will say good-bye. Now
+go, my child.'</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;&#151; ' 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&#151; a packet laced in deerskin.
+'This,' he said, 'is all we ever knew of you. It should be yours.
+Good-bye.'</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; ending in
+a far rattle of musketry and a light smoke blowing east across
+the fields&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>She passed her fingers across her brow, clearing it of the
+clinging curls.</p>
+
+<p>"They played a noisy march&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; our Hudson
+guides, and the brigaded White Plains Indians. None seemed to
+know&#151; or if they did they made no answer. And the soldiers
+did not know, and only laughed, taking me for some camp
+wanton&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>Again she passed her slender hand slowly across her eyes,
+shaking her head.</p>
+
+<p>"That I am not wholly bad amazes me at times.... I wonder if
+<i>you</i> know how hunger tampers with the will? I mean more
+than mere hunger; I mean that dreadful craving never completely
+satisfied&#151; 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&#151; day after day,
+night after night, endless and terrible." She flushed, but
+continued calmly: "I had nigh sold myself to some young
+officer&#151; some gay and heedless boy&#151; a dozen times that
+winter&#151; for a bit of bread&#151; 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&#151; God knows what
+had happened! And once I even crept abroad meaning to take what
+offered. Do you deem me vile, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&#151; no&#151; " I could not utter another word.</p>
+
+<p>She sighed, gazing at space.</p>
+
+<p>"And the cold! Well&#151; this is July, and I must try to put
+it from my mind. But at times it seems to be still in my
+bones&#151; deep bitten to the very marrow. Ai-me! I have seen
+two years of centuries. Their scars remain."</p>
+
+<p>She rocked slightly forward and backward where she sat, her
+fingers interlaced, twisting and clenching with her memories.</p>
+
+<p>"Ai-me! Hunger and cold and men! Hunger and&#151; men. But it
+was solitude that nigh undid me. That was the worst of all&#151;
+the endless silence."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her head. "All that is ended now. Strive to
+forget."</p>
+
+<p>She made no response.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"I will <i>not</i> listen!" said I excitedly. "Do <i>you</i>
+listen now to me, for I mean to have my way with you&#151; say
+what you may&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know&#151; I know&#151; but you have done too much
+already&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I have done nothing! Listen! I have bespoken trifles of no
+value&#151; nothing more&#151; stockings, and shifts, and stays,
+and powder-puffs, and other articles&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not suffer this!" she said, an angry colour in her
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"You suffer <i>now</i>&#151; for lack even of handkerchiefs! I
+must insist&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Euan! My shifts and stays and stockings are none of your
+affair!" she answered hotly.</p>
+
+<p>"I make them mine!"</p>
+
+<p>"No&#151; nor is it your privilege to offer them!"</p>
+
+<p>"My&#151; <i>what?"</i></p>
+
+<p>"Privilege!" she said haughtily, flushing clear to her curly
+hair; and left me checked. She added: "What you offer is
+impertinence&#151; however kindly meant. No friendship warrants
+it, and I refuse."</p>
+
+<p>I know not what it was&#151; perhaps my hurt and burning
+silence under the sudden lash of her rebuff&#151; but presently I
+felt her hand steal over mine and tighten. And looked up,
+scowling, to see her eyes brimming with tears and merriment.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; only a poor
+girl's gratitude. What have I left to offer in return if you
+bestow more gifts? Give me no more&#151; so that you take from me
+no more than&#151; gratitude."</p>
+
+<p>"Comrades neither give nor take, Lois. What they possess
+belongs to both in common."</p>
+
+<p>"I know&#151; it is so said&#151; but&#151; you have had of me
+for all your bounty only my thanks&#151; and&#151;&#151;" she
+smiled tremulously, "&#151;&#151; a wild rose-bud. And you have
+given so much&#151; so much&#151; and I am far too poor to
+render&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"What have I asked of you!" I said impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. And so I am the more inclined to give&#151; I know
+not what."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I tell you what to offer me? Then offer me the
+privilege of giving. It is the rarest gift within your
+power."</p>
+
+<p>She sat looking at me while the soft colour waned and deepened
+in her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"I&#151; give," she said in a voice scarce audible.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; then writing your request to him, you
+may make draughts for what you need upon <i>our</i> money, which
+now lies with him. Do you understand me, Lois? You will need
+money when the army leaves."</p>
+
+<p>Her head moved slightly, acquiescent.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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:</p>
+
+<p>"Hiero! Little rosy-throated pigeon of the woods! Loskiel has
+spoken!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Euan?" she ventured, lifting her wet eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" said I ungraciously.</p>
+
+<p>"H&#151; have you a hanker? Else I use my scandalous skirt
+again&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; <i>if I remain behind."</i></p>
+
+<p>"Lois! You can not go to Catharines-town! That's flat!"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>She said in a quiet voice:</p>
+
+<p>"I must go with you. And that is why&#151; or partly why&#151;
+I asked you here tonight. Find me some way to go to
+Catharines-town. For I <i>must</i> go!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not inquire of me the road to hell?" I asked impatiently.
+She said between her teeth:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, any man might show me that. And guide me, too. Many have
+offered, Euan."</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"I ask your pardon. Two years of camps blunts any woman's
+speech."</p>
+
+<p>"Lois," said I uneasily, "why do <i>you</i> wish to go to
+Catharines-town, when an armed force is going?"</p>
+
+<p>She sat considering, then, in a low, firm voice:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, little comrade."</p>
+
+<p>She drew the packet from her bosom, unlaced the thong,
+unrolled the deer-hide covering.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is a roll of bark," she said. "This I have never had
+interpreted. Can you read it for me, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>And there in the lantern light I read it, while she looked
+down over my shoulder.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p> </p>
+
+<p><br>
+</p>
+
+<p>"KADON!</p>
+
+<p class="left" align="left"><br>
+"Aesa-yat-yen-enghdon, Lois!<br>
+"Etho!<br>
+[And <i>here</i> was painted a <i>white</i> dog lying dead, its
+tongue hanging out sideways.]<br>
+"Hen-skerigh-watonte.<br>
+"Jatthon-ten-yonk, Lois!<br>
+"Jin-isaya-dawen-ken-wed-e-wayen.<br>
+[Here was drawn in outline the foot and claws of a forest
+lynx.]<br>
+"Niyi-eskah-haghs, na-yegh-nyasa-kenra-dake, niya-wennonh!"
+[<i>Then a white symbol.</i>]<br>
+</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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. <i>Is</i> there,
+Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"You can interpret?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>I was silent, pondering the fearful meaning which had been
+rendered plainer and more hideous by the painted symbols.</p>
+
+<p>"It has to do with the magic of the Seneca priesthood," I
+muttered. "Here is a foul screed&#151; and yet a message, too, to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Then, with an effort I found courage to read, as it was
+written:</p>
+
+<p><i>"I speak! Thou, Lois, mightest have been destroyed!
+Thus!</i> (Here the white dog.) <i>But I will frustrate their
+purpose. Keep listening to me, Lois. That which has befallen you
+we place it here</i> (or, 'we draw it here'&#151; i. e., the
+<i>severed</i> foot and claws of a lynx). <i>Being born white</i>
+(literally, 'being born having a white neck'), <i>this
+happened."</i> And the ghastly sign of Leshi ended it.</p>
+
+<p>"But what does it all signify?" she asked, bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>And even as she spoke, out of the dull and menacing horror of
+the symbols, into my mind, leaped terrible comprehension.</p>
+
+<p>I said coolly: "It must have been Amochol&#151; and his Erie
+sorcerers! How came <i>you</i> in Catharines-town?"</p>
+
+<p>"I? In Catharines-town!" she faltered. "Was I, then, ever
+there?"</p>
+
+<p>I pointed at the drawing of the <i>dead</i> white dog.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;
+the Eries&#151; the acolytes of Amochol&#151; here! This spread
+lynx-pad with every separate claw extended! Yet, it is drawn
+<i>severed</i>&#151; in symbol of your escape. Lois! Lois! It is
+plain enough. I follow it all&#151; almost all&#151; nearly&#151;
+but not quite&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated, studying the bark intently, pausing to look at
+her with a new and keenly searching question in my gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"You have not shown me all," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is a soldier's belt-buckle," she said, offering it to me
+for my inspection.</p>
+
+<p>It was made of silver and there were still traces of French
+gilt upon the device.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; cut all to pieces at Lake
+George by Sir William Johnson in '55. This is an officer's
+belt-buckle."</p>
+
+<p>"Was the regiment, then, totally destroyed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Utterly. In France they made the regiment again with new men
+and new officers, and call it still by the same celebrated
+name."</p>
+
+<p>"You say Sir William Johnson's men cut it to pieces&#151; the
+Regiment de la Reine?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"His Indians, British and Provincials, left nothing of it
+after that bloody day."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>There was no need to look twice. This man, whoever he might
+be, was this girl's father; and nobody who had ever <i>seen</i>
+her and this miniature could ever doubt it.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Presently I turned the portrait over. There was a lock of hair
+there under the glass&#151; 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:</p>
+
+<p>"Jean Coeur a son coeur cheri."</p>
+
+<p>I looked up at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean Coeur," I repeated. "That is no name for a
+man&#151;&#151;" Suddenly I remembered, years ago&#151; years and
+years since&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; the Senecas. His clever deputy was called
+Jean Coeur. Never did two men know the Indians as these two
+did."</p>
+
+<p>I thought a moment, then: "Somewhere I heard that Captain
+Joncaire had a daughter. But she married another man&#151; one
+Louis de Contrecoeur&#151;&#151;" I hesitated, glanced again at
+the name scratched on the glass over the lock of hair, and shook
+my head.</p>
+
+<p>"Jean Coeur&#151; Louis de Contrecoeur. The names scarce hang
+together&#151; yet&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Look at <i>this!"</i> she whispered in a low, tense voice,
+and laid a bit of printing in my hand.</p>
+
+<p>It was a stained and engraved sheet of paper&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>"That," she said, "is the same writing that the birch bark
+bears, sewed in my moccasins."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," I said excitedly, "your mother <i>was</i> born
+Mademoiselle Joncaire, and you <i>are</i> Lois de
+Contrecoeur!"</p>
+
+<p>She sat with eyes lowered, fingering the stained and faded
+page. After a moment she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I wrote to France&#151; to the Headquarters of the Regiment
+de la Reine&#151; asking about my&#151; father."</p>
+
+<p>"You had an answer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, the answer came.... Merely a word or two.... The Vicomte
+Louis Jean de Contrecoeur fell at Lake George in '55&#151;&#151;"
+She lifted her clear eyes to mine. "And died&#151;
+unmarried."</p>
+
+<p>A chill passed through me, then the reaction came, taking me
+by the throat, setting my veins afire.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&#151; by God!" I stammered. "If de Contrecoeur died
+unmarried, his child shall not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Euan! I do not credit what they wrote. If my father married
+here perhaps they had not heard."</p>
+
+<p>"Lois! Dearest of maids&#151; whichever is the truth I wish to
+marry you!"</p>
+
+<p>But she stopped her ears with both palms, giving me a
+frightened look; and checked, but burning still, I stared at
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never have I loved before&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Love! Euan, are you mad?"</p>
+
+<p>We both were breathing fast and brokenly.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it then, if it be not love!" I asked angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; their natural fire&#151;
+their easily provoked emotions.... I had believed you
+different."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you not desire my friendship?" I asked in hot
+chagrin.</p>
+
+<p>"Not if it be of this kind, Euan."</p>
+
+<p>"You would not have me love you?"</p>
+
+<p>"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,
+<i>nothing</i> 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&#151; in ignorance of it,
+but still in awe&#151; and having been assailed by clamours of a
+shameful passion calling itself love&#151; 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&#151; hotly,
+unthinkingly, as you did to me?"</p>
+
+<p>I was silent.</p>
+
+<p>She rose, lifted the lantern, laid open the trap-door.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," she whispered, beckoning.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>On the sill she whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"When will you come again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want me?" I said sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; silly and wise in the same breath&#151; headlong,
+headstrong, tender, and generous, petty and childish, grave and
+kind&#151; 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!"</p>
+
+<p>She dropped my hand, caught at her skirt's edge, and made me a
+mocking reverence.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear sir," she said, "I pray you come again to visit me
+tomorrow, while I am mending regimental shirts at tuppence
+each&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lois!" I said sadly. "How can you use me so!"</p>
+
+<p>She began to laugh again.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Euan, I can not endure it if you're solemn and sorry for
+yourself&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER VIII</h3>
+
+<h4>OLD FRIENDS</h4>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned, the Sagamore had already broken his fast, and
+once more was engaged in painting himself&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"It has already been rewarded," remarked the Indian, with
+quiet humour.</p>
+
+<p>"In what manner?" I asked, puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"In the manner that all warriors desire to be rewarded," he
+replied, secretly amused.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought," said I, "that the reward all warriors desire is a
+scalp taken in battle."</p>
+
+<p>He cast a sly glance at me and went on painting.</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro," said I, disturbed, "is it possible that you have
+been out forest-running while I've slept?"</p>
+
+<p>He shot a quick look at me, full of delighted malice.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>He said proudly: "Mayaro is safe. What warrior of the
+Cat-People need a Sagamore of the Siwanois dread?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you count them warriors then, or wizards?"</p>
+
+<p>"Demons have teeth and claws. Look upon their scalp-locks,
+Loskiel!"</p>
+
+<p>I strove to subdue my rising anger.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore looked at me with eyes utterly void of
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Mayaro a prisoner, then?" he asked quietly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"But now, to one of them&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"There are many valiant deeds to be accomplished on this
+coming march&#151; deeds worthy of a war-chief of the
+Lenni-Lenape&#151; deeds fitted to do honour to a Sagamore of the
+Magic Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; for the sake of
+a patch of mangy fur which grows on these Devil-Cats of
+Amochol."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>He resumed his painting with a shrug of contempt, adding:</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Each night you go forth and scalp. Each morning you paint. Is
+this to continue, Sagamore?"</p>
+
+<p>"My brother sees," he said proudly. "Cats were made for
+skinning."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"The war-paint you have worn each day has seemed to me
+somewhat unusual," I said curiously.</p>
+
+<p>He glanced sharply up at me, scowled, then said gravely:</p>
+
+<p>"When a Sagamore of the Mohicans paints for a war against
+<i>warriors,</i> 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 <i>sorcerers,</i> 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&#151; this vile, sly Warlock Amochol!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; the hatred and infuriated contempt of a noble and
+ordained priest for the black-magic of a sorcerer&#151;
+orthodoxy, militant and terrible, scourging blasphemy and
+crushing its perverted acolytes at the very feet of their
+Antichrist.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>All the responsibility, therefore, must rest on me; and I must
+use my judgment and abide by the consequences.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The third lady was a complete surprise to me, she being that
+pretty and vivacious Magdalene Helmer&#151; called Lana&#151; the
+confidante of Clarissa Putnam&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remain?" I asked of Mrs. Bleecker.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, of Lana Helmer never a suspicious word had been breathed
+that ever I had heard&#151; 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&#151; the only
+time I ever saw him so.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; with which fascinating
+ceremony he had turned many a silly head in New York ere we
+marched out and the British marched in.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; he
+believing her to be as youthful and depraved as seemed the
+case&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who would have dreamed it three years ago?" she said, her
+face now sober enough.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought your people were Tory," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Not mine, Euan; Clarissa's."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is that child?" I asked pityingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Clarissa? Poor lamb&#151; she's in Albany still."</p>
+
+<p>I did not speak, but it was as though she divined my unasked
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; Johnson's Greens, Butler's Rangers, McDonald's
+painted Tories, Brant's Mohawks&#151; and the Senecas with their
+war-chiefs and their sorcerer, Amochol&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.'"</p>
+
+<p>Lana shook her pretty head.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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!"</p>
+
+<p>"I had supposed you married long ago, Lana. The young Patroon
+was very ardent."</p>
+
+<p>"I? The sorry supposition! <i>I</i> marry&#151; in the face of
+the sad and miserable examples all my friends afford me! Not I,
+Euan, unless&#151;&#151;" She smiled at me with pretty malice.
+"&#151;&#151; <i>you</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Grown soberer, perhaps. You always did conduct like a pious
+Broad-brim, Euan."</p>
+
+<p>"I've a mind to kiss you now," said I, vexed.</p>
+
+<p>"Kiss away, kind sir. You have me in the rear o! them. Now's
+your opportunity!"</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless you'd cry out."</p>
+
+<p>"Doubtless I wouldn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait for some moonlit evening when we're unobserved
+"Broad-brim!"</p>
+
+<p>I laughed, and so did she, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"I warrant you that your pretty Lieutenant Boyd had never
+waited for my challenge twice!"</p>
+
+<p>"Best look out for Boyd," said I. "He's of your own careless,
+reckless kind, Lanette. Sparks fly when flint and steel
+encounter."</p>
+
+<p>"Cold sparks, friend Broad-brim!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not too cold to set tinder afire."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I then tinder? You should know me better."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"How wise have you become in alchemy and metaphysics!" she
+exclaimed in mock admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am not wise in anything, and you know it, Lana."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know <i>me</i> better."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"A good man," said I, "and brave. But his honest Stockbridge
+Indians know no more of Catharines-town than do the converted
+Oneidas yonder,"</p>
+
+<p>Boyd nodded: "I prophesy they quit us one and all within an
+arrow-flight of Wyalusing. Do you take me, Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I said that the young lady's name was Lois de
+Contrecoeur&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;
+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&#151;
+loitering around this army's camp! Mercy! And what a little minx
+it is to so conduct&#151; 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I always thought I knew you, Euan Loskiel," she said. "I
+think so still.... As for your fairy damsel in distress&#151;
+h'm&#151; when may I see her?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Euan, what a boy you are! Had I been any other
+woman&#151; but let it go. You are as translucent as a woodland
+brook, and&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll say no more," said I, forcing a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, say all you please, as long as you do not tell me what
+you <i>think</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!" said I. "Is that the way you read us, also?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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; <i>we know</i> we
+can not read you, but scorn to admit it; <i>you</i> 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,"</p>
+
+<p>We both laughed; after a moment she put on her sun-mask and I
+tied it.</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you and Mrs. Lansing lodge until your husband's
+regiment returns?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>She rose, giving me her pretty hand to aid her, shook out her
+dainty skirts, put up her quizzing glass, and inspected me,
+smilingly.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly she is a miracle," I said earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then remember not to say it to Angelina Lansing&#151; and
+above all never hint as much to Lana Helmer. Women are human; and
+pretty women perhaps a little <i>less</i> 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&#151; more fatal than ever since Clarissa played the
+fool."</p>
+
+<p>"I was assassinated by Lana long ago," said I, smiling. "I am
+proof."</p>
+
+<p>"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 limation when they had left us half an hour
+ago.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>Boyd made her a too low and over-courtly bow.</p>
+
+<p>"Always the gallant and victorious adversary salutes the
+vanquished as you, fair lady, have saluted me&#151; imputing to
+my insignificant prowess the very skill and address which has
+overthrown me."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you overthrown?"</p>
+
+<p>"Prone in the dust, mademoiselle! Draw Mr. Loskiel's knife and
+end me now in mercy."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"How should I know?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Of the old days we spoke much; the past was our theme&#151;
+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&#151;
+none, somehow, seemed to be left either in her heart or mine.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>And so I went away, thinking of many things&#151; too many and
+too perplexing, perhaps, for the intellect of a very young man
+deeply in love&#151; a man who knows he is in love, and yet
+remains incredulous that it is indeed love which so utterly
+bewilders and afflicts him.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER IX</h3>
+
+<h4>MID-SUMMER</h4>
+
+<p>Since our arrival from Westchester the weather had been more
+or less unsettled&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois, why have you avoided me?" I exclaimed. "All manner of
+vague forebodings have assailed me these two days past</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to this silly lad!" she said impatiently. "As though a
+few hours' absence lessen loyalty and devotion!"</p>
+
+<p>"But where have you been?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where I may not take you, Euan."</p>
+
+<p>"And where is that?" I asked bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>And seeing my perplexed mien, she began to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Euan, you are stupid! Did not the Grecian maids spend half
+their lives in the bath?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it wise to sleep so in the Water?" I asked uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I can walk as far as the pool with you, at all events," said
+I.</p>
+
+<p>"Wonderful! And will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do I ever await asking to follow you anywhere?" said I
+sentimentally.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor lad!" she exclaimed contritely, slipping her hand into
+mine. "I should have guided you. Does it pain you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; how she regarded our friendship. It was to her a deep
+and living thing&#151; a noble emotion, not a passion&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>When we came to the Spring Waiontha I had walked straight into
+the water except for her, so dark it was around us. And:</p>
+
+<p>"How can you ever get back alone?" said she.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But not woodsman enough to spare your shins in the clearing,"
+she said saucily.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we sit and talk?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Euan! And my bath! I am fairly melting as I stand
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"But I have not seen you for two entire nights, Lois."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, poor boy, but you seem to have survived."</p>
+
+<p>"When I do not see you every day I am most miserable."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I&#151; 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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lois!"</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"How can you reason so coldly?"</p>
+
+<p><i>"I</i>&#151; reason <i>coldly?</i> There is nothing cold in
+me where you are concerned. But I have to console myself for not
+seeing you&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p><i>"I</i> am inconsolable," said I fervently.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"I care so much for you, Lois," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"And I for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Not as I care for you."</p>
+
+<p><i>"Exactly</i> as you care for me. Do you think me insensible
+to gratitude and affection?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not desire your gratitude for a few
+articles&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't for them&#151; though I'm grateful for those things
+too! It's gratitude to God for giving me <i>you,</i> Euan
+Loskiel! And you ought to take shame to yourself for doubting
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;
+always, <i>always</i>&#151; 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&#151; and that you reign first in
+my heart&#151; first, and all by yourself, alone."</p>
+
+<p>"And will you try to love me some day, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Euan, I do&#151; I <i>do!</i> Only&#151; you know&#151;
+<i>not</i> in the manner you once spoke of&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"But I love you in that manner."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you do <i>not!</i> 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&#151; there is no
+harmony in them to me.... I know my own mind, although you say I
+don't&#151; and&#151; I <i>do</i> 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&#151; such as you sometimes have mentioned to
+me&#151; 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&#151; oh, to death, Euan!"
+she said, pressing my hands convulsively. "If ever I love&#151;
+that way&#151; it truly will be <i>love!</i> Are you content with
+what I say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must be."</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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&#151; 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&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>"I am a fool," I said. "God never before sent any man such a
+comrade as He has sent in you to me."</p>
+
+<p>"That was said sweetly and loyally. Thank you. If hearts are
+to be awakened and won, I think it might be done that way&#151;
+with such pleasant phrases&#151; given always time."</p>
+
+<p>Presently she withdrew her hands and slipped away from me in
+the dark.</p>
+
+<p>"Be careful," said I, "or you will slip overboard."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to presently."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&#151; must I go so soon?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer. Once I thought I heard her moving softly,
+but the sound came from the wrong direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois!"</p>
+
+<p>No reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois!" I repeated uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>There was a ripple in the pool, silence, then somewhere in the
+darkness a faint splash.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord!" said I. "Have you fallen in?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not <i>fallen</i> 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say&#151;&#151;" I began incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>And, "Yes, I do!" she said, defiant. "And I think <i>this</i>
+ought to teach you what a comrade's perfect confidence can be.
+Never complain to me of my want of trust in you again."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>After a while she laughed outright&#151; the light,
+mischievous laughter of a child.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel like one of those smooth and lurking naiads which
+haunt lost pools&#151; 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!"</p>
+
+<p>And presently her voice came again from the more distant
+darkness somewhere:</p>
+
+<p>"Has the box which you commanded arrived yet, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is at my hut. A wagon will bring it to you in the
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>I could hear her clap her wet little hands; and she cried out
+softly:</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; then I knew I wanted everything you have bespoken
+for me.... <i>Everything,</i> 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it is better that I first bring her to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Would she condescend to come?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so."</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. I seated myself. Then the soft and
+indecisive sound of ripples stirred by an idle hand broke the
+heated silence.</p>
+
+<p>"You say they all are your good friends?" she remarked
+thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I know them all. Lana Helmer I have known intimately since we
+were children."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why is it not better to present me to her first&#151; if
+you know her so <i>very</i> well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Bleecker is older."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Is this Miss Helmer then so young?"</p>
+
+<p>"Your age."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! <i>My</i> age.... And pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>"The world thinks so."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! And what do <i>you</i> think, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she is pretty," said I carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence. I sat there, my knees gathered in my
+arms, staring up at the stars.</p>
+
+<p>Then, faintly came her voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Euan."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, little Lois!"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two, Lois."</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Euan, I adore you!"</p>
+
+<p>"You adore your battery," said I, not convinced.</p>
+
+<p>"That, too. But <i>you</i> more than my mirrors, and my
+lip-red, and the lily lotion&#151; 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&#151; and
+I could read you through and through&#151; and found you so like
+myself&#151; 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&#151; even when I am fine and brave in gown and
+powder to face her on equal terms&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lois, what in the world are you babbling?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me babble, Euan. Never have I been so happy, so content,
+so excited yet so confident.... Listen; do you dread
+tomorrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&#151; 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&#151; particularly if your Lana be there, and that
+careless, rakish friend of yours, Lieutenant Boyd."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember what you are to say to Boyd if he seems in
+any wise to think he has met you elsewhere?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can avoid a lie and deal with <i>him,"</i> she said with
+calm contempt. "But there is not a chance he'd know me in my
+powder,"</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. Then the unseen water rippled and
+splashed.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; all you have done for
+me&#151; 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&#151; and all I, too, shall learn to wish
+for?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is written," I said unsteadily. "It must come to
+pass."</p>
+
+<p>"It must come," she said, in the hushed voice of a child who
+dreams, wide-eyed awake, murmuring of wonders.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>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&#151; bang! And the morning gun
+jarred me awake.</p>
+
+<p>I had bathed and dressed, but had not yet breakfasted when one
+of our regimental wagons came to take the box to Lois&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Amochol gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"So you have managed to wound a Seneca or two?"</p>
+
+<p>"Three, Loskiel&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent," said he. "And I don't mind admitting to you that
+I place very little reliance on the mission Indians as
+guides&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true, sir. They had as soon enter hell as
+Catharines-town."</p>
+
+<p>The Major nodded and continued to open and read the letters
+which had arrived during his absence.</p>
+
+<p>"May I draw one of our rifles for my Mohican, sir?" I
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We have very few. Schott's men have not yet all drawn their
+arms."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"You think it necessary?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it best to properly arm the only reliable guide this
+army has in its service, Major."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," I repeated, saluting, and almost inclined to laugh
+in his face.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"She came by batteau from Albany?"</p>
+
+<p>"Her box," said I, "has just arrived from Albany by
+batteau."</p>
+
+<p>"Is the lady young and handsome?" he asked, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Both, Mr. Boyd."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said, with a polite oath, "she must be something
+more, too, if she hopes to rival Lana Helmer."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"We are bidden to cake and wine at five," said I. "Are you
+going?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Then, mending my pace, I hastened to Croghan's house, and
+found Mrs. Bleecker pacing the foot-path and nibbling fennel.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"What has disturbed your usual equanimity, Euan? You seem as
+flushed and impatient as&#151; as a lover at a tryst, for
+example."</p>
+
+<p>At that I coloured so hotly that she laughed and took my arm,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," she said gaily. <i>"Sans c&eacute;r&eacute;monie,
+n'est-ce pas?"</i></p>
+
+<p>And we sauntered dawn the road.</p>
+
+<p>"Her box arrived last evening," said I. "God send that Mr.
+Hake has chosen to please her."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he married?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I never have!" I said earnestly, then was obliged to join in
+her delighted laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"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
+<i>might</i> have thought he lied."</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"He is at our house every day, and every moment when he is not
+on duty," she remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"What gallant man would not do the like, if privileged?" I
+said lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; and then he had
+the canoe only, and paddled it himself.... They <i>were</i> gone
+too long to suit me," she added curtly.</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; if you are on that footing with him&#151;
+to consider Lana's reputation a little more, and his own
+amusement a little less."</p>
+
+<p>I said slowly: "Whatever footing I am on with him, I will say
+that to him, if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wish you to provoke him."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall take pains not to."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; and no
+harm done."</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; "</p>
+
+<p>She nodded: "Yes&#151; he's too much like her&#151; but, being
+a man, scarcely as innocent of intention, I've said as much to
+her, and left her pouting&#151; the silly little jade."</p>
+
+<p>We said nothing more, having come in sight of the low house of
+logs where Lois dwelt.</p>
+
+<p>"The poor child," said Mrs. Bleecker softly. "Lord! What a
+kennel for a human being!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>So astonished was I&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; and the beauty-patch on
+her cheek I saw, and how snowy her hands were, where her fingers
+held her flowered gown spread.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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:</p>
+
+<p>"It was her eyes, and the look she gave you, Euan, that
+convinced me."</p>
+
+<p>But now, to Lois, she said very sweetly:</p>
+
+<p>"I am certain that we are to become friends if you wish it as
+much as I do."</p>
+
+<p>Lois laid her hands in hers.</p>
+
+<p>"I do wish it," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&#151; but she wore the slipper in the end."</p>
+
+<p>Lois gave me a shy, sweet look, then, suddenly animated,
+turned eagerly once more to discuss her wardrobe with her new
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Lois looked at me, the smile curving her lips into a happy
+tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER X</h3>
+
+<h4>IN GARRISON</h4>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>For, after his own beliefs and his own customs, he was every
+inch a man&#151; courteous, considerate, proud, generous, loyal,
+and brave. Which seem to me to be the general qualifications for
+a gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>Except the Seneca Mountain Snakes, the nations of the Long
+House, considering their beliefs, customs, and limited
+opportunities, were not a whit inferior to <i>us</i> as men. And
+the Mohicans have always been their peers.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; the
+<i>blue-eyed Indians</i>&#151; remained to teach the Iroquois
+that such wickedness existed. For, as they said of themselves,
+the People of the Morning were "real men."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; dwellers in towns&#151;
+not nomads; they had cattle and fowls, orchards and grain-fields,
+gardens for vegetables, corrals for breeding stock. They had many
+towns&#151; some even of two hundred houses, of which dwellings
+many were cellared, framed, and glazed.</p>
+
+<p>They had their well-built and heavily stockaded forts which,
+because the first Frenchmen called them chateaux, were still
+known to us as "castles."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Of this kind of people, then, were the Iroquois,
+naturally&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Those vile, horse-riding, murdering, thieving nomad Indians of
+the plains&#151; those homeless, wandering, plundering violators
+of women and butchers of children, had nothing whatever in common
+with our forest Indians of the East&#151; were a totally
+different race of people, mentally, spiritually, and physically.
+And these two species must ever remain distinct&#151; the Gens
+des Prairies and the Gens du Bois.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; darker people, but no less
+civilised than the tall, stalwart, and handsome keepers of the
+Eastern Gate.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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&#151; which ignoble but fiery darts were ever
+buzzing about my ass's ears, sometimes stinging me&#151; could
+not fatally wound my satisfaction or my deep thankfulness that
+her dreadful and wretched trials were ended at last, after so
+many years.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>She had evidently been out walking before I arrived, for she
+still wore her coquette garden-hat&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor swain a-sighing!" said she. "Love is sure a thorny way,
+Euan."</p>
+
+<p>"Have a care for your own skirts then," said I
+ungraciously.</p>
+
+<p><i>"My</i> skirts!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yours, Lanette. Your petticoat needs mending now."</p>
+
+<p>"If love no more than rend my petticoat I ought to be
+content," she said coolly.</p>
+
+<p>Silenced by her effrontery, which truly passed all bounds, I
+merely glared at her, and presently she laughed outright.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I make nothing of your nonsense," said I coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you fancy that I am in love?" said I defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not admit what your lop-ears and moony mien yell aloud to
+the world entire?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no common sense, Lana? Do you imagine a man can fall
+in love in a brief week?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have been wondering," said she coolly, "whether you have
+ever before seen her."</p>
+
+<p>"Continue to wonder," said I bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"I do.... Because you call her 'Lois' so readily&#151; and you
+came near it the first day you had <i>apparently</i> set eyes on
+her. Also, she calls you 'Euan' with a tripping lack of
+hesitation&#151; even with a certain natural tenderness&#151;</p>
+
+<p>I turned on her, exasperated:</p>
+
+<p>"Come," said I, controlling my temper with difficulty,. "I am
+tired of playing butt to your silly arrows."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how you squirm, Euan! Cupid and I are shooting you full
+as a porcupine!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>She smilingly ignored what I had said.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is not every gallant gentleman who comes to Croghan's at the
+feet of Miss de Contrecoeur?"</p>
+
+<p>"One or two are in the neighbourhood of <i>my</i> feet," she
+remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, and <i>too</i> near to please me," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Who, for example?"</p>
+
+<p>"Boyd&#151; for example," I replied, giving her a hearty
+scowl.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she drawled airily. "He is not yet near enough my ankles
+to please <i>me."</i></p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>Then a cold temper flashed in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"A man like <i>that,"</i> she repeated. "And pray, dear
+friend, what manner of man may be 'a man like <i>that?'"</i></p>
+
+<p>"One who can over-match you at your own silly sport&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"If he continues to conduct as he has begun," said I, "the
+chances are that I may have him out for his effrontery."</p>
+
+<p>"What! Who gave you the privilege of interfering in my
+affairs, you silly ninny?"</p>
+
+<p>"So that you display ordinary prudence, I have no desire to
+interfere," I retorted angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"And if I do not! If I am imprudent! If I choose to be
+audacious, reckless, shameless! Is it <i>your</i> affair?"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I make it mine?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are both silly and insulting; do you know it?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said I, "continue to play with hell-fire if you
+like. I'm done with you and with him, too."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Euan!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you coming to your senses?"" she asked coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said. "I ask your pardon."</p>
+
+<p>A moment more we gazed at each other, then suddenly her under
+lip trembled and her eyes filled.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me," she stammered. "You are a better friend to me
+than&#151; many.... I am not angry, Euan."</p>
+
+<p>At that I could scarce control my own voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Lanette&#151; little Lana! Find it in your generous heart to
+offer me my pardon, for I have conducted like a yokel and a fool!
+But&#151; but I really do love you."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it, Euan. I did not know it was in me to use you so
+cruelly. Let us be friends again. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you, Lana?"</p>
+
+<p>"Willingly&#151; oh, with all my heart! And&#151; 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&#151; the poor child is so sad and lonely, so wretchedly
+unhappy&#151; and Sir John riding the West with all his hellish
+crew! And she has no news of him&#151; and asks it of
+me&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>She descended a step and stood on the stair beside</p>
+
+<p>me, looking up at me very sweetly, and resting her hand
+lightly on my shoulder&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"You dear boy," said Lana gently. "If there were more men like
+you and fewer like&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>"You are wrong," said I. "She cares nothing for me in that
+manner."</p>
+
+<p>"What? How do you know, you astounding boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it well enough."</p>
+
+<p>Lana shot a swift and curious look straight across the room at
+Lois, who now did not seem to be aware of her.</p>
+
+<p>"She is beautiful... and&#151; 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&#151; or I guess wrong." She turned to
+me smiling. "That girl yonder has never loved."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>know</i> 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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can not speak of such things to you," I muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord! Is it as serious as that already? Is it arrived at the
+holy and sacred stage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lana! For heaven's sake&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I am <i>not</i> 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 <i>she</i> has progressed&#151; or if she has as yet
+journeyed any particular distance at all&#151; or any more than
+set out upon the road. For the look she shot at me convinces me
+that she has started&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that Boyd, being called upon, instantly contrived
+some impromptu verses amid general approbation&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And I saw Lois looking at me with an odd, smiling expression,
+not one thing or another, yet scarcely cordial.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," says Boyd, "each lady in turn should offer an
+impromptu toast in verse."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"To divinity nothing is impossible; therefore, the ladies,
+ever divine, may venture all things."</p>
+
+<p>"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:</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>All turned smilingly toward Lans, who shrugged her shoulders,
+saying carelessly:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><br>
+"I must decline!<br>
+The Muses nine<br>
+No sisters are of mine.<br>
+Must I repine<br>
+Because I'm not divine,<br>
+And may not versify some pretty story<br>
+To prove to you my own immortal glory?<br>
+Make no mistake. Accept; don't offer verses.<br>
+Kisses received are mercies&#151; given, curses!"<br>
+</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+Said Boyd instantly: 
+
+<p>"A thousand poems for your couplets! Do you trade with me,
+Miss Helmer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me hear your thousand first," retorted the coquette
+disdainfully, "ere I make up my mind to be damned."</p>
+
+<p>Major Parr said grimly:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"A kind and unselfish heart is sound currency," said Lana
+smiling and turning her back on Boyd; which brought her to face
+Lois.</p>
+
+<p>"Do make a toast in verse for these importunate gentlemen,"
+she said, "and bring the last laggard to your feet."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"It will give me a pleasure to do honour to any wish expressed
+by anybody," she said. "Am I to compose a toast, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>I gazed at her in surprise; Major Parr said loudly: "That's
+the proper spirit!"</p>
+
+<p>And, "Write for us a toast to love!" cried Boyd.</p>
+
+<p>But Lana coolly proposed a toast to please all, which, she
+explained, a toast to love would not by any means.</p>
+
+<p>"And surely that is easy for you," she added sweetly, "who of
+your proper self please all who ever knew you."</p>
+
+<p>"Write us a patriotic toast!" suggested Captain Simpson,
+"&#151;&#151; A jolly toast that all true Americans can drink
+under the nose of the British King himself."</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; if it could be accomplished," he added
+dubiously.</p>
+
+<p>Lois stood there smiling, thinking, the tint of excitement
+still brilliant in her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I could not hope to contrive such a verse&#151;&#151;"
+she mused aloud. "Yet&#151; I might try&#151;&#151;" She lifted
+her grey eyes to mine as though awaiting my decision.</p>
+
+<p>"Try," said I&#151; I don't know why, because I never dreamed
+she had a talent for such trifles.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And "Try!" they cried. "Try! Try!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said slowly. "I will try&#151;&#151;" She looked up
+at me. "&#151;&#151; If you wish it."</p>
+
+<p>"Try," I said.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>But she seemed in no manner perturbed, waiting smilingly for
+the noise to quiet. Then she said:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>She stood still, absent-eyed, thinking for a moment; then,
+looking up at us:</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; God forgive the thought!</p>
+
+<p>"But in the middle of every line there is a <i>comma,</i>
+splitting the line into two parts. And if you <i>draw a line down
+through every one of these commas, dividing the written verse
+into two halves,</i> each separate half will be a poem of itself,
+and the secret and concealed meaning of the whole will then be
+apparent."</p>
+
+<p>She laid the paper in my hands; instantly everybody, a-tiptoe
+with curiosity, clustered around to see. And this is what we all
+read&#151; the prettiest and most cunningly devised and disguised
+verse that ever was writ&#151; or so it seems to me:</p>
+
+<blockquote><br>
+"Hark&#151; hark the trumpet sounds, the din of war's alarms<br>
+O'er seas and solid grounds, doth call us all to arms,<br>
+Who for King George doth stand, their honour soon shall
+shine,<br>
+Their ruin is at hand, who with the Congress join.<br>
+The acts of Parliament, in them I much delight,<br>
+I hate their cursed intent, who for the Congress fight.<br>
+The Tories of the day, they are my daily toast,<br>
+They soon will sneak away, who independence boast,<br>
+Who non-resistant hold, they have my hand and heart,<br>
+May they for slaves be sold, who act the Whiggish part.<br>
+On Mansfield, North and Bute, may daily blessings pour<br>
+Confusions and dispute, on Congress evermore,<br>
+To North and British lord, may honours still be done,<br>
+I wish a block and cord, to General Washington."<br>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<blockquote><br>
+"Hark&#151; hark the trumpet sounds<br>
+O'er seas and solid grounds!<br>
+The din of war's alarms<br>
+Doth call us all to arms!<br>
+Who for King George doth stand<br>
+Their ruin is at hand:<br>
+<i>Their</i> honour soon shall shine<br>
+Who with the Congress join:<br>
+The acts of Parliament<br>
+I hate their cursed intent!<br>
+In them I much delight<br>
+Who for the Congress fight.<br>
+The Tories of the day<br>
+They soon will sneak away:<br>
+<i>They</i> are my daily toast<br>
+Who independence boast.<br>
+Who non-resistant hold<br>
+May they for slaves be sold.<br>
+They have my hand and heart<br>
+Who act the Whiggish part.<br>
+On Mansfield, North, and Bute,<br>
+Confusion and dispute.<br>
+May daily blessings pour<br>
+On Congress evermore.<br>
+To North and British lord,<br>
+I wish a block and cord!<br>
+May honours still be done<br>
+To General Washington!"<br>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Then every one must needs drink her health and praise her
+skill and wit and address&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, why might I not have expected accomplishments from such a
+pliant intelligence&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>As for Major Parr, that campaign-battered veteran had out his
+tablets and was painfully copying the verses&#151; he being no
+scholar&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Major Parr!" she protested in dismay. "I should perish
+with shame if His Excellency were to be so beset by every sorry
+scribbler."</p>
+
+<p>"A copy for His Excellency! Hurrah!" cried Captain Simpson.
+"Who volunteers?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will make it," said I, with jealous authority.</p>
+
+<p>"And I will aid you with quill, sand, and paper," said Lana.
+"Come with me, Euan."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I was looking for nobody," said I stiffly, and marched out,
+ridding them of my company&#151; which I think was what they both
+desired.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; and his
+good fortune&#151; before the entire fort. And I had had enough
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; even honest old
+Simpson&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; not dogged as usual by that insufferable Ensign,
+but in earnest conversation with the Sagamore.</p>
+
+<p>And, as I gazed at them outlined against the evening sky, I
+remembered what Betsy Hunt had said at Poundridge&#151; how she
+had encountered them together on the hill which overlooked the
+Sound.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it that you and this Mohican have still to say to
+each other?" I asked apprehensively.</p>
+
+<p>The vague expression of her features changed; she answered
+with heightened colour:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>There was an indirectness in her gaze, as well as in her
+reply, that troubled me, but I said amiably:</p>
+
+<p>"What has become of your mincing escort? Is he gone to secure
+a canoe?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is on duty and gone to the fort."</p>
+
+<p>"Where he belongs," I growled, "and not eternally at your
+heels."</p>
+
+<p>She raised her eyes and looked at me curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"As for that fop of an Ensign&#151;&#151;" I began&#151; but
+she took the word from my mouth:</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"I? Accused of what?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't know, then I need not humiliate myself to inform
+you. But I think you <i>do</i> know, for you looked guilty
+enough&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Guilty of what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of what? <i>I</i> don't know what you may be guilty of. But
+you sat on the stairs with your simpering inamorata&#151; and
+your courtship quarrels and your tender reconciliations were
+plain enough to&#151; to sicken anybody&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lois! That is no proper way to speak of&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is your own affair&#151; and <i>hers!</i> I ask your
+pardon&#151; but she flaunted her intimacy with you so openly and
+indiscreetly&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no common sense in what you say!" I exclaimed
+angrily. "If I&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Caress <i>me!"</i></p>
+
+<p>"Did she not stand for ten full minutes with her hand upon
+your shoulder, and a-sighing and simpering&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p><i>"That</i> was no caress! It was full innocent
+and&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Is she so innocent? Indeed! I had scarcely thought it of
+her," she said disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>"She is a true, good girl, innocent of any evil intention
+whatsoever&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I pray you, Euan, spare me your excited rhapsodies. If you
+prefer this most bewitching&#151; minx&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"She is no minx!" I retorted hotly; and Lois as hotly faced
+me, pink to her ears with exasperation.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>do</i> 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&#151; and a scant inch betwixt your noses! So that you come
+not again to me vowing what you have vowed to me&#151; I care not
+how you and she conduct&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>do</i> prefer you!" I cried, furious to be so
+misconstrued. "I love only one, and that one is you!"</p>
+
+<p>"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!?'</p>
+
+<p><i>"Yours</i> can. Even your fluttering rags did that!"</p>
+
+<p>She flushed: "Oh, if I were truly weak and silly enough to
+listen to you&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"You never do. You give me no hope."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>do</i> 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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p><i>"That</i> is not love!" I said, furious.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not pretend it to be that same boiling and sputtering
+sentiment which men call love&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then if it be not true love, why do you care what I whisper
+to any woman?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not truly care?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly.... After your burning vows so lately made to me.
+But men have no shame. I know that much."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said I, bewildered, "you say that you care nothing for
+my vows!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I say so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&#151; you&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I did not say so!... I&#151; I <i>love</i> your
+vows."</p>
+
+<p>"How can you love my vows and not me?" I demanded angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>her."</i></p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"For me to love even your vows," said she, looking at me
+sideways, "is <i>something</i> gained for you&#151; or so it
+seems to me. And were I minded to play the coquette&#151; as
+<i>some</i> do&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"You play it every minute!"</p>
+
+<p>"I? When, pray?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>Her lips parted in a quick, nervous laugh:</p>
+
+<p>"Was that the way I seemed? Truly, Euan? <i>Were</i> you
+jealous? And I scarce heeding one o' them, but my eyes on the
+doorway, watching for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lois! How can you say that to me&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it was so! Why did you not come to me at once? I was
+waiting!"</p>
+
+<p>"There were so many&#151; and you seemed so gay with
+them&#151; so careless&#151; not even glancing at
+me&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw you none the less. I never let you escape the range of
+my vision."</p>
+
+<p>"I never dreamed you noticed me. And every time you smiled on
+one of them I grew the gloomier&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"And what does my gaiety mean&#151; 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&#151; these shoon and
+buckles and silken stockings&#151; these bows of lace and
+furbelows&#151; this little patch making my rose cheeks
+rosier&#151; 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&#151; 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&#151; all these
+are but dormant qualities that you have awakened and
+inspired&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>She broke off short, tears filling her eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"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
+<i>jealous!"</i></p>
+
+<p>I caught her hands, but she bent swiftly and laid her hot
+cheek for an instant against my hand which held them.</p>
+
+<p>"If there is in me a Cinderella," she said unsteadily, "it is
+you who have discovered it&#151; liberated it&#151; 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 <i>try</i>.... 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&#151; all the heats and passions and sentimental
+vapours&#151; the sighs and vows and languishing all the
+inevitable trappings and masqueradings which bedizzen what men
+know as love&#151; do they not all seem mean and petty compared
+to our deep, sweet knowledge of each other?"</p>
+
+<p>"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</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; the very
+well-spring of my desire and pride&#151; 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?</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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&#151; the
+passions and the various petty vexations they entail.</p>
+
+<p>"For I would become&#151; to honour you&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at me, and I said:</p>
+
+<p>"Aye; but to what end?"</p>
+
+<p>"To what end, Euan? Why, for our spiritual and worldly
+profit."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I love you&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! Not in that manner&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"But it is so."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is <i>not!</i> We are to be above mere sentiment.
+Reason rules us."</p>
+
+<p>"Are we not to wed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&#151; as for that&#151;&#151;" She thought for a while,
+closely considering my palm. "Yes&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Meanwhile," said I, "youth flies; and I may not lay a finger
+on you to caress you."</p>
+
+<p>"Not to caress me&#151; as that woman did to
+you&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lois!"</p>
+
+<p>"I can not help it. There is in her&#151; in all such
+women&#151; a sly, smooth, sleek and graceful beast, ever seeming
+to invite or offer a caress&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"She is sweet and womanly; a warm friend of many years."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! And am I not&#151; womanly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you, entirely?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at me troubled:</p>
+
+<p>"How would you have me be more womanly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Be less a comrade, more a sweetheart."</p>
+
+<p>"Familiar?"</p>
+
+<p>My heart was beating fast:</p>
+
+<p>"Familiar to my arms. I love you."</p>
+
+<p>"I&#151; do not permit myself to desire your arms. Can I help
+saying so&#151; if you ask me?"</p>
+
+<p>"When I love you so&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Why are you, after all, like other men, when I once
+hoped&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Other men love. All men love. How can I be
+different&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"You are more finely made. You comprehend higher thoughts. You
+can command your lesser passions."</p>
+
+<p>"You say that very lightly, who have no need to command
+yours!"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?" she said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Because you have none to curb&#151; else you could better
+understand the greater ones."</p>
+
+<p>She sat with head lowered, playing with a blade of grass.
+After a while she looked up at me, a trifle confused.</p>
+
+<p>"Until I knew you, I entertained but one living passion&#151;
+to find my mother and hold her in my arms&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>She bent her head again and sat playing with the scented
+grasses. Then, half to herself, she said:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her head slowly, propping herself up on one arm,
+and looked intently at me.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you know about me, that you say I am unwomanly and
+cold?" Her voice was low, but the words rang a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not deceive yourself," she said. "I am fashioned for love
+as thoroughly as are you&#151; for love sacred or profane. But
+who am I to dare put on my crown of womanhood? Let me first know
+myself&#151; 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&#151; hold <i>her first of all</i> in my embrace&#151; 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&#151; I do
+not know, I tell you&#151; having been all my life deprived of
+intimacy&#151; never having known familiar kindness or its
+lightest caress&#151; and half dead sometimes of the need of
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>She straightened up, clenching her hands, then smiled her
+breathless little smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Think of it, Euan! For twenty years I have wanted her
+caresses&#151; or such harmless kindness of somebody&#151; almost
+of anybody! My foster-mother never kissed me, never put her arm
+about me&#151; or even laid her hand lightly upon my
+shoulder&#151; 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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>She forced a mirthless smile, and clasped her fingers across
+her knee:</p>
+
+<p>"So bitterly have I missed affection all my life," she added
+calmly. "...And now <i>you</i> come into my life! Why, Euan&#151;
+and my sentiments were truly pure and blameless when you were
+there that night with me on the rock under the clustered
+stars&#151; and I left for you a rose&#151; and my heart with
+it!&#151; 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."</p>
+
+<p>She made a listless gesture:</p>
+
+<p>"It is too late for us to yield to demonstration of your
+affection now, anyway&#151; 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&#151; not well for me. For whether I love you as I do,
+or&#151; otherwise and less purely&#151; it would be all the
+same&#151; and I should become&#151; something&#151; which I am
+not&#151; wedded or otherwise&#151; not my free self, but to my
+lesser self a slave, without ambition, pride&#151; wavering in
+that fixed resolve which has brought me hither.... And I should
+live and die your lesser satellite, unhappy to the very end."</p>
+
+<p>After a silence, I said heavily:</p>
+
+<p>"Then you have not renounced your purpose?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"You still desire to go to Catharines-town?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must go."</p>
+
+<p><i>"That</i> was the burden of your conversation with the
+Sagamore but now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"He refused to aid you?"</p>
+
+<p>"He refused."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, then, are you not content to wait here&#151; or at
+Albany?"</p>
+
+<p>She sat for a long while with head lowered, then, looking up
+quietly:</p>
+
+<p><i>"Another pair of moccasins was left outside my door last
+night."</i></p>
+
+<p>"What! At Croghan's? Inside our line!" I exclaimed
+incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"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!'"</p>
+
+<p>"You think your mother wrote it?" I asked, astounded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... She wrote the others."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"This writing is the same."</p>
+
+<p>"The same hand that wrote the other messages throughout the
+years?"</p>
+
+<p>"The same."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you told the Sagamore of this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told him but now&#151; and for the first time."</p>
+
+<p>"You told him <i>everything?"</i></p>
+
+<p>"Yes&#151; concerning my first finding&#151; and the messages
+that came every year with the moccasins."</p>
+
+<p>"And did you show him the Indian writing also?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he say?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Amochol?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&#151; it sounded like that. What did he mean, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I rose and aided her to stand; and her hands remained limply
+in mine.</p>
+
+<p>"I had rather take you from her arms," I said in a low voice,
+"&#151;&#151; if you ever deign to give yourself to me."</p>
+
+<p>"That is sweetly said.... Such giving leaves the giver
+unashamed."</p>
+
+<p>"Could you promise yourself to me?"</p>
+
+<p>She stood with head averted, watching the last faint stain of
+color fade from the west.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you have me at any cost, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Any cost."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose that when I find my mother&#151; I find no name for
+myself&#151; save hers?"</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have mine then."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear lad!... But&#151; suppose, even then I do not love
+you&#151; as men mean love."</p>
+
+<p>"So that you love no other man, I should still want you."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I then so vital to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Utterly."</p>
+
+<p>"To how many other women have you spoken thus?" she asked
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"To none."</p>
+
+<p>"Truly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Truly, Lois."</p>
+
+<p>She said in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; perjuring their souls
+for the sake of a ragged, unripe jade, and a wild night's
+frolic.... Well&#151; God made men.... I know myself, too.... To
+love you as you wish <i>is</i> 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&#151;
+take me home now&#151; if you care to walk as far with me."</p>
+
+<p>"And I who am asking you to walk through life with me?" I
+said, forcing a laugh.</p>
+
+<p>We turned; she took my arm, and together we moved slowly back
+through the falling dusk.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"News," she whispered. "Do they bring good news as fast as
+bad?"</p>
+
+<p>"It may mean our marching orders," I said, dejected.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>does</i> mean your marching orders!" she exclaimed,
+startled.</p>
+
+<p>"It most certainly means something," said I. "Good-night&#151;
+I must run for the fort&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to&#151;&#151; to leave me?"</p>
+
+<p>"That horn is calling out Morgan's men&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I not to see you again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes&#151; I expect so&#151; but if&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Is there an 'if'?' Euan, <i>are</i> you going away
+forever?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear maid, I don't know yet what has
+happened&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p><i>"I</i> do! You <i>are</i> going!... To your death,
+perhaps&#151; for all I know&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! And good-night&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>She held to my offered hand tightly:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go&#151; don't go&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I will return and tell you if&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p><i>"'If!'</i> That means you will not return! <i>I</i> shall
+never see you again!"</p>
+
+<p>I had flung one arm around her, and she stood with one hand
+clenched against her lips, looking blankly into my face.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," I said, and kissed her clenched hand so violently
+that it slipped sideways on her cheek, bruising her lips.</p>
+
+<p>She gave a faint gasp and swayed where she stood, very white
+in the face.</p>
+
+<p>"I have hurt you," I stammered; but my words were lost in a
+frightful uproar bursting from the fort; and:</p>
+
+<p>"God!" she whispered, cowering against me, as the horrid
+howling swelled on the affrighted air.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Her hand was still at her bruised lips; I bent forward; she
+moved it aside. But I kissed only her hand.</p>
+
+<p>Then I turned and ran toward the fort; and in the torch-light
+at the gate encountered Boyd, who said to me gleefully:</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you wish to speak to me?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Is&#151; is Lieutenant Boyd going with you?" she
+stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"No, child."</p>
+
+<p>She thanked me with a pitiful sort of smile, and shrank back
+into the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; merely sufficient ammunition and a few
+necessaries&#151; for we were to travel lightly. Then Captain
+Simpson went away to inspect the Oneida scouts.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you well," said the Major quietly. "Guard the Mohican
+as you would the apple of your eye, and&#151; God go with you,
+Euan Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; he with the
+hunting-shirt and double blanket, wore unfamiliar paint.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you?" said I in the Oneida dialect, trying to gain a
+square look at him in the shifty light.</p>
+
+<p>"Wyandotte," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hell!" said I, turning to Captain Simpson. "Who sends me a
+Wyandotte?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I took another hard look at the Wyandotte.</p>
+
+<p>"You should travel lighter," said I. "Split that Niagara
+blanket and roll your hunting-shirt."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; and heaven knows where he got it, for it was not
+dyed, but natural.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Salute, O Sagamore! Roya-neh!" I said in a low voice, passing
+him.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I made a quick gesture, turned, and started, heading the file
+out into the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>And as we advanced noiselessly and swung west into the Otsego
+road, I was aware of a shadow on my right&#151; soft hands
+outstretched&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XI</h3>
+
+<h4>A SCOUT OF SIX</h4>
+
+<p>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&#151; a vast and mournful territory which had been
+populous and prosperous a twelvemonth since, and was now the very
+abomination of desolation.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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&#151; dumb witnesses that the wrath
+of England had passed wrapped in the lightning of Divine
+Right.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; and, rolling over, go to sleep with a consciousness of
+work well done, the candle snuffed, and the cat locked out for
+the night.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond them, at the Burris Farm, we passed our outlying
+pickets&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p align="center" class="center">"Ford, three feet at low
+water."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he came to a halt, nosing the farther shore like a
+lean and suspicious hound at gaze; and stood so minute after
+minute.</p>
+
+<p>Mayaro, crouching beside me, slowly nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"He has seen something," I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"And I, too," returned the Mohican quietly.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; a tiny bay where the current clutched what floated,
+and spun it slowly around in the sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; so eloquent were
+the feathery willow-tops of the tragedy that agitated each
+separate slender stem to frenzy.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He wore no paint; he was not a warrior but a hunter. "St.
+Regis," said the Mohican briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"The poor fool," I said sadly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; no doubt the work of the Reverend Mr.
+Kirkland&#151; and that the squatting Wyandotte wore the Hawk in
+brilliant yellow.</p>
+
+<p>"What is yonder fellow's name?" I asked Mayaro, dropping my
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Black-Snake," replied the Mohican quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! He seems to wear the Hawk."</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore's face grew smooth and blank, and he made no
+comment.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a Western clan, is it not, Mayaro?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is Western, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"That clan does not exist among the Eastern nations?"</p>
+
+<p>"Clans die out, clans are born, clans are altered with the
+years, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard of the Hawk Clan at Guy Park," said I.</p>
+
+<p>He said, with elaborate carelessness:</p>
+
+<p>"It exists among the Senecas."</p>
+
+<p>"And apparently among the Wyandottes."</p>
+
+<p>"Apparently."</p>
+
+<p>I said in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore made no answer, and after a moment I said:</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; have
+been furtively studying him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro has two eyes. For what are they unless to
+observe?"</p>
+
+<p>"And what has my brother observed?"</p>
+
+<p>"That no two people are perfectly similar," he said
+blandly.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Halt, and return along the bank. The Black-Snake has overrun
+a ford where there are signs for my brother to read and
+consider."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Halt here," said I, pretending to remain still unconvinced.
+"Sagamore, do you come with me a rod or so upstream."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no ford within a rod or two," said the Wyandotte
+stolidly.</p>
+
+<p>And, after we had left the others, the Mohican murmured, as we
+hastened on:</p>
+
+<p>"No, not with one rod or two, but the third rod marks it."</p>
+
+<p>Presently, speeding under the outer fringe of trees, I caught
+sight of a thin line across the water, slanting from shore to
+shore&#151; not a ripple, but as though the edge of an invisible
+reef slightly affected the smooth-flowing, glassy surface of the
+stream.</p>
+
+<p>"He might have overlooked that," said I.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe St. Regis," he said.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe," he replied calmly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said I calmly. "Do you suspect him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe. Maybe not. But&#151; <i>he once wore his hair in a
+ridge."</i></p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"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 <i>bent
+backward.</i> Much oil and brushing make hairs grow that
+way."</p>
+
+<p>"But&#151; what Indians wear their hair that way&#151; like
+the curved ridge on a dragoon's helmet?"</p>
+
+<p><i>"The Eries."</i></p>
+
+<p>I stared at him without comprehension, for I knew an Erie
+scalp when I saw one.</p>
+
+<p><i>"Not</i> the warriors," he added quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>When we came up to them I said:</p>
+
+<p>"There are no riffles to indicate a ford"&#151; which was true
+enough&#151; "and on the sand were only moccasin tracks a week
+old."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did not the Black-Snake report them?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"A canoe has passed," said the Sagamore calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"What! You saw it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Loskiel. But there was spray on a boulder in a calm
+pool."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps a deer crossed, or a mink or otter crawled across the
+stone."</p>
+
+<p>"No; the drops were many, but they lay like the first drops of
+a rain, separate and distinct."</p>
+
+<p>"A great fish leaping might have spattered it."</p>
+
+<p>"There was no wash against the rock from any fish-swirl."</p>
+
+<p>"Then <i>you</i> believe that there is a canoe ahead of us
+going with the current?"</p>
+
+<p>"An hour ahead&#151; less, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Why an hour?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"A careless paddle-stroke did it," I said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p><i>"No Indian is careless."</i></p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, Loskiel, that the boulder was splashed purposely, or
+that there are white men in that canoe."</p>
+
+<p>"Splashed purposely?" I said, bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. The Black-Snake had the river watch&#151; until you
+changed our stations."</p>
+
+<p>"You think it might have been a sign for him from possible
+confederates."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe. Maybe clumsy white men."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The presence of that canoe worried me, nor could I find any
+explanation for it. None of our surveyors was out&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait for the moon," said the Sagamore very quietly.</p>
+
+<p>His low, melodious voice startled me from my thoughts, and I
+looked around at him inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"I will go," said the Wyandotte, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen to the crows," returned the Oneida. "Their evening
+call to council is long and deliberate&#151; Kaah! Kaah!
+Kaah&#151; h! What are they saying now, Black-Snake, my elder
+brother?"</p>
+
+<p>I glanced at the Mohican in startled silence, for we all were
+listening very intently to the distant crows.</p>
+
+<p>"They have discovered an owl, perhaps," said the Wyandotte,
+smiling, "and are tormenting him."</p>
+
+<p>"Or a Mountain Snake," said the Sagamore blandly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Or a Mountain Snake," repeated the Siwanois, with a perfectly
+blank face. "The red door of the West is still open."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The Wyandotte turned good-humouredly to the Mohican, not
+pretending to misunderstand this subtle <i>double entendre</i>
+and play upon words.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Sagamore of the Loups," he said, carrying out the
+metaphor, "are closer to the four-footed people than are we
+Wyandottes."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true," said the Grey-Feather. "My elder brother, the
+Black-Snake, wears the two-legged hawk."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The Wyandotte did not lose his temper, nor even, apparently,
+perceive how slyly he was being baited by all except myself.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the opinion of the Loup, O Sagamore?" he asked
+lightly.</p>
+
+<p>"Does my brother the Black-Snake desire to know the Sagamore's
+opinion concerning the cawing of yonder crows?"</p>
+
+<p>The Wyandotte inclined his ugly head.</p>
+
+<p>"I think," said the Mohican deliberately, "that there may be a
+tree-cat in their vicinity."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; always with two meanings, and one quite natural and
+innocent&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>Still, also, every man there had seen crows gather around and
+scold a lynx lying flattened out on some arching limb.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"We camp here," I said quietly. "No fire, of course. Two
+sentinels&#151; the Night Hawk and the Black-Snake. The guard
+will be relieved every two hours. Wake me at the first change of
+watch."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I said to the Mole in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The Stockbridge warrior looked up quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"I read the promise of the Prince of Peace, brother, who came
+to the world not bearing a sword."</p>
+
+<p>"He came to fulfill, not to destroy," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"So it is written, brother."</p>
+
+<p>"And yet you and I, His followers, go forth armed to
+slay."</p>
+
+<p>"To prepare a place for Him&#151; His humble instruments&#151;
+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?"</p>
+
+<p>"My brother has spoken."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The Grey-Feather, who had been listening, said quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"So that your religion be good and you live up to it, sign and
+symbol avail nothing with God or with Tharon," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Men wear what they love best," said the Mole, lightly
+touching his cross.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore said gravely:</p>
+
+<p>"Uncas went naked to the Holder of the Heavens."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this then the hour and the place to discuss such matters,
+and irritate the Unseen?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I knew as well as did the others what the pagan and
+burly Wyandotte meant.</p>
+
+<p>To every Indian&#151; even to many who had been supposedly
+converted&#151; 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&#151;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>I sat looking hard at the Wyandotte, inclined to speak, yet
+unwilling to meddle where intervention must be useless.</p>
+
+<p>His small, unwinking eyes met mine.</p>
+
+<p>"There are demons," he said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Demons in human form," I nodded. "Some were at Cherry Valley
+a year ago."</p>
+
+<p>"There are witches," he said.</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head: "None."</p>
+
+<p>"And Giants of Stone, and Flying Heads, and the Dead Hunter,
+and the Lake Serpent," he persisted sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"There never were either giants or witches," I replied.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>I said quietly: "After all, the Master of Life stands sentry
+while the guiltless sleep!"</p>
+
+<p>"Amen," said the Mole, lifting his calm eyes to the roof of
+leaves above.</p>
+
+<p>An owl began to hoot&#151; one of those great, fierce cat-owls
+of the North. Every Indian listened.</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore said pleasantly to the Wyandotte:</p>
+
+<p>"It is as though he were calling the lynxes together&#151; as
+Amochol the Accursed summons his Cat-People to the
+sacrifice."</p>
+
+<p>"I know nothing of Amochol and his sacrifices," said the
+Wyandotte carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet you Wyandottes border the Western Gate."</p>
+
+<p>The Huron shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"Hear the Eared One squall," said Grey-Feather, as the great
+owl yelled through the darkening forest.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"They say," continued the Sagamore, "that the Erie priesthood
+learned from the Nez Perces a strange and barbarous fashion."</p>
+
+<p>"What fashion?" asked Grey-Feather, so innocently that I could
+not determine whether he was playing into the Sagamore's
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>"The fashion of wearing the hair in a short, stiff ridge,"
+said the Mohican. "Has the Black-Snake ever seen it worn that
+way?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it time to change the guard?" I asked, still shivering
+from the horror of my dream.</p>
+
+<p>"You have scarce yet closed your eyes, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you seated upright wide awake, my brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is evil in the wind."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no wind stirring."</p>
+
+<p>"A witch-wind came slyly while you slept. Did you not dream,
+Loskiel?" In spite of me I shivered again.</p>
+
+<p>"That is foolishness," said I. "The Wyandotte's silly talk has
+made us wakeful. Our sentinels watch. Sleep, Mayaro."</p>
+
+<p>"Have <i>you</i> need of sleep, Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I? No. Sleep you, then, and I will sit awake if it reassures
+you."</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore set his mouth close to my ear:</p>
+
+<p>"The Wyandotte is not posted where you placed him."</p>
+
+<p>"What? How do you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I went out to see. He sits on a rock close to the water."</p>
+
+<p>"Damn him," I muttered angrily. "I'll teach
+him&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>The Mohican's iron grip held me in my place.</p>
+
+<p>"The Night-Hawk understands. Let the Wyandotte remain
+unrebuked and undisturbed while I creep down to yonder ford."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not intend to reconnoitre the ford until dawn," I
+whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"Alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Secretly and alone. The Siwanois is a magic clan. Their
+Sagamores see and hear where others perceive nothing. Let me go,
+Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I go, also."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"What of our blood-brotherhood, then?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence; then the Mohican rose, and taking my hand
+in his drew me noiselessly to my feet beside him.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XII</h3>
+
+<h4>AT THE FORD</h4>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a voice said, in the Seneca dialect:</p>
+
+<p>"Is it thou, Butler?"</p>
+
+<p>And every drop of blood froze in my body.</p>
+
+<p>God knows how I found voice to answer "Yes," and how I found
+courage to let my hand remain upon my enemy's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"It is I, Hiokatoo," said the low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Move forward," I said; and dropped my hand from his
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I managed to retain my presence of mind, and, laying my mouth
+against his ear in the darkness, I whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"The Seneca Hiokatoo and his warriors&#151; all around us in
+the water. He mistakes me for Walter Butler, They have been
+reconnoitring our camp."</p>
+
+<p>I felt the body of the Mohican stiffen under my grasp, Then he
+said quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"Stand still till all have passed us."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but let no Seneca hear your Algonquin speech. If any
+speak I will answer for you."</p>
+
+<p>"It is well," said the Sagamore quietly. And I heard him
+cautiously loosening his hatchet.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Halt and turn. You travel the wrong way!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go forward and mind your business!" I said in English.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"God!" I whispered. "Don't wait for that!"</p>
+
+<p>But the Siwanois warrior was not to be denied; and in a second
+or two the wet scalp flapped at his belt.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"They'll know it by sunrise," I said. "How many did you
+count?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thirteen in that war-party, Loskiel. And if Butler and
+McDonald be with them, that makes fifteen&#151; and doubtless
+other renegades besides."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>I heard the Mohican's low laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"The Senecas will see it and destroy it. But it will drive
+them frantic," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever they do to this tree will but mark the ford more
+plainly," said I.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the Siwanois checked me and whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Yonder squats your Wyandotte sentinel."</p>
+
+<p>"Where? I can not see him."</p>
+
+<p>"On that flat rock by the deep water, seeming a part of
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you certain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"You saw him move?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But a Siwanois of the Magic Clan makes nothing of
+darkness. He sees where he chooses to see.</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro," said I, "what do you make of this Wyandotte?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"That might damn a white soldier, but an Indian is
+different."</p>
+
+<p>"He is a Wyandotte&#151; or says he is."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but he came with credentials from Fortress Pitt."</p>
+
+<p>"Once," said the Sagamore, "he wore his hair in a ridge."</p>
+
+<p>"If the Eries learned that from the Nez Perces, why might not
+the Wyandottes also learn it?"</p>
+
+<p>"He wears the Hawk."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know it."</p>
+
+<p>"He saw the moccasin tracks in the sand at the other ford,
+Loskiel, and remained silent."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it."</p>
+
+<p>"And I believe, also, that he saw the canoe."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said I, "you mean that this Wyandotte is a
+traitor."</p>
+
+<p>"If he be a Wyandotte at all."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"He may be Huron; he may be a Seneca-Huron. But we Indians
+think differently, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"We do not know for certain. But"&#151; and the Mohican's
+voice became quietly ferocious&#151; "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."</p>
+
+<p>"You think this Wyandotte an Erie in disguise?" I asked
+incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"We Indians of different nations are asking that question of
+each other, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"What is the mind of the Grey-Feather concerning this?" I
+asked, horrified.</p>
+
+<p>"Oneida and Stockbridge begin to believe as I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"We so believe, Loskiel. We are not yet certain."</p>
+
+<p>"But you who have taken Erie scalps should
+know&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"I never learned to smile in the face of a traitor!"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"What would you have me do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, yet."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore laughed and laid one hand on my shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>"Is it a custom for an Ensign to pass judgment on a
+Major-General, O Loskiel, my dear but <i>much younger</i>
+brother?"</p>
+
+<p>I blushed hot with annoyance and shame. Of all things on
+earth, self-control was the most necessary quality to any officer
+commanding Indians.</p>
+
+<p>"The Sagamore is right," I said in a mortified voice.</p>
+
+<p>"The Sagamore has lived longer than his younger brother," he
+rejoined gently.</p>
+
+<p>"And is far wiser," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"A little wiser in some few things concerning human life,
+Loskiel.... Does my brother desire that Mayaro shall bring in the
+Wyandotte?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bring him," I said; and walked forward toward our camp.</p>
+
+<p>Tahoontowhee stopped me with his challenge, then sprang
+forward at the sound of my voice.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Senecas," I said. "Too many for us."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you quit your post?" I asked him bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a better post and more to see on the rock," he said
+simply.</p>
+
+<p>"You made a mistake. Your business is to obey your commanding
+officer. Do you understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"The Black-Snake understands."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you discover nothing from your rock?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. Deer moved in the woods."</p>
+
+<p>"Red deer," I said coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"A July deer is in the red coat always."</p>
+
+<p>"The deer you heard are red the whole year round."</p>
+
+<p>"Eho! The Black-Snake understands."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Tie your pack, sling it, and shoulder your rifle.
+We march immediately."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>And as we climbed out of our pulpit and descended over the
+moss to the soundless carpet of moist leaves:</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Damnation!" I said. "There are tin points on the fringe! You
+might better wear a cow-bell! Where did you get it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was in my pack."</p>
+
+<p>"You have not worn it before. Why do you wear it now?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is looser in time of need."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"March!" I said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>That there was in the primeval woods no underbrush, save along
+streams or where the windfall had crashed earthward, made
+travelling in silence possible.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Rattlesnakes were unpleasantly numerous here&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; this travelling with men who could outrun
+and outmarch the vast majority of white men.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Sisquehanne," he said.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"That is your place," I said sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"You gave no orders."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor did I rescind my last order, which was that you march
+behind the Sagamore."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that to be the order of march?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by questioning your officer?" I
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I am no soldier, but an Indian!" he said sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>For every stupid act or omission of his&#151; or any single
+one of them&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn was breaking before the Sagamore turned his head toward
+me. I gave the signal to halt.</p>
+
+<p>"The Ouleout," whispered Tahoontowhee in my ear. "Here is its
+confluence with the Susquehanna."</p>
+
+<p>The Mohican nodded, saying that we now stood on a
+peninsula.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Sagamore," said I, "you and I will stand guard for the first
+two hours. Sleep, you others."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>I was aroused toward nine by the Mohican, and sat up as wide
+awake as a disturbed tree-cat, instantly ready for trouble.</p>
+
+<p>"An Oneida on the Ouleout," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yonder&#151; just across."</p>
+
+<p>"Friendly?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has made the sign."</p>
+
+<p>"An ambassador?"</p>
+
+<p>"A runner, not a belt-bearer."</p>
+
+<p>"Bring him to me."</p>
+
+<p>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&#151;
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I held out my hand, saying quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"Welcome, brother."</p>
+
+<p>"I thank my brother for his welcome," he said, taking my
+offered hand.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"The birds sing sweetly," observed Tahoontowhee politely.</p>
+
+<p>"The weather is fine," said I urbanely.</p>
+
+<p>"The Master of Life pities the world He fashioned. All should
+give thanks to Him at sunrise," said the runner quietly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Holding these unopened in my hand, I asked him who he was and
+from whom and whence he came.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Red Wings, a Thaowethon Oneida of Ironderoga, runner for
+General Clinton&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>Holding the shining coil in my hands, I looked at him
+searchingly.</p>
+
+<p>"By what path did you come?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw the Mengwe," he said politely, as the Sagamore came up
+beside him.</p>
+
+<p>Mayaro smiled his appreciation of the Algonquin term, then he
+spat, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"The Mengwe were Sinako and Mowawak. One has joined the Eel
+Clan."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"The Red Wings came by the Charlotte River?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"By the Cherry, Quenevas, and Charlotte to the Ouleout. The
+Mengwe fired on me as I stood on a high cliff and mocked
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"Did they follow you?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"And Butler and McDonald?" I demanded, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"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,"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The first letter was from my General Clinton:</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>A second letter was from Major Parr, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said I to myself, "I'll use it."</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; a gentleman not famed for his
+generosity in such matters.</p>
+
+<p>"This, Euan, is all the general news I have to offer, save
+that the army expects its marching orders at any moment now.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Euan, she will not admit it, but she is mad about Lieutenant
+Boyd&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>Here the letter ended abruptly, and underneath in hurried
+writing:</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"I know not how to close my letter&#151; how to say
+farewell&#151; 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&#151; that you are what you are&#151; and not
+like Sir John and&#151; other men.</p>
+
+<p>"Women are of a multitude of kinds&#151; 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&#151; God, the man who loves me, and
+myself."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>"I sit here waiting for a rifleman to take my letter to the
+General who has promised to commit it to the runner.</p>
+
+<p>"A regiment is trying its muskets at the lake. I hear the
+firing.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a tallow dip and wax and sand, ready to close my
+letter instantly. No one comes."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; the strange
+and melancholy music of your regiment. It seems to fill my heart
+with dread unutterable."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>"The runner is here! Euan&#151; Euan! Come back to me!</p>
+
+<p align="right" class="right">"Lois de Contrecoeur."</p>
+
+<p>My eyes fell from the letter to the sleeping runner stretched
+out at my feet, then shifted vaguely toward the river.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Must that be decided now, Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Erie," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"You believe it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"And the others&#151; the Oneidas and the Stockbridge?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are as certain as I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God! Then why have you not told me this before,
+Mayaro?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is there haste?"</p>
+
+<p>"Haste? Have I not said that we march immediately? And you
+would have let me give my order and include that villain in
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? It is an easier and safer way to take a prisoner to
+Tioga Point than to drag him thither tied."</p>
+
+<p>"But he may escape&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore gave me an ironic glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it likely," he said softly, "when we are watching?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"He has done us what harm he is able," said the Sagamore
+coolly.</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated, then asked him what he meant.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he said, "their scouts <i>have</i> followed us. There
+are two of them now across the Susquehanna."</p>
+
+<p>Thunderstruck, I stared at the river, where its sunlit surface
+glittered level through the trees.</p>
+
+<p>"Do the others know this?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>I looked at my Indians where they lay flat behind their trees,
+rifles poised, eyes intent on the territory in front of them.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"He ought to hang," I said between my teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded, looking uneasily toward the river where the two
+Seneca spies lurked unseen as yet by me.</p>
+
+<p>"Let the men sling their packs," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"They have done so, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. Our order of march will be the same as yesterday.
+We keep the Wyandotte between us."</p>
+
+<p>"That is wisdom."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it to be a running fight, Mayaro?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps, if their main body comes up."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we had best start across the Ouleout, unless you mean to
+ford the Susquehanna."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Some day," said the Sagamore in my ear, "Tahoontowhee will
+accept the antlers and the quiver."</p>
+
+<p>"He would be greater yet if he accepted Christ," said the
+Stockbridge quietly.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIII</h3>
+
+<h4>THE HIDDEN CHILDREN</h4>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Mohican said in my ear:</p>
+
+<p>"Unless we can stir him to move and expose himself, we must
+lose him. For his fellows will surely track us to this
+place."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God! By what unfortunate accident should such a hiding
+place exist so near!" I said miserably.</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore's stern visage slightly relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>"It is no accident, Loskiel. Do you not suppose he knew it was
+here? Else he had never dared attempt what he did."</p>
+
+<p>"The vile Witch-cat has been here many a time," said the
+Grey-Feather, his ferocious gaze fixed on the cliff.</p>
+
+<p>"Is the Mole dead?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He is with his God&#151; Tharon or Christ, whichever it may
+be, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I said to the Mohican:</p>
+
+<p>"Hold the Erie. The Night-Hawk and I will go back and bury our
+dead against Seneca profanation."</p>
+
+<p>"Let the Grey-Feather go, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"No. The Mole was Christian. Does a Christian fail his own
+kind at the last?"</p>
+
+<p>"Loskiel has spoken," said the Mohican gravely. "The
+Grey-Feather and I will hold the filthy cat."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I struck flint to steel, lighted my tinder, and set the shred
+of bark afire.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Night-Hawk knelt, bent his bow, and the blazing arrow
+soared whistling with flame, and fell behind the rock on the
+shelf.</p>
+
+<p>Arrow after arrow followed, whizzing upward and dropping
+accurately; but the wet mosses of the cliff extinguished the
+flashes.</p>
+
+<p>As the last arrow fell, flared a moment, then merely smoked,
+an insulting laugh came from aloft, and my Indians uttered fierce
+exclamations and cuddled their rifle-stocks close to their
+cheeks, fairly trembling for a shot.</p>
+
+<p>"Dogs of Oneidas!" called the Erie. "Go howl for your dead pig
+of a Stockbridge slave."</p>
+
+<p>"The Mole wears his scalp with Tharon!" retorted the
+Grey-Feather, choking with fury. "But Tahoontowhee's hatchet is
+still sticking in the Senecas' heads!"</p>
+
+<p>"For which the Night-Hawk shall burn at the Seneca stake,
+sobbing his death-song!" shouted the Erie, so fiercely that for a
+moment we lay silent, hoping that by some ungovernable movement
+he might expose himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Taunt him!" I whispered; and the Mohican said with a derisive
+laugh:</p>
+
+<p>"Four scalp-tufts from the mangy Cats of Amochol trim
+<i>my</i> hatchet-sheath. When the young men ask me what this
+sparse and sickly fur may be, I shall strip it off and cast it at
+their feet, saying it is but Erie filth to spit upon."</p>
+
+<p>"Liar of a conquered nation!" roared the Erie, "for every
+priest of Amochol who fell by Otsego under your cowardly
+butcher's knife, a Siwanois Sagamore shall burn three days, and
+yet live to die the fourth! The day that August dies, so shall
+the Sagamore die at the Festival of Dreams in
+Catharines-town!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall remember," said I in a low voice to the Sagamore,
+"that the Onon-hou-aroria is to be celebrated in Catharines-town
+on the last day of August."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, then:</p>
+
+<p>"A Mohican Sagamore insults a dirty priest of Amochol! I do
+you honour by offering you battle, with knife, with hatchet, with
+rifle, with naked hands! Choose, spawn of Atensi&#151; still-born
+kitten of Iuskeha, choose! Not one soul except myself will raise
+hand against you. By Tharon, I swear it! Choose! And the victor
+passes freely and whither he wills!"</p>
+
+<p>The Erie mocked him from his high perch:</p>
+
+<p>"Squirrels talk! Long since has your Tharon been hurled
+headlong into Biskoonah by Atensi and her flaming grandson!"</p>
+
+<p>At this awful blasphemy, the Mohican fairly blanched so that
+under his paint his skin grew ashy for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>The Grey-Feather shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"Lying and degraded priest! Mowawak Cannibal of a Sinako Cat!
+It is Atensi herself who burns with Iuskeha in Biskoonah; and the
+sacrilegious fires lick your altars!"</p>
+
+<p>The Erie laughed horribly:</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your fool of a stripling called Loskiel? Is he there
+with you? Or did my hatchet fetch him such a clip that he died of
+fright and a bullet in his belly?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is unharmed," replied the Mohican, tauntingly. "A squaw
+shoots better than a Cat!"</p>
+
+<p>"A lie! I saw my rifle blow a hole in his body!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hatchet and rifle failed. The Ensign, Loskiel, laughed,
+asking what forest-flies were buzzing at his ear. Loskiel spits
+on Cats, and brushes their flying hatchets from his ears as
+others brush mosquitos!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let him speak, then, to prove it!" shouted the Erie,
+incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>But I remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Erie's ferocious laugh rang out from the cliff.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you Mohican slave and you Oneida dogs, you shall know
+the power of Amochol. For what was done to Loskiel and to the
+Praying Mole, will be done to you all on the last day of this
+month, when the Dream Feast is held at Catharines-town! You shall
+die. And others shall die&#151; not as you, but on the red altar
+of the Great Sachem Amochol! Strangled, disemboweled, sacrificed
+to clothe Atensi!"</p>
+
+<p>The Grey-Feather, unable any longer to retain his
+self-control, was getting to his feet, staring wildly up at the
+cliff; but the Mohican drew him back into his form and held him
+there with powerful grip.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," he hissed, "to what this warlock blabbs."</p>
+
+<p>The Erie laughed, evidently awaiting a retort. None came, and
+he laughed again triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Amochol's arm is long, O you Oneida dogs who howl outside the
+Long House gates! Amochol's eyes are like the white-crested
+eagle's eyes, seeing everything, and his ears are like the red
+buck's ears, so that nothing stirs unheard by him.</p>
+
+<p>"Phantoms arise and walk at night; Amochol sees. Under earth
+and water, demons are breathing; Amochol hears. Then we Eries
+listen, too, and make the altar fires burn hotter. For the ghosts
+of the night and the demons that stir must be fed."</p>
+
+<p>He waited again, doubtless expecting some exclamation of
+protest against his monstrous profession. After a moment he went
+on:</p>
+
+<p>"Spectres and demons must be fed&#151; but not on the foul
+flesh of dogs like you! We cut your throats to feed the Flying
+Heads."</p>
+
+<p>He paused; and as no reply was forthcoming, the sorcerer
+laughed scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Your blood becomes water! You cringe at the power of Amochol.
+But the red altar is not for you. Listen, dogs! Had I not found
+it necessary to slay your stripling, Loskiel, he had been burned
+and strangled an that altar!... And there is another at Otsego
+who shall die strangled on the altar of Amochol&#151; the maiden
+called Lois! Long have we followed her. Long is the arm of the
+Red Priest&#151; <i>when his White Sorceress dreams for
+him!</i></p>
+
+<p>"And now you know, you Mohican mongrel, why Amochol was at
+Otsego. His arm reaches even into the barracks of Clinton!
+Because to Atensi the sacrifice of these two would be
+grateful&#151; the maiden Lois and your Loskiel. Only the pure
+and guarded pleasure her. <i>And these two are Hidden
+Children.</i> One has died. The other shall not escape us. She
+shall die strangled by Amochol upon his own altar!"</p>
+
+<p>I sat up, sick with horror and surprise, and stared at the
+Mohican for an explanation. He and the Oneidas were now looking
+at me very gravely and in silence. And after a moment my head
+dropped.</p>
+
+<p>I knew well enough what the brutal Erie meant by "Hidden
+Children." But that I was one I never dreamed, nor had it
+occurred to me that Lois was one, in spite of her strange
+history. For among the Iroquois and their adopted captives there
+are both girls and boys who are spoken of as "Hidden Persons" or
+"Hidden Children." They are called Ta-neh-u-weh-too, which means,
+"hidden in the husks," like ears of corn.</p>
+
+<p>And the reason is this: a mother, for one cause or another, or
+perhaps for none at all, decides to make of her unborn baby a
+Hidden Child. And so, when born, the child is instantly given to
+distant foster-parents, and by them hidden; and remains so
+concealed until adolescence. And, being considered from birth
+pure and unpolluted, a girl and a boy thus hidden are expected to
+marry, return to their people when informed by their
+foster-parents of the truth, and bring a fresh, innocent, and
+uncontaminated strain into their clan and tribe.</p>
+
+<p>What the Erie said seemed to stun me. What did this foul
+creature know of me? What knowledge had this murdering beast of
+Lois? And Amochol&#151; what in God's name did the Red Sorcerer
+know of us, or of our history?</p>
+
+<p>Even the horrid threat against Lois seemed so fantastic, so
+unreal, so meaningless, that at the moment. it did not impress me
+even with its unspeakable wickedness.</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore touched my arm as though with awe and pity, and I
+lifted my head.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this true, brother?" he asked gently.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know if it is," I said, dazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Then&#151; it <i>is</i> the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you say that, Mayaro?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know it, now. I suspected it when your eyes first fell on
+the Ghost-bear rearing on my breast. I thought I knew you, there
+at Major Lockwood's house in Poundridge. It was your name,
+Loskiel, and your knowledge of your red brothers, that stirred my
+suspicions. And when I learned that Guy Johnson had sheltered
+you, then I was surer still."</p>
+
+<p>"Who, then, am I?" I asked, bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>The three Indians were staring at me as though that murderer
+aloft on his eyrie did not exist. I, too, had forgotten him for
+the moment; and it was only the loud explosion of his smooth-bore
+that shocked us to the instant necessity of the situation.</p>
+
+<p>The bullet screamed through the leaves above us; we clapped
+our rifles to our cheeks, striving to glimpse him. Nothing moved
+on the rocky shelf.</p>
+
+<p>"He fired to signal his friends," whispered the Mohican. "He
+must believe them to be within hearing distance."</p>
+
+<p>I set my teeth and stared savagely at the cliff.</p>
+
+<p>"If that is so," said I, "we must leave him here and pull
+foot."</p>
+
+<p>There was a tense silence, then, as we rose, an infuriated
+yell burst from the Oneidas, and in their impotence they fired
+blindly at the cliff, awaking a very hell of echo.</p>
+
+<p>Through the clattering confusion of the double discharge, the
+demoniac laughter of the Erie rang, and my Oneidas, retreating,
+hurled back insult and anathema, promising to return and
+annihilate every living sorcerer in the Dark Empire, including
+Amochol himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha-e!" he shouted after us, giving the evil spirits' cry.
+"Ha-e! Ha-ee!" From his shelf he cast a painted stick after us,
+which came hurtling down and landed in the water. And he screamed
+as he heard us threshing over the shallows: "Koue! Askennon
+eskatoniot!"</p>
+
+<p>The thing he had cast after us was floating, slowly turning
+round and round in the water; and it seemed to be a stick
+something thicker than an arrow and as long, and painted in
+concentric rings of black, vermillion, and yellow.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as we gave it wide berth, to our astonishment it
+suddenly crinkled up and was alive, and lifted a tiny, evil head
+from the water, running out at us a snake's tongue that
+flickered.</p>
+
+<p>That this was magic my Indians never doubted. They gave the
+thing one horrified glance, turned, and fairly leaped through the
+water till the shallow flood roared as though a herd of deer were
+passing over.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I ran, too, and felt curiously weak and shaken;
+though I suspected that this wriggling thing now swimming back to
+shore was the poison snake of the Ksaurora, and no Antouhonoran
+witchcraft at all, as I had seen skins of the brilliant and oddly
+marked little serpent at Guy Park, whither some wandering
+Southern Tuscaroras had brought them.</p>
+
+<p>But the bestial creature of the cliff had now so inspired us
+all with loathing that it was as though our very breath was
+poisoned; and in swift and silent file we pushed forward, as if
+the very region&#151; land, water, the air itself&#151; had
+become impure, and we must rid ourselves of the place itself to
+breathe.</p>
+
+<p>No war-party burning to distinguish itself ever travelled more
+swiftly. Sooner than I expected, we crossed the small creek which
+joins the river from the east, opposite the Old England District,
+and saw the ruins of Unadilla across the water.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a known ford; and we crossed to Old Unadilla, where
+that pretty river and the Butternut run south into the broadening
+Susquehanna.</p>
+
+<p>At this place we halted to eat; and I was of two minds whether
+to go by the West Branch of the Delaware, by Owaga and Ingaren
+across the Stanwix Treaty Line to Wyalusing, and from thence up
+the river to the Chemung and Tioga Point; or to risk the Chenango
+country and travel southwest by Owego, and so cutting off that
+great southern loop that the Susquehanna makes through the
+country of the Esaurora.</p>
+
+<p>But when I asked the opinion of my Indians, they were of one
+mind against my two, saying that to follow the river was the
+easiest, swiftest, and safest course to Tioga Point.</p>
+
+<p>They knew better than did I. This side of Tioga the Oneidas
+knew the ground as well as the Siwanois; but beyond, toward
+Catharines-town, only my Siwanois knew. Indeed, if my Oneidas
+remained with me at all beyond Tioga I might deem myself lucky,
+in such dread and detestation did they hold that gloomy region
+where the Wyoming Witch brooded her deadly crew, and where the
+Toad Woman, her horrible sister, fed the secret and midnight
+fires of hell with the Red Priest, Amochol.</p>
+
+<p>A grey hawk was circling above us mewing. Truly, our nerves
+had been somewhat shattered, for as we rose and resumed pack and
+sack, a distant partridge drumming on his log startled us all;
+and it was as though we had thought to hear the witch-drums
+rolling at the Onon-hou-aroria, and the hawk mewing seemed like
+the Sorcerers calling "Hiou! Hiou! Hiou!" And the Unadilla made a
+clatter over its stones like the False-Faces rattling their
+wooden masks.</p>
+
+<p>"Eheu!" sighed the pines above us as we sped on; and ever I
+thought of Okwencha and the Dead Hunter. And the upward roar of a
+partridge covey bursting in thunder through the river willows was
+like the flight of the hideous Flying Heads.</p>
+
+<p>On we went, every sound and movement of the forest seeming to
+spur us forward and add flight-feathers to our speeding feet. For
+in my Indians, ascendant now, was the dull horror of the
+supernatural; and as for me my hatred of the Sorcerers was
+tightening every nerve to the point of breaking.</p>
+
+<p>As I travelled that trail through the strange, eternal
+twilight of the great trees, I vowed to myself that Amochol
+should die; that the Sagamore and I would guide a thousand rifles
+to his pagan altar and lay this foul priesthood prone upon it as
+the last sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>Then I recalled the Black-Snake's threat against Lois; and
+shuddered; then the astounding reason he had given for the Red
+Priest's design upon us both set me dully wondering again.</p>
+
+<p>Fear that his emissaries might penetrate our lines stirred me;
+and I remembered the moccasins she had received, and the messages
+sewed within them. If a red messenger had found her every year
+and had left at her door, unseen, a pair of moccasins, why might
+not an invisible assassin find her, too? Already, within our very
+encampment, she had received another pair of moccasins and a
+message entirely different from the customary one.</p>
+
+<p>Whoever had brought it had come and gone unseen.</p>
+
+<p>Distressed, perplexed, half sick with fear for her, I plodded
+on behind the Mohican, striving to drive from me the sombre
+thoughts assailing me, trying to reassure myself with the
+knowledge that she was safe at Otsego with her new friends, and
+that very shortly now she would be still safer in Albany, and
+under the shrewd and kindly eye of Mr. Hake.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had set; the pallid daylight lingering along the
+forest edges by the river grew sickly and died. And after a
+little the Mohican halted on a hillock, and we cart our packs
+from us and peered around.</p>
+
+<p>The forms of rocks took dim shape all about us, huge slabs and
+benches of stone, from which great bushes of laurel and
+rhododendron spread, forming beyond us an entangled and
+impenetrable jungle.</p>
+
+<p>And under these we crawled and lay, listening for snakes. But
+there seemed to be none there, though our rocky fastness was a
+very likely place. And after we had eaten and emptied our
+canteens, the two Oneidas went out on guard to the eastern limit
+of the rocks; and the Sagamore and I lay on our sides, facing
+each other in the dark. And for a while we lay there, neither of
+us speaking. Finally I said under my breath:</p>
+
+<p>"Then I <i>am</i> one of the Hidden People."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, brother," he replied very gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me why you believe this to be true. Tell me all you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>For a little while the Mohican lay there very silent, and I
+did not stir. And presently he said:</p>
+
+<p>"It was in '57, Loskiel, when I first laid eyes on you."</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am more than twice your age. You were then three years
+old."</p>
+
+<p>In my astonishment it occurred to me that instead of
+twenty-two I was now twenty-five years of age, if what the
+Mohican said were true.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Loskiel, blood-brother of mine, for you shall hear
+the truth now&#151; the truth which Guy Johnson never told
+you.</p>
+
+<p>"It was in '57; Munro lay at Fort William Henry; Webb at Fort
+Edward; and Montcalm came down from the lakes with his
+white-coats and Hurons and shook his sword at Munro and spat upon
+Webb.</p>
+
+<p>"Then came Sir William Johnson to Webb with half a thousand
+Iroquois. And because Sir William was the only white man we
+Delawares trusted, and in spite of his Iroquois, three Mohicans
+offered their services&#151; the Great Serpent, young Uncas, and
+I, Mayaro, Sagamore of the Siwanois."</p>
+
+<p>He paused, then with infinite contempt:</p>
+
+<p>"Webb was a coward. Nor could Sir William kick him forward. He
+lay shivering behind the guns at Edward; and Fort William Henry
+fell. And the white-coats could do nothing with their Hurons; the
+prisoners fell under their knives and hatchets&#151; soldiers,
+women, little children.</p>
+
+<p>"When Montcalm had gone, Webb let us loose. And, following the
+trail of murder, in a thicket among the rocks we came upon a
+young woman with a child, very weak from privation. Guy Johnson
+and I discovered them&#151; he a mere youth at that time.</p>
+
+<p>"And the young woman told him how it had been with her&#151;
+that her husband and herself had been taken by the St. Regis
+three years before&#151; that they had slain her husband but had
+offered her no violence; that her child had been born a few weeks
+later and that the St. Regis chief who took her had permitted her
+to make of it a Hidden Person.</p>
+
+<p>"For three years the fierce St. Regis chief wooed her,
+offering her the first place in his lodge. For three years she
+refused him, living in a bush-hut alone with her child, outside
+the St. Regis village, fed by them, and her solitude respected.
+Then Munro came and his soldiers scattered the St. Regis and took
+her and her baby to the fort. And the St. Regis chief sent word
+that he would kill her if she ever married."</p>
+
+<p>So painfully intent was I on his every low-spoken word that I
+scarce dared breathe as the story of my mother slowly
+unfolded.</p>
+
+<p>"Guy Johnson and I took the young woman and her child to
+Edward," he said. "Her name was Marie Loskiel, and she told us
+that she was the widow of a Scotch fur trader, one Ian Loskiel,
+of Saint Sacrament."</p>
+
+<p>There was another silence, as though he were not willing to
+continue. Then in a quiet voice I bade him speak; and he spoke,
+very gravely:</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother's religion and Guy Johnson's were different. If
+that were the reason she would not marry him I do not know. Only
+that when he went away, leaving her at Edward, they both wept. I
+was standing by his stirrup; I saw him&#151; and her.</p>
+
+<p>"And&#151; he rode away, Loskiel.... Why she tried to follow
+him the next spring, I do not know.... Perhaps she found that
+love was stronger than religion.... And after all the only
+difference seemed to be that she prayed to the mother of the God
+he prayed to.... We spoke of it together, the Great Serpent,
+young Uncas, and I. And Uncas told us this. But the Serpent and I
+could make nothing of it.</p>
+
+<p>"And while Guy Johnson was at Edward, only he and I and your
+mother ever saw or touched you.... And ever you were tracing with
+your baby fingers the great Ghost Bear rearing on my
+breast&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" I exclaimed sharply. <i>"That</i> is what I have
+struggled to remember!"</p>
+
+<p>He drew a deep, unsteady breath:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you better understand our blood-brotherhood now,
+Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand&#151; profoundly."</p>
+
+<p>"That is well. That is as it should be, O my blood-brother,
+pure from birth, and at adolescence undefiled. Of such Hidden
+Ones were the White-Plumed Sagamores. Of such was Tamanund, the
+Silver-Plumed; and the great Uncas, with his snowy-winged and
+feathered head&#151; Hidden People, Loskiel&#151; without stain,
+without reproach.</p>
+
+<p>"And as it was to be recorded on the eternal wampum, you were
+found at Guy Johnson's landing place asleep beside a stranded St.
+Regis canoe; and your dead mother lay beside you with a <i>half
+ounce ball through her heart.</i> The St. Regis chief had
+spoken."</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you think he slew her?" I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Strike flint. It is safe here."</p>
+
+<p>I drew myself to my elbow, struck fire and blew the tinder to
+a glow.</p>
+
+<p>"This is yours," he said. And laid in my hand a tiny,
+lacquered folder striped with the pattern of a Scotch tartan.</p>
+
+<p>Wondering, I opened it. Within was a bit of wool in which
+still remained three rusted needles. And across the inside cover
+was written in faded ink:</p>
+
+<p><i>"Marie Loskiel. "</i></p>
+
+<p>"How came you by this?" I stammered, the quick tears blinding
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"I took it from the St. Regis hunter whom Tahoontowhee
+slew."</p>
+
+<p>"Was <i>he</i> my mother's murderer!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who knows?" said the Sagamore softly. "Yet, this needle-book
+is a poor thing for an Indian to treasure&#151; and carry in a
+pouch around his neck for twenty years."</p>
+
+<p>The glow-worm spark in my tinder grew dull and went out. For a
+long while I lay there, thinking, awed by the ways of God&#151;
+so certain, so inscrutable. And understood how at the last all
+things must be revealed&#151; even the momentary and lightest
+impulse, and every deepest and most secret thought.</p>
+
+<p>Lying there, I asked of the Master of Life His compassion on
+us all, and said my tremulous and silent thanks to Him for the
+dear, sad secret that His mercy had revealed.</p>
+
+<p>And, my lips resting on my mother's needle-book, I thought of
+Lois, and how like mine in a measure was her strange history, not
+yet fully revealed.</p>
+
+<p>"Sagamore, my elder brother?" I said at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro listens."</p>
+
+<p>"How is it then with Lois de Contrecoeur that you already knew
+she was of the Hidden Children?"</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it when I first laid eyes on her, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"By what sign?"</p>
+
+<p>"The moccasins. She lay under a cow-shed asleep in her red
+cloak, her head on her arms. Beside her the kerchief tied around
+her bundle lay unknotted, revealing the moccasins that lay
+within. I saw, and knew. And for that reason have I been her
+friend."</p>
+
+<p>"You told her this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I tell her?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer to this. An Indian is an Indian.</p>
+
+<p>I said after a moment:</p>
+
+<p>"What mark is there on the moccasins that you knew them?"</p>
+
+<p>"The wings, worked in white wampum. A mother makes a pair with
+wings each year for her Hidden One, so that they will bring her
+little child to her one day, swiftly and surely as the swallow
+that returns with spring."</p>
+
+<p>"Has she told you of these moccasins&#151; how every year a
+pair of them is left for her, no matter where she may be
+lodged?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has told me. She has shown me the letter on bark which
+was found with her; the relics of her father; this last pair of
+moccasins, and the new message written within. And she asked me
+to guide her to Catharines-town. And I have refused.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Loskiel, I have never doubted that she was of the Hidden
+People. And for that reason have I been patient and kind when she
+has beset me with her pleading that I show to her the trail to
+Catharines-town.</p>
+
+<p>"But I will not. For although in rifle dress she might go with
+us&#151; nay, nor do I even doubt that she might endure the
+war-path as well as any stripling eager for honour and his first
+scalp taken&#151; I will not have her blood upon my hands.</p>
+
+<p>"For if she stir thither&#151; if she venture within the Great
+Shadow&#151; the ghouls of Amochol will know it. And they will
+take her and slay her on their altar, spite of us all&#151; spite
+of you and me and your generals and colonels, and all your troops
+and riflemen&#151; spite of your whole army and its mighty
+armament, I say it&#151; I, a Siwanois Mohican of the Enchanted
+Clan. A Sagamore has spoken."</p>
+
+<p>Chill after chill crept over me so that I shook as I lay there
+in the darkness "Who is this maiden, Lois?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not guess, Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>"Vaguely."</p>
+
+<p>"Then listen, brother. Her grandfather was the great Jean
+Coeur who married the <i>white</i> daughter of the Chevalier de
+Clauzun. Her mother was Mlle. Jeanne Coeur; her father the young
+Vicomte de Contrecoeur, of the Regiment de la Reine&#151;
+<i>not</i> that stupid Captain Contrecoeur of the regiment of
+Languedoc, who, had it depended on him, would never have ventured
+to attack Braddock at all.</p>
+
+<p>"This is true, because <i>I</i> knew them both&#151; both of
+these Contrecoeur captains. And the picture she showed to me was
+that of the officer in the Regiment de la Reine.</p>
+
+<p>"I saw that regiment die almost to a man. I saw Dieskau fall;
+I saw that gay young officer, de Contrecoeur, who had nicknamed
+himself Jean Coeur, laugh at our Iroquois as he stood almost
+alone&#151; almost the last man living, among his fallen
+white-coats.</p>
+
+<p>"And I saw him dead, Loskiel&#151; the smile still on his dead
+lips, and his eyes still open and clear and seeming to laugh up
+at the white clouds sailing, which he could not see.</p>
+
+<p>"That was the man she showed me painted on polished bone."</p>
+
+<p>"And&#151; her mother?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I can only guess, Loskiel, for I never saw her. But I believe
+she must have been with the army. Somehow, Sir William's Senecas
+got hold of her and took her to Catharines-town. And if the
+little Lois was born there or at Yndaia, or perhaps among the
+Lakes before the mother was made prisoner, I do not know. Only
+this I gather, that when the Cats of Amochol heard there was a
+child, they demanded it for a sacrifice. And there must have been
+some Seneca there&#151; doubtless some adopted Seneca of a birth
+more civilized&#151; who told the mother, and who was persuaded
+by her to make of it a Hidden One.</p>
+
+<p>"How long it lay concealed, and in whose care, how can I know?
+But it is certain that Amochol learned that it had been hidden,
+and sent his Cat-People out to prowl and watch. Then, doubtless
+did the mother send it from her by the faithful one whose bark
+letter was found by the new foster-parents when they found the
+little Lois.</p>
+
+<p>"And this is how it has happened, brother. And that the
+Cat-People now know she is alive, and who she is, does not amaze
+me. For they are sorcerers, and if one of them did not steal
+after the messenger when he left Yndaia with the poor mother's
+yearly gift of moccasins, then it was discovered by
+witchcraft."</p>
+
+<p>"For Amochol never forgets. And whom the Red Priest chooses
+for his altar sooner or later will surely die there, unless the
+Sorcerer dies first and his Cat-People are slain and skinned, and
+the vile altar is destroyed among the ashes of its accursed
+fire!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, with the help of an outraged God, these righteous
+things shall come to pass!" I said between clenched teeth.</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore sat with his crested head bowed. And if he were
+in ghostly communication with the Mighty Dead I do not know, for
+I heard him breathe the name of Tamanund, and then remain silent
+as though listening for an answer.</p>
+
+<p>I had been asleep but a few moments, it seemed to me, when the
+Grey-Feather awoke me for my turn at guard duty; and the Mohican
+and I rose from our blankets, reprimed our rifles, crept out from
+under the laurel and across the shadowy rock-strewn knoll to our
+posts.</p>
+
+<p>The rocky slope below us was almost clear to the river, save
+for a bush or two.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing stirred, no animals, not a leaf. And after a while the
+profound stillness began to affect me, partly because the day had
+been one to try my nerves, partly because the silence was
+uncanny, even to me. And I knew how dread of the supernatural had
+already tampered with the steadiness of my red comrades&#151; men
+who were otherwise utterly fearless; and I dreaded the effect on
+the Mohican, whose mind now was surcharged with hideous and
+goblin superstitions.</p>
+
+<p>In the night silence of a forest, always there are faint
+sounds to be heard which, if emphasizing the stillness, somehow
+soften it too. Leaves fall, unseen, whispering downward from high
+trees, and settling among their dead fellows with a faintly
+comfortable rustle. Small animals move in the dark, passing and
+repassing warily; one hears the high feathered ruffling and the
+plaint of sleepy birds; breezes play with the young leaves; water
+murmurs.</p>
+
+<p>But here there was no single sound to mitigate the stillness;
+and, had I dared in my mossy nest behind the rocks, I would have
+contrived same slight stirring sound, merely to make the silence
+more endurable.</p>
+
+<p>I could see the river, but could not hear it. From where I
+lay, close to the ground, the trees stood out in shadowy clusters
+against the vague and hazy mist that spread low over the
+water.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Curiously I watched it; and as I looked, from another bush
+another head was lifted&#151; the round, flattened head and
+tasselled 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&#151; the snarling features of a
+wolverine.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIV</h3>
+
+<h4>NAI TIOGA!</h4>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The furry ears of the wolf-man, pricked up against the vaguely
+lustrous 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.</p>
+
+<p>From somewhere in the darkness the Mohican came gliding on his
+belly over the velvet carpet of the moss.</p>
+
+<p>"Andastes," he whispered scornfully; "they wear the heads of
+the beasts whose courage they lack. Fling a stone among them and
+they will scatter."</p>
+
+<p>As I felt around me in the darkness for a fragment of loose
+rock, the Mohican arrested my arm.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I thought for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>The Mohican said softly:</p>
+
+<p>"Men of the settlement detect no odour where those of the open
+perceive a multitude of pungent smells."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"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&#151; though never the nesting
+hen&#151; 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&#151; which even a white man can detect &#151; 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-butterfly, 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly their movements ceased, and I clutched the Mohican's
+arm, as a swift file of shadows passed in silhouette along the
+river's brink, one after another moving west&#151; fifteen
+ghostly figures dimly seem but unmistakable.</p>
+
+<p>"Senecas," breathed the Mohican.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless they had depended on the Andastes and advanced guard
+of Senecas for flankers, for the main body passed without even a
+glance up at the hilly ground where we lay watching them.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a break in the line, an interval of many
+minutes before their pack horses appeared, escorted by
+green-coated soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>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
+&#151; Owagas, I think &#151; then that shameless villain,
+McDonald, in bonnet and tartan, and the heavy claymore a-swing on
+his saddle-bow, and his <i>blue-eyed</i> Indians swarming in the
+rear.</p>
+
+<p>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 damned 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.</p>
+
+<p>Then, hunched on his horse, rode old John Butler&#151; squat,
+swarthy, weather-roughened, balancing on his saddle with the
+grace of a chopping block; and after him more Rangers crowding
+close behind.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Brant!" I whispered to the Sagamore; and I saw him stiffen to
+very stone beside me; and heard his teeth grate in his jaws.</p>
+
+<p>Then, last of all, came the Keepers of the Eastern Gate, the
+flower of the warriors of the Long House&#151; the Mohawks.</p>
+
+<p>They passed in the barbaric magnificence of paint and feather
+and shining steel, a hundred lithe, light-stepping warriors,
+rifles swinging a-trail, and gorgeous beaded sporrans tossing at
+every stride.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>After a long while a single Seneca came speeding, and
+disappeared in the wake of the others.</p>
+
+<p>The motley Army of the West had passed.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>And it was a terrible and an infamous sight to me, who had
+known these men under other circumstances to see the remnant of
+the landed gentry of Tryon County now riding the wilderness like
+very vagabonds, squired by a grotesque horde of bloody
+renegades.</p>
+
+<p>To what a doleful pass had these gentlemen come, who lately
+had so lorded it among us &#151; these proud and testy autocrats
+of County Tryon, with their vast estates, their baronial halls,
+their servants, henchmen, tenantry, armed retainers, slaves?</p>
+
+<p>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&#151; the
+great Murray, Earl of Dunmore and Brent Meester to unhappy
+Norfolk! And, alas, where was the great and good Sir
+William&#151; and where was Sir William's friend, Lady Grant, and
+the fearless Duchess 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>All was gone&#151; 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 harassed and haggard horsemen 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!</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Signs of their occupation became more frequent every minute
+now; there were batteaux and rafts being unloaded at landing
+places, heavily guarded by Continental soldiery; canoes at
+carrying places, brush huts erected along the trail, felled
+trees, bushes cut and lying in piles, roads being widened and
+cleared, and men everywhere going cheerily about their various
+affairs.</p>
+
+<p>We encountered the cattle-guard near to a natural meadow along
+a tiny binikill, and they gave us an account of how Brant had
+fallen upon Minisink and had slain more than a hundred of our
+people along the Delaware and Neversink. And I saw my Indians
+listening with grim countenances while their eyes glowed like
+coals. As soon as we forded the river, we passed a part of
+Colonel Proctor's artillery, parleyed in a clearing, where a fine
+block-fort was being erected; and there were many regimental
+wagons and officers' horses and batt-horses and cattle to be seen
+there, and great piles of stores in barrels, sacks, skins, and
+willow baskets.</p>
+
+<p>As we passed the tents of a foot regiment, the 3rd New
+Hampshire Line, one of their six Ensigns, Bradbury Richards,
+recognized me and came across the road to shake my hand, and to
+inform me that a small scout was to go out to reconnoitre the
+Indian town of Chemung; and that we would doubtless march thither
+on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>With Richards came also my old friend Ezra Buell, lately
+lieutenant in my own regiment, but now a captain in the 3rd New
+York Continentals, and a nephew of that Ezra Buell who ran the
+Stanwix survey in '69 and married a pretty Esaurora girl while
+marking the Treaty Line.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" says Ezra, shaking my hand, and: "How are you lazy
+people up the river, and what are you doing there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Damming the lake," said I, "whilst <i>you</i> damn <i>us</i>
+for making you wait."</p>
+
+<p>Bradbury Richards laughed, saying that they themselves had but
+just come up, admitting, however, that there had been some little
+cursing concerning our delay.</p>
+
+<p>"It has been that way with us, too," said I, "but it is the
+rebel 'Grants' we curse, and the Ethan Allens and John Starks,
+and treacherous Green Mountain Boy's, who would shoot us in the
+backs or make a dicker with Sir Henry sooner than lift a finger
+to obey the laws of the State they are betraying."</p>
+
+<p>"So hot and yet so young!" said Buell, laughing, "and after a
+long trail, too &#151; " glancing at my Indians, "and another in
+view already! But you were ever an uncompromising youngster,
+Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"Your regiment has marched for Canajoharie," I said. "When do
+you go a-tagging after it?"</p>
+
+<p>"This evening with the headquarter's guide, Heoikim, and the
+express rider, James Cooke. Lord, what a dreary business!"</p>
+
+<p>"Better learn the news we have concerning your back trail
+before you start. Ask Captain Franklin to mention it to the
+General."</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," said Buell. "I would to God my regiment were
+ordered here with the rest of them, I'm that sick of the three
+forts and the scalping-party fighting on the Schoharie."</p>
+
+<p>"It's what you are likely to get for a long while yet," said
+I. "And now will you or Richards guide me and my party to
+headquarters?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you mess with us?" said Richards. "I'll speak to Colonel
+Dearborn."</p>
+
+<p>I said I would with pleasure, if free to do so, and we walked
+on through the glorious sunset light, past camp after camp, very
+smoky with green fires. And I saw three more block-houses being
+builded, and armed with cannon.</p>
+
+<p>The music of Colonel Proctor's Artillery Regiment was playing
+"Yankee Doodle" near headquarters as we sighted the General's
+marquee, and the martial sounds enthralled me.</p>
+
+<p>One of the General's aides-de-camp, a certain Captain Dayton,
+met us most politely, detained my Indians with tobacco and pipes,
+and conducted me straight to the General, who, he assured me,
+happened to be alone. Having seen our General on various
+occasions, I recognized him at once, although he was in his
+banyan, having, I judged, been bathing himself in a small, wooden
+bowl full of warm water, which stood on the puncheon flooring
+near, very sloppy.</p>
+
+<p>He received me most civilly and listened to my report with
+interest and politeness, whilst I gave him what news I had of
+Clinton and how it was with us at the Lake, and all that had
+happened to my scout of six&#151; the death of the St. Regis and
+the two Iroquois, the treachery of the Erie and his escape, the
+murder of the Stockbridge&#151; and how we witnessed the defile
+of Indian Butler's motley but sinister array headed northwest on
+the Great Warrior Trail. Also, I gave him as true and just an
+account as I could give of the number of soldiers, renegades,
+Indians, and batt-horses in that fantastic and infamous
+command.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are <i>your</i> Indians?" he asked bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>I informed him, and he sent his aide to fetch them.</p>
+
+<p>General Sullivan understood Indians; and I am not at all sure
+that my services as interpreter were necessary; but as he said
+nothing to the contrary, I played my part, presenting to him the
+stately Sagamore, then the Grey-Feather, then the young warrior,
+Tahoontowhee, who fairly quivered with pride as I mentioned the
+scalps he had taken on his first war-path.</p>
+
+<p>With each of my Indians the General shook hands, and on each
+was pleased to bestow a word of praise and a promise of reward.
+For a while, through medium of me, he conversed with them, and
+particularly with the Sagamore, concerning the trail to
+Catharines-town; and, seeming convinced and satisfied, dismissed
+us very graciously, telling an aide to place two bush-huts at our
+disposal, and otherwise see that we lacked nothing that could be
+obtained for our comfort and good cheer.</p>
+
+<p>As I saluted, he said in a low voice that he preferred I
+should remain with the Mohican and Oneidas until the evening meal
+was over. Which I took to indicate that any rum served to my
+Indians must be measured out by me.</p>
+
+<p>So that night I supped with my red comrades in front of our
+bush-huts, instead of joining Colonel Dearborn's mess. And I was
+glad I did so; and I allowed them only a gill of rum. After
+penning my report by the light of a very vile torch, and filing
+it at headquarters, I was so tired that I could scarce muster
+courage to write in my diary. But I did, setting down the day's
+events without shirking, though I yawned like a volcano at every
+pen-stroke.</p>
+
+<p>Captains Franklin and Buell, in high spirits, came just as I
+finished, desiring to learn what I had to say of the road to
+Otsego; but when I informed them they went away looking far more
+serious than when they arrived.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later I saw the scout march out, bound for
+Chemung&#151; a small detachment of the 2nd Jersey, one
+Stockbridge Indian, and a Coureur-de-Bois in very elegant
+deerskin shirt and gorgeous leggins. Captain Cummins led
+them.</p>
+
+<p>As they left, Captain Dayton arrived to take me again to the
+General. There was a throng of officers in the marquee when I was
+announced, but evidently by some preconcerted understanding all
+retired as soon as I entered.</p>
+
+<p>When we were alone, the General very kindly pointed to a camp
+stool at his elbow and requested me to be seated; and for a
+little while he said nothing, but remained leaning with both
+elbows on his camp table, seeming to study space as though it
+were peopled with unpleasant pictures.</p>
+
+<p>However, presently his symmetrical features recovered
+pleasantly from abstraction, and he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Loskiel, it is said of you that, except for the Oneida
+Sachem, Spenser, you are perhaps the most accomplished
+interpreter Guy Johnson employed."</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said, "there are many better interpreters, my General,
+but few, perhaps, who understand the most intimate and social
+conditions of the Long House better than do I."</p>
+
+<p>"You are modest in your great knowledge, Mr. Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"No, General, only, knowing as much as I do, I also perceive
+how much more there is that I do not know. Which makes me wary of
+committing myself too confidently, and has taught me that to
+vaunt one's knowledge is a dangerous folly."</p>
+
+<p>General Sullivan laughed that frank, manly, and very winning
+laugh of his. Then his features gradually became sombre
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Broadhead, at Fortress Pitt, sent you a supposed
+Wyandotte who might have been your undoing," he said abruptly.
+"He is a cautious officer, too, yet see how he was deceived! Are
+you also likely to be deceived in any of your Indians?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! You <i>are</i> confident, then, in this matter!"</p>
+
+<p>"As far as concerns the Indians now under my command."</p>
+
+<p>"You vouch for them?"</p>
+
+<p>"With my honour, General."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir.... And your Mohican Loup &#151; he can
+perform what he has promised? Guide us straight to
+Catharines-town, I mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"He has said it."</p>
+
+<p>"Aye&#151; but what is your opinion of that promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"A Siwanois Sagamore never lies."</p>
+
+<p>"You trust him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly. We are blood-brothers, he and I."</p>
+
+<p>"Oho!" said the General, nodding. "That was cunningly done,
+sir."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. The idea was his own."</p>
+
+<p>General Sullivan laughed again, playing with the polished
+gorget at his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you never take any credit for your accomplishments, Mr.
+Loskiel?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"How can I claim credit for that which was not of my own and
+proper plotting, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it can be done," said the General, laughing more
+heartily. "Ask some of our brigadiers and colonels, Mr. Loskiel,
+who desire advancement every time that heaven interposes to save
+them from their own stupidities! Well, well, let it go, sir! It
+is on a different matter that I have summoned you here&#151; a
+very different business, Mr. Loskiel&#151; one which I do not
+thoroughly comprehend.</p>
+
+<p>"All I know is this: that we Continentals are warring with
+Britain and her allies of the Long House, that our few Oneida and
+Stockbridge Indians are fighting with us. But it seems that
+between the Indians of King George and those who espouse our
+cause there is a deeper and bloodier and more mysterious
+feud."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, General."</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he asked bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"A religious feud&#151; terrible, implacable. But this is only
+between the degraded and perverted priesthood of the Senecas and
+our Oneidas and Mohicans, whose Sachems and Sagamores have been
+outraged and affronted by the blasphemous mockeries of
+Amochol."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard something of this."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt, sir. And it is true. The Senecas <i>are</i>
+different. They belong not in the Long House. They are an alien
+people at heart, and seem more nearly akin to the Western
+Indians, save that they share with the Confederacy its common
+Huron-Iroquois speech. For although their ensigns sit at the most
+sacred rite of the Confederacy, perhaps not daring in Federal
+Council to reveal what they truly are, I am convinced, sir, that
+of the Seneca Sachems the majority are at heart pagans. I do not
+mean non-Christians, of course; they are that anyway; but I mean
+they are degenerated from the more noble faith of the Iroquois,
+who, after all, acknowledge one God as we do, and have become the
+brutally superstitious slaves of their vile and perverted
+priests.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the spawn of Frontenac that has done this. What the
+Wyoming Witch did at Wyoming her demons will do hereafter.
+Witchcraft, the frenzied worship of goblins, ghouls, and devils,
+the sacrifice to Biskoonah, all these have little by little taken
+the place of the grotesque but harmless rites practiced at the
+Onon-hou-aroria. Amochol has made it sinister and terrible beyond
+words; and it is making of the Senecas a swarm of fiends from
+hell itself.</p>
+
+<p>"This, sir, is the truth. The orthodox priesthood of the Long
+House shudders and looks askance, but dares not interfere. As for
+Sir John, and Butler, and McDonald, what do they care as long as
+their Senecas are inflamed to fury, and fight the more
+ruthlessly? No, sir, only the priesthood of our own allies has
+dared to accept the challenge from Amochol and his People of the
+Cat. Between these it is now a war of utter extermination. And
+must be so until not one Erie survives, and until Amochol lies
+dead upon his proper altar!"</p>
+
+<p>The General said in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"I had not supposed that this business were so vital."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, it is vital to the existence of the Iroquois as a
+federated people who shall remain harmless after we have subdued
+them, that Amochol and his acolytes die in the very ashes they
+have so horribly profaned. Amherst hung two of them. The nation
+lay stunned until he left this country. Had he remained and
+executed a dozen more Sachems with the rope, the world, I think,
+had never heard of Amochol."</p>
+
+<p>The General looked hard at me:</p>
+
+<p>"Can <i>you</i> reach Amochol, Mr. Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is what I would say to you, sir. I think I can reach him
+at Catharines-town with my Indians and a detachment from my own
+regiment, and crush him before he is alarmed by the advance of
+this army. I have spoken with my Indians, and they believe this
+can be accomplished, because we have learned that on the last day
+of this month the secret and debased rites of the Onon-hou-aroria
+will be practiced at Catharines-town; and every Sorcerer will be
+there."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you propose to go out in advance on this business?"</p>
+
+<p>"It must be done that way, sir, if we can hope to destroy this
+Sorcerer. The Seneca scouts most certainly watch this encampment
+from every hilltop. And the day this army stirs on its march to
+Catharines-town and Kendaia, the news will run into the North
+like lightning. You, sir, can hope to encounter no armed
+resistance as you march northward burning town after town, save
+only if Butler makes a stand or attempts an ambuscade in
+force.</p>
+
+<p>"Otherwise, no Seneca will await your coming&#151; I mean
+there will be no considerable force of Senecas to oppose you in
+their towns, only the usual scalping parties hanging just outside
+the smoke veil. All will retire before you. And how is Amochol to
+be destroyed at Catharines-town unless he be struck at secretly
+before your advance is near enough to frighten him?"</p>
+
+<p>"What people would you take with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"My Indians, Lieutenant Boyd, and thirty riflemen."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that not too few?"</p>
+
+<p>"In all swift and secret marches, sir, a few do better service
+than many&#151; as you have taught your own people many a
+time."</p>
+
+<p>"That is quite true. But they never seem to learn the lesson.
+I am somewhat astonished that you have seemed to learn it, and
+lay it practically to heart." He smiled, drummed on the table
+with a Faber pencil, then, knitting his brows, drew to him a
+sheet of paper and wrote on it slowly, pausing from time to time
+in troubled reflection. Once he glanced up at me coldly, and:</p>
+
+<p>"Who is to lead this expedition?" he asked bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Lieutenant Boyd, sir," said I, wondering.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! You have no ambitions then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Boyd ranks me," I said, smiling. "Who else should
+lead?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see. Well, sir, you understand that a new commission lies
+all neatly folded for you in Catharines-town. Even such a modest
+man as you, Mr. Loskiel, could scarce doubt that," he added
+laughingly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir, I do not doubt it."</p>
+
+<p>"That is well, then. Orders will be sent you in due time&#151;
+not until General Clinton's army arrives, however."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me pleasantly: "I have robbed you of the sleep
+most justly due you. But I think perhaps you may not regret this
+conference. Good-night, sir."</p>
+
+<p>I saluted and went out. An orderly with a torch lighted me to
+my quarters. Inside the bush-hut assigned to the Mohican and
+myself, the red torch-light flickered over the recumbent
+Sagamore, swathed in his blanket, motionless. But even as I
+looked one of his eyes opened a little way, glimmering like a
+jewel in the ruddy darkness, then closed again.</p>
+
+<p>So I stretched myself out in my blanket beside the Sagamore,
+and, thinking of Lois, fell presently into a sweet and dreamless
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>At six o'clock the morning gun awoke me with its startling and
+annoying thunder. The Sagamore sat up in his blanket, wearing
+that half-irritated, half-shamed expression always to be seen on
+an Indian's countenance when cannon are fired. An Indian has no
+stomach for artillery, and hates sight and sound of the metal
+monsters.</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments I bantered him sleepily, then dropped back
+into my blanket. What cared I for their insolent morning gun! I
+snapped my fingers at it.</p>
+
+<p>And so I lolled on my back, half asleep, yet not wholly, and
+soon tired of this, and, wrapping me in my blanket and drawing on
+ankle moccasins, went down to the Chemung where its crystal
+current clattered over the stones, and found me a clear, deep
+pool to flounder in.</p>
+
+<p>Before I plunged, noticing several fine trout lying there, I
+played a scurvy trick on them, tickling three big ones; and had a
+fourth out of water, but was careless, and he slipped back.</p>
+
+<p>Some Continental soldiers who had been watching me, mouths
+agape, went to another pool to try their skill; but while I would
+not boast, it is not everybody who can tickle a speckled trout;
+and after my bath the soldiers were still at it, and damning
+their eyes, their luck, and the pretty fish which so saucily
+flouted them.</p>
+
+<p>So I flung 'em a big trout and went back to camp whistling,
+and there found that my Indians had fed and were now gravely
+renewing their paint.</p>
+
+<p>Tahoontowhee dressed and cooked my fish for me, each in a
+bass-wood leaf, and when they were done and smelling most
+fragrant, we all made a delicious feast, with corn bread from the
+ovens and salt pork and a great jug of milk from the army's
+herd.</p>
+
+<p>At eight o'clock another gun was fired. This was the daily
+signal, I learned, to stack tents and load pack-horses. And
+another gun fired at ten o'clock meant "March." With all these
+guns, and a fourth at sundown, I saw an unhappy time ahead for my
+Indians. Truly, I think the sound makes them sick. They all
+pulled wry faces now, and I had my jest at their expense, ours
+being a most happy little family, so amiably did the Mohican and
+Oneidas foregather; and also, there being among them a Sagamore
+and a Chief of the noble Oneida clan, I could meet them on an
+equality of footing which infringed nothing on military
+etiquette. There were doubtless many interpreters in camp, but
+few, if any, I suppose, who had had the advantage of such
+training as I under Guy Johnson, who himself, after Sir William's
+death, was appointed Indian Superintendent under the Crown for
+all North America, Guy Johnson knew the Iroquois. And if he
+lacked the character, personal charm, and knowledge that Sir
+William possessed, yet in the politics and diplomacy of Indian
+affairs his knowledge and practice were vast, and his services
+most valuable to his King.</p>
+
+<p>Under him I had been schooled, and also under the veteran
+deputies, Colonel Croghan, Colonel Butler, and Colonel Claus; and
+had learned much from old Cadwallader Colden, too, who came often
+to Guy Park, as did our good General Philip Schuyler in these
+peaceful days.</p>
+
+<p>So I knew how to treat any Indian I had ever seen, save only
+the outlandish creatures of the Senecas. Else, perhaps, I had
+sooner penetrated the villainy of the Erie. Yet, even my own
+Indians had not been altogether certain of the traitor's identity
+until almost at the very end.</p>
+
+<p>At ten another gun was fired, but only a small detachment of
+infantry marched, the other regiments unpacking and pitching
+tents again, and the usual routine of camp life, with its
+multitudinous duties and details, was resumed.</p>
+
+<p>I reported at headquarters, to which my guides were now
+attached, and there were orders for me to hold myself and Indians
+in readiness for a night march to Chemung.</p>
+
+<p>All that day I spent in acquainting myself with the camp which
+had been pitched, as I say, on the neck of land bounded by the
+Susquehanna and the Chemung, with a small creek, called Cayuga by
+some, Seneca Creek by others, intersecting it and flowing south
+into the Susquehanna. It was but a trout brook.</p>
+
+<p>This site of the old Indian town of Tioga seemed to me very
+lovely. The waters were silvery and sweet, the flats composed of
+rich, dark soil, the forests beautiful with a great variety of
+noble and gigantic trees&#151; white pines on the hills; on the
+level country enormous black-walnuts, oaks, button-woods, and nut
+trees of many species, growing wide apart, yet so roofing the
+forest with foliage that very little sunlight penetrated, and
+only the flats were open and bright with waving Indian grass, now
+so ripe that our sheep, cattle, and horses found in it a
+nourishment scarcely sufficient for beasts so exercised and
+driven.</p>
+
+<p>That day, as I say, I walked about the camp and adjacent
+river-country, seeking out my friends in the various regiments to
+gossip with them. And was invited to a Rum Punch given by all the
+officers at the Artillery Lines to celebrate the victory of
+General Wayne at Stony Point.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Proctor's artillery band discoursed most noble music
+for us; and there was much hilarity and cheering, and many very
+boisterous.</p>
+
+<p>These social parties in our army, where rum-punch was the
+favourite beverage, were gay and lively; but there was a headache
+in every cup of it, they say. I, being an interpreter, held aloof
+because I must ever set an example to my red comrades. And this
+day had all I could do to confine them to proper rations. For all
+spirit is a very poison to any Indian. And of all the crimes of
+which men of my colour stand attainted, the offering of this
+death-cup to our red brothers is, I think, the wickedest and the
+most contemptible.</p>
+
+<p>For when we white men become merely exhilarated in the
+performance of such social usages as politeness requires of us,
+the Indian becomes murderous. And I remember at this Artillery
+Punch many officers danced a Shawanese dance, and General Hand,
+of the Light Troops, did lead this war-dance, which caused me
+discomfiture, I not at all pleased to see officers who ranked me
+cut school-boy capers 'round a midday fire.</p>
+
+<p>And it was like very school-lads that many of us behaved,
+making of this serious and hazardous expedition a silly pleasure
+jaunt. I have since thought that perhaps the sombre and majestic
+menace of a sunless and unknown forest reacted a little on us
+all, and that many found a nervous relief in brief relaxations
+and harmless folly, and in antics performed on its grim and dusky
+edges.</p>
+
+<p>For no one, I think, doubted there was trouble waiting for us
+within these silent shades. And the tension had never lessened
+for this army, what with waiting for the Right Wing, which had
+not yet apparently stirred from Otsego; and the inadequacy of
+provisions, not known to the men but whispered among the
+officers; and the shots already exchanged this very morning along
+the river between our outposts and prowling scouts of the enemy;
+and the daily loss of pack-animals and cattle, strayed or stolen;
+and of men, too, scalped since they left Wyoming, sometimes
+within gunshot of headquarters.</p>
+
+<p>But work on the four block-forts, just begun, progressed
+rapidly; and, alas, the corps of invalids destined to garrison
+them had, since the army left Easton, increased too fast to
+please anybody, what with wounds, accidents in camp from careless
+handling of firearms, kicks from animals, and the various
+diseases certain to appear where many people congregate.</p>
+
+<p>There were a number of regiments under tents or awaiting the
+unfinished log barracks at Tioga Point; in the First Brigade
+there were four from New Jersey; in the Second Brigade three from
+New Hampshire; in the Third two from Pennsylvania, and an
+artillery regiment; and what with other corps and the train,
+boatmen, guides, workmen, servants, etc., it made a great and
+curious spectacle even before our Right Wing joined.</p>
+
+<p>Every regiment carried its colours and its music, fifes,
+drums, and bugle-horns; and sometimes these played an the march
+when a light detachment went forward for a day's scout, or to
+forage or to destroy. But best of all music I ever heard, I loved
+now to hear the band of Colonel Proctor's artillery regiment,
+filling me as it did with solemn, yet pleasurable, emotions, and
+seemingly teaching me how dear had Lois become to me.</p>
+
+<p>The scout, sent out the day before, returned in the afternoon
+with an account that Chemung was held by the enemy, which caused
+a bustle in camp, particularly among the light troop.</p>
+
+<p>Headquarters was very busy all day long, and sometimes even
+gay, for the gentlemen of General Sullivan's family were not only
+sufficient, but amiable and delightful. And there I had the
+honour of being made known to his aides-de-camp, Mr. Pierce, Mr.
+Van Cortlandt, and Major Hoops. I already knew Captain Dayton.
+Also, of the staff I met there Captain Topham, our Commissary of
+Militia Stores, Captain Lodge, our surveyor, Colonels Antis and
+Bond, Conductors of Boats, Dr. Hogan, Chief Surgeon, Lieutenant
+R. Pemberton, Judge Advocate, Lieutenant Colonel Frasier, Colonel
+Hooper, Lieutenant Colonel Barber, Adjutant General, the Reverend
+S. Kirkland, Chaplain, and others most agreeable but too numerous
+to mention. Still, I have writ them all down in my diary, as I
+try always to do, so that if God gives me wife and children some
+day they may find, perhaps, an hour of leisure, when to peruse a
+blotted page of what husband and father saw in the great war
+might not prove too tedious or disagreeable.</p>
+
+<p>In this manner, then, the afternoon of that August day passed,
+and what with these occupations, and the catching of several
+trouts, which I love to do with hook and line and alder pole, and
+what with sending to Lois a letter by an express who went to
+Clinton toward evening, the time did not seem irksome.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, it had passed more happily had I heard from Lois. But no
+runners came; and if any were sent out from Otsego and taken by
+the enemy I know not, only that none came through that day,
+Thursday, August the 12th.</p>
+
+<p>One thing in camp had disagreeably surprised me, that there
+were women and children here, and like to remain in the block
+forts after the army had departed from its base for the long
+march through the Seneca country.</p>
+
+<p>This I could not understand or reconcile with any proper
+measure of safety, as the cannon in the block-houses were not to
+be many or of any great calibre, and only the corps of invalids
+were to remain to defend them.</p>
+
+<p>I had told Lois that no women would be permitted at Tioga
+Point. That these were the orders that had been generally
+understood at Otsego.</p>
+
+<p>And now, lo and behold, here were women arrived from Easton,
+Bethlehem, Wyalusing, and Wyoming, including the wives and
+children of several non-commissioned officers and soldiers from
+the district; widows of murdered settlers, washerwomen, and
+several tailoresses&#151; in all a very considerable number.</p>
+
+<p>And I hoped to heaven that Lois might not hear of this
+mischievous business and discover in it an excuse for coming as
+the guest of any lady at Otsego, or, in fact, make any further
+attempt to stir until the Right Wing marched and the batteaux
+took the ladies of Captain Bleecker, Ensign Lansing, and Lana,
+and herself to Albany.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>After sundown an officer came to me and said that the entire
+army was ordered to march at eight that evening, excepting troops
+sufficient to guard our camp; that there would be no alarm
+sounded, and that we were to observe secrecy and silence.</p>
+
+<p>Also, it appeared that a gill of rum per man had been
+authorized, but I refused for myself and my Indians, thinking to
+myself that the General might have made it less difficult for me
+if he had confined his indulgence to the troops.</p>
+
+<p>About eight o'clock a Stockbridge Indian&#151; the one who had
+been with the scout to Chemung&#151; came to me with a note from
+Dominie Kirkland.</p>
+
+<p>I gave him my hand, and he told me that his name was Yellow
+Moth, and that he was a Christian. Also, he inquired about the
+Mole, and I was obliged to relate the circumstances of that poor
+convert's murder.</p>
+
+<p>"God's will," said the Yellow Moth very quietly. "You, my
+brother, and I may see a thousand fall, and ten thousand on our
+right hand, and it shall not come nigh us."</p>
+
+<p>"Amen," said I, much moved by this simple fellow's tranquil
+faith.</p>
+
+<p>I made him known to the Sagamore and to the two Oneidas, who
+received him with a grave sincerity which expressed very plainly
+their respect for a people of which the Mole had been for them a
+respectable example.</p>
+
+<p>Like the Mole, the Yellow Moth wore no paint except a white
+cross limned on his breast over a clan sign indecipherable. And
+if, in truth, there had ever really been a totem under the white
+paint I do not know, for like the Algonquins, these peoples had
+but a loose political, social, religious, and tribal
+organization, which never approached the perfection of the
+Iroquois system in any manner or detail.</p>
+
+<p>About eight o'clock came Captain Carbury, of the 11th
+Pennsylvania, to us, and we immediately set out, marching swiftly
+up the Chemung River, the Sagamore and the Yellow Moth leading,
+then Captain Carbury and myself, then the Oneidas.</p>
+
+<p>Behind us in the dusk we saw the Light Troops falling in, who
+always lead the army. All marched without packs, blankets,
+horses, or any impedimenta. And, though the distance was not very
+great, so hilly, rocky, and rough was the path through the hot,
+dark night, and so narrow and difficult were the mountain passes,
+that we were often obliged to rest the men. Also there were many
+swamps to pass, and as the men carried the cohorn by hand, our
+progress was slow. Besides these difficulties and trials, a fog
+came up, thickening toward dawn, which added to the hazards of
+our march.</p>
+
+<p>So the dawn came and found us still marching through the mist,
+and it was not until six o'clock that we of the guides heard a
+Seneca dog barking far ahead, and so knew that Chemung was
+near.</p>
+
+<p>Back sped Tahoontowhee to hasten the troops; I ran forward
+with Captain Carbury and the Sagamore, passing several outlying
+huts, then some barns and houses which loomed huge as medieval
+castles in the fog, but were really very small.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out!" cried Carbury. "There is their town right
+ahead!"</p>
+
+<p>It lay straight ahead of us, a fine town of over a hundred
+houses built on both sides of the pretty river. The casements of
+some of these houses were glazed and the roofs shingled; smoke
+drifted lazily from the chimneys; and all around were great open
+fields of grain, maize, and hay, orchards and gardens, in which
+were ripening peas, beans, squashes, pumpkins, watermelons,
+muskmelons.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" said I. "This is a fine place, Carbury!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's like a dozen others we have laid in ashes," said he,
+"and like scores more that we shall treat in a like manner. Look
+sharp! Here some our light troops."</p>
+
+<p>The light infantry of Hand arrived on a smart run&#151; a
+torrent of red-faced, sweating, excited fellows, pouring headlong
+into the town, cheering as they ran.</p>
+
+<p>General Hand, catching sight of me, signalled with his sword
+and shouted to know what had become of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>"They're gone off!" I shouted back. "My Indians are on their
+heels and we'll soon have news of their whereabouts."</p>
+
+<p>Then the soldiery began smashing in doors and windows right
+and left, laughing and swearing, and dragging out of the houses
+everything they contained.</p>
+
+<p>So precipitate had been the enemy's flight that they had left
+everything&#151; food still cooking, all their household and
+personal utensils; and I saw in the road great piles of kettles,
+plates, knives, deerskins, beaver-pelts, bearhides, packs of
+furs, and bolts of striped linen, to which heaps our soldiers
+were adding every minute.</p>
+
+<p>Others came to fire the town; and it was sad to see these
+humble homes puff up in a cloud of smoke and sparks, then burst
+into vivid flame. In the orchards our men were plying their axes
+or girdling the heavily-fruited trees; field after field of grain
+was fired, and the flames swept like tides across them.</p>
+
+<p>The corn was in the milk, and what our men could not burn,
+using the houses for kilns, they trampled and cut with their
+hangers&#151; whole regiments marching through these fields,
+destroying the most noble corn I ever saw, for it was so high
+that it topped the head of a man on horseback.</p>
+
+<p>So high, also, stood the hay, and it was sad to see it
+burn.</p>
+
+<p>And now, all around in this forest paradise, our army was
+gathered, destroying, raging, devastating the fairest land that I
+had seen in many a day. All the country was aflame; smoke rolled
+up, fouling the blue sky, burying woodlands, blotting out the
+fields and streams.</p>
+
+<p>From the knoll to which I had moved to watch the progress of
+my scouts, I could see an entire New Jersey regiment chasing
+horses and cattle; another regiment piling up canoes, fish-weirs,
+and the hewn logs of bridges, to make a mighty fire; still other
+regiments trampling out the last vestige of green stuff in the
+pretty gardens.</p>
+
+<p>Not a shot had yet been fired; there was no sound save the
+excited and terrifying roar of a vast armed mob obliterating in
+its fury the very well-springs that enabled its enemies to
+exist.</p>
+
+<p>Cattle, sheep, horses were being driven off down the trail by
+which we had come; men everywhere were stuffing their empty sacks
+with green vegetables and household plunder; the town fairly
+whistled with flame, and the smoke rose in a great cloud-shape
+very high, and hung above us, tenting us from the sun.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of this uproar the Grey-Feather came speeding to
+me with news that the enemy was a little way upstream and seemed
+inclined to make a stand. I immediately informed the General; and
+soon the bugle-horns of the light infantry sounded, and away we
+raced ahead of them.</p>
+
+<p>I remember seeing an entire company marching with muskmelons
+pinned on their bayonets, all laughing and excited; and I heard
+General Sullivan bawl at them:</p>
+
+<p>"You damned unmilitary rascals, do you mean to open fire on
+'em with vegetables?"</p>
+
+<p>Everybody was laughing, and the General grinned as Hand's
+bugle-horns played us in.</p>
+
+<p>But it was another matter when the Seneca rifles cracked, and
+a sergeant and a drummer lad of the 11th Pennsylvania fell. The
+smooth-bores cracked again, and four more soldiers tumbled
+forward sprawling, the melons on their bayonets rolling off into
+the bushes.</p>
+
+<p>Carbury, marching forward beside me, dropped across my path;
+and as I stooped over him gave me a ghastly look.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let them scalp me," he said&#151; but his own men came
+running and picked him up, and I ran forward with the others
+toward a wooded hill where puffs of smoke spotted the bushes.</p>
+
+<p>Then the long, rippling volleys of Hand's men crashed out, one
+after another, and after a little of this their bugle-horns
+sounded the charge.</p>
+
+<p>But the Senecas did not wait; and it was like chasing weasels
+in a stone wall, for even my Indians could not come up with
+them.</p>
+
+<p>However, about two o'clock, returning to that part of the town
+across the river, which Colonel Dearborn's men were now setting
+afire, we received a smart volley from some ambushed Senecas, and
+Adjutant Huston and a guide fell.</p>
+
+<p>It was here that the Sagamore made his kill&#151; just beyond
+the first house, in some alders; and he came back with a Seneca
+scalp at his girdle, as did the Grey-Feather also.</p>
+
+<p>"Hiokatoo's warriors," remarked the Oneida briefly, wringing
+out his scalp and tying it to his belt.</p>
+
+<p>I looked up at the hills in sickened silence. Doubtless
+Butler's men were watching us in our work of destruction, not
+daring to interfere until the regulars arrived from Fort Niagara.
+But when they did arrive, it meant a battle. We all knew that.
+And knew, too, that a battle lost in the heart of that dark
+wilderness meant the destruction of every living soul among
+us.</p>
+
+<p>About two o'clock, having eaten nothing except what green and
+uncooked stuff we had picked up in field and garden, our marching
+signal sounded and we moved off; driving our captured stock,
+every soldier laden with green food and other plunder, and taking
+with us our dead and wounded.</p>
+
+<p>Chemung had been, but was no longer. And if, like Thendara, it
+was ever again to be I do not know, only that such a horrid and
+pitiful desolation I had never witnessed in all my life before.
+For it was not the enemy, but the innocent earth we had
+mutilated, stamping an armed heel into its smiling and upturned
+face. And what we had done sickened me.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, this was scarcely the beginning of that terrible
+punishment which was to pass through the Long House in flame and
+smoke, from the Eastern Door to the Door of the West, scouring it
+fiercely from one end to the other, and leaving no living thing
+within&#151; only a few dead men prone among its blood-soaked
+ashes.</p>
+
+<p>*Etho ni-ya-wenonh!</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[*Thus it befell!]</p>
+
+<p>By six that evening the army was back in its camp at Tioga
+Point. All the fever and excitement of the swift foray had
+passed, and the inevitable reaction had set in. The men were
+haggard, weary, sombre, and harassed. There was no elation after
+success either among officers or privates; only a sullen
+grimness, the sullenness of repletion after an orgy&#151; the
+grimness of disgust for an unwelcome duty only yet begun.</p>
+
+<p>Because this sturdy soldiery was largely composed of tillers
+of the soil, of pioneer farmers who understood good land, good
+husbandry, good crops, and the stern privations necessary to
+wrest a single rod of land from the iron jaws of the
+wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>To stamp upon, burn, girdle, destroy, annihilate, give back to
+the forest what human courage and self-denial had wrested from
+it, was to them in their souls abhorrent.</p>
+
+<p>Save for the excitement of the chase, the peril ever present,
+the certainty that failure meant death in its most dreadful
+forms, it might have been impossible for these men to destroy the
+fruits of the earth, even though produced by their mortal
+enemies, and designed, ultimately, to nourish them.</p>
+
+<p>Even my Indians sat silent and morose, stretching, braiding,
+and hooping their Seneca scalps. And I heard them conversing
+among themselves, mentioning frequently the Three Sisters* they
+had destroyed; and they spoke ever with a hint of tenderness and
+regret in their tones which left me silent and unhappy.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[*Corn, squash, and bean were so spoken of
+affectionately, as they always were planted together by the
+Iroquois.]</p>
+
+<p>To slay in the heat and fury of combat is one matter; to scar
+and cripple the tender features of humanity's common mother is a
+different affair. And I make no doubt that every blow that bit
+into the laden fruit trees of Chemung stabbed more deeply the men
+who so mercilessly swung the axes.</p>
+
+<p>Well might the great Cayuga chieftain repeat the terrible
+prophecy of Toga-na-etah the Beautiful:</p>
+
+<p>"When the White Throats shall come, then, if ye be divided, ye
+will pull down the Long House, fell the tall Tree of Peace, and
+quench the Onondaga Fire forever."</p>
+
+<p>As I stood by the rushing current of the Thiohero,* on the
+profaned and desolate threshold of the Dark Empire, I thought of
+O-cau-nee, the Enchantress, and of Na-wenu the Blessed, and of
+Hiawatha floating in his white canoe into the far haven where the
+Master of Life stood waiting.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[*Seneca River.]</p>
+
+<p>And now, for these doomed people of the Kannonsi, but one rite
+remained to be accomplished. And the solemn thunder of the last
+drum-roll must summon them to the great Festival of the Dead.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XV</h3>
+
+<h4>BLOCK-HOUSE NO. 2</h4>
+
+<p>On the 14th the army lay supine. There was no news from
+Otsego. One man fell dead in camp of heart disease. The
+cattle-guard was fired on. On the 15th a corporal and four
+privates, while herding our cattle, were fired on, the Senecas
+killing and scalping one and wounding another. On the 16th came a
+runner from Clinton with news that the Otsego army was on the
+march and not very far distant from the Ouleout; and a detachment
+of eight hundred men, under Brigadier General Poor, was sent
+forward to meet our Right Wing and escort it back to this
+camp.</p>
+
+<p>By one of the escort, a drummer lad, I sent a letter directed
+to Lois, hoping it might be relayed to Otsego and from thence by
+batteau to Albany. The Oneida runner had brought no letters, much
+to the disgust of the army, and no despatches except the brief
+line to our General commanding. The Brigadiers were furious. So
+also was I that no letters came for me.</p>
+
+<p>On the 17th our soldier-herdsmen were again fired on, and, as
+before, one poor fellow was killed and partly scalped, and one
+wounded. The Yellow Moth, Tahoontowhee, and the Grey-Feather went
+out at night on retaliation bent, but returned with neither
+trophies nor news, save what we all knew, that the Seneca scouts
+were now swarming like hornets all around us ready to sting to
+death anyone who strayed out of bounds.</p>
+
+<p>On the 18th the entire camp lay dull, patiently expectant of
+Clinton. He did not come. It rained all night.</p>
+
+<p>On Thursday, the 19th, it still rained steadily, but with no
+violence&#151; a fine, sweet, refreshing summer shower, made
+golden and beautiful at intervals by the momentary prophecy of
+the sun; yet he did not wholly reveal himself, though he smiled
+through the mist at us in friendly fashion.</p>
+
+<p>I had been out fishing for trouts very early, the rain making
+it favourable for such pleasant sport, and my Indians and I had
+finished a breakfast of corn porridge and the sweet-fleshed
+fishes that I took from the brook where it falls into the
+Susquehanna.</p>
+
+<p>It was still very early&#151; near to five o'clock, I think
+&#151; for the morning gun had not yet bellowed, and the camp lay
+very still in the gentle and fragrant rain.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments before five I saw a company of Jersey troops
+march silently down to the river, hang their cartouche-boxes on
+their bayonets, and ford the stream, one holding to another, and
+belly deep in the swollen flood.</p>
+
+<p>Thinks I to myself, they are going to protect our
+cattle-guards; and I turned and walked down to the ford to watch
+the crossing.</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw why they had crossed: there were some people come
+down to the landing place on the other bank in two batteaux and
+an Oneida canoe&#151; soldiers, boatmen, and two women; and our
+men were fording the river to protect the crossing of this small
+flotilla.</p>
+
+<p>I seated myself, wondering what foolhardy people these might
+be, and trying to see more plainly the women in the two batteaux.
+As the boatmen poled nearer, it seemed to me that some of the
+people looked marvelously like the riflemen of my own corps; and
+a few moments later I sprang to my feet astounded, for of the two
+women in the nearest batteau one was Lois de Contrecoeur and the
+other Lana Helmer.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the Oneida canoe shot out from the farther shore,
+passed both batteaux, paddles flashing, and came darting toward
+the landing where I stood. Two riflemen were in it; one rose as
+the canoe's nose grated on the gravel, cast aside the bow-paddle,
+balanced himself toward the bow with both hands, and leaped
+ashore, waving at me a gay greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" said I excitedly, as Boyd ran lightly up the slope.
+"Are you stark mad to bring ladies into this damnable place?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are other women, too. Why, even that pretty jade, Dolly
+Glenn, is coming! What could I do? The General himself permitted
+it. Miss de Contrecoeur and Lana heard that a number of women
+were already here, and so come for a frolic they must."</p>
+
+<p>"Who accompanies them? I see no older woman yonder."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Sabin, the lady of Captain Sabin, Staff Commissary of
+Issues."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is she, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"We left her with the army at the Ouleout."</p>
+
+<p>"Where do you propose to quarter these ladies?"</p>
+
+<p>"We understand that you have four block-forts mounting cannon.
+That would argue barracks. Therefore, I don't think the danger is
+very considerable. Do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is danger, of course," I said. "The entire Seneca
+nation is here with Indian Butler and Brant."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, we'll turn your Butler into a turn-spit, and make
+of your wild Brant a domestic gander!"</p>
+
+<p>He spoke coolly, a slight smile on his eager, handsome
+features. And I wondered how he could make a jest of this
+business, and how he could have permitted so mad a prank if he
+truly entertained any very deep regard for Lana Helmer.</p>
+
+<p>"Danger," I repeated coldly. "Yes, there is a-plenty of that
+hereabouts, what with the Seneca scalping parties combing the
+woods around us, and the cattle-guard fired upon in plain sight
+of headquarters."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there were and still are some few scalping parties
+hanging around Otsego. I myself see no real reason why the ladies
+should not pay us a visit here, have their frolic, and later
+return with the heavier artillery down the river to Easton. Or,
+if they choose, they shall await our return from
+Catharines-town."</p>
+
+<p>"And if we do not return? Have you thought of that, Boyd?"</p>
+
+<p>"You shall not conjure me with any such forebodings!" he
+laughed. "This raid of ours will be no very great or fearsome
+affair. They'll run&#151; your Brants and Butlers&#151; I warrant
+you. And we'll follow and burn their towns. Then, like the French
+king of old, down hill we'll all go strutting, you and I and the
+army, Loskiel; and no great harm done to anybody or anything,
+save to the Senecas' squash harvest, and the sensitive feelings
+of Walter Butler!"</p>
+
+<p>While he was speaking, I kept my eye on the slow batteau which
+led. Three boatmen poled it; Lois and Lana sat in the middle;
+behind them crouched two riflemen, long weapons ready, the ringed
+coon-tail floating in the breeze.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of the ladies had yet recognized me; Lana leaned
+lightly against Lois, her cheek resting on her companion's
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>A black rage against Boyd rose suddenly in my breast; and so
+savage and abrupt was the emotion that I could scarce stifle and
+subdue it.</p>
+
+<p>"It is wrong for them to come," I said with an effort to speak
+calmly, "&#151;&#151; utterly and wickedly wrong. Our block-forts
+are not finished. And when they are they will be more or less
+vulnerable. I can not understand why you did not make every
+effort to prevent their coming here."</p>
+
+<p>"I made every proper effort," he said carelessly. "What man is
+vain enough to believe he can influence a determined woman?"</p>
+
+<p>I did not like what he said, and so made him no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Is your camp still asleep?" he asked, yawning.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The morning gun is usually fired at six."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you lodge us and bait us until I make my report?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can lodge the ladies and give breakfast to you all. How
+near is our main army?"</p>
+
+<p>"Between twenty and thirty miles above&#151; one can scarce
+tell the way this accursed river winds about. Our men are
+exhausted. They'll not arrive tonight. General Poor's men from
+this camp met us last night. Clinton desired me to take a few
+riflemen and push forward; and the ladies&#151; except the fat
+one&#151; begged so prettily to go with us that he consented. So
+we took two empty batteaux and a canoe and came on in advance,
+with no effort whatever."</p>
+
+<p>"That was a rash business!" I said, controlling my anger. "The
+river woods along the Ouleout swarm with Seneca scouts. Didn't
+you understand that?"</p>
+
+<p>"So I told 'em," he said, laughing, "but do you know, Loskiel,
+between you and me I believe that your pretty inamorata really
+loves the thrill of danger. And I know damned well that Lana
+Helmer loves it. For when we came through without so much as
+sighting a muskrat, 'What!' says she, 'Not a savage to be seen
+and not a shot fired! Lord,' says she, 'I had as lief take the
+air on Bowling Green&#151; there being some real peril of beaux
+and macaronis!'"</p>
+
+<p>Everything this man said now conspired to enrage me; and it
+was a struggle for me to restrain the bitter affront ever
+twitching at my lips for utterance. Perhaps I might not have
+restrained it any longer had I not seen Lois lean suddenly
+forward in her seat, shade her eyes with her hands, then stand up
+beside one of the boatmen. And I knew she recognized me.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly within me all anger, rancour, and even dread melted
+in the warmer and more generous emotion which nigh overwhelmed
+me, so that for an instant I could scarce see her for the
+glimmering of my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>But that passed; I went down to the shore and stood there
+while the clumsy boat swung inshore, the misty waves slapping at
+the bow and side. The landing planks lay on the gravel. Boyd and
+I laid them. Lana, wrapped in her camblet, crossed them first,
+giving me her hand with a pale smile. I laid my lips to it; she
+passed, Boyd moving forward beside her.</p>
+
+<p>Then came Lois in her scarlet capuchin, eager and shy at the
+same time, smiling, yet with fearfulness and tenderness so
+strangely blended that ever her laughing eyes seemed close to
+tears and the lips that smiled were tremulous.</p>
+
+<p>"I came&#151; you see.... Are you angry?" she asked as I bent
+low over her little hand. "You will not chide me&#151; will you,
+Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. What is done is done. Are you well, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfect in health, my friend. And if you truly are glad to
+see me, then I am content. But I am also very wet, Euan, spite of
+my capuchin. Lana and I have a common box. It belongs to her. May
+our boatmen carry it ashore?"</p>
+
+<p>I gave brief directions to the men, returned the smiling
+salute of my wet riflemen from the other boat now drawing heavily
+inshore, and climbed the grassy bank with Lois to where Lana and
+Boyd stood under the trees awaiting us.</p>
+
+<p>"I have but one bush-hut to offer you at present," I said.
+"Proper provision in barracks will be made, no doubt, as soon as
+the General learns who it is who has honoured him so unexpectedly
+with a visit."</p>
+
+<p>"That's why we came, Euan&#151; to honour General Sullivan,"
+said Lois demurely. "Did we not, Lanette?"</p>
+
+<p>Then again I noticed that the old fire, the old gaiety in Lana
+Helmer had been almost quenched. For instead of a saucy reply she
+only smiled; and even her eyes seemed spiritless as they rested
+on me a moment, then turned wearily elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>"You are much fatigued," I said to Lois.</p>
+
+<p>"I? No. But my poor Lana slept very badly in the boat. Before
+dawn we went ashore for an hour's rest. That seemed sufficient
+for me, but Lana, poor dove, did not profit, I fear. Did you,
+dearest?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very little," said Lana, forcing a gaiety she surely did not
+inspire in others with her haunted eyes that looked at
+everything, yet saw nothing&#151; or so it seemed to me.</p>
+
+<p>As we came to our bush-huts, Lois caught sight of the Sagamore
+for the first time, and held out both hands with a pretty cry of
+recognition:</p>
+
+<p>"Nai, Mayaro!"</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore turned in silent astonishment; though when he saw
+Boyd there also his features became smooth and blank again. But
+he came forward with stately grace to welcome her; and, bending
+his crested head, took her hands and laid them lightly over his
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Nai, Lois!" he exclaimed emphatically.</p>
+
+<p>"Itoh, Mayaro!" she replied gaily, pressing his hands in hers.
+"I am that contented to see you! Are you not amazed to see me
+here?" she insisted, mischievously amused at his unaltered
+features.</p>
+
+<p>The Sagamore said smilingly:</p>
+
+<p>"When she wills it, who can follow the Rosy-throated Pigeon in
+her swift flight? Not the Enchantress in the moon. Tharon alone,
+O Rosy-throated One!"</p>
+
+<p>"The wild pigeon has outwitted you all, has she not, Mayaro,
+my friend?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nakwah! Let my brother Loskiel deny it, then. I, a Sagamore,
+know better than to deny a fire its ashes, or a wild pigeon its
+magic flight."</p>
+
+<p>Boyd now spoke to the Mohican, who returned his greeting
+courteously, but very gravely. I then made the Mohican known to
+Lana, who gave him a lifeless hand from the green folds of her
+camblet. My Oneidas, who had finished their somewhat ominous
+painting, came from the other hut in company with the Yellow
+Moth, the latter now painted for the first time in a brilliant
+and poisonous yellow. All these people I made acquainted one with
+another. Lois was very gracious to them all, using what Indian
+words she knew in her winning greetings&#151; and using them
+quite wrongly&#151; God bless her!</p>
+
+<p>Then the Yellow Moth hung my new blue blanket, which I had
+lately drawn from our Commissary of Issues, across the door of my
+hut; two huge boatmen came up with Lana's box, swung between
+them, and deposited it within the hut.</p>
+
+<p>"By the time you are ready," said I, "we will have a breakfast
+for you such as only the streams of this country can afford."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>The six o'clock gun awoke the camp and found me already at the
+General's tent, awaiting permission to see him.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed surprised that Clinton had allowed any ladies to
+accompany the Otsego army, but it was evident that the happiness
+and relief he experienced at learning that Clinton was on the
+Ouleout had put him into a most excellent humour. And he
+straightway sent an officer with orders to remove Lana's box to
+Block-Fort No. 2 in the new fort, where were already domiciled
+the wives of two sergeants and a corporal, and gave me an order
+assigning to Lois and Lana a rough loft there.</p>
+
+<p>But the General's chief concern and curiosity was for Boyd and
+the eight riflemen who had come through from the Ouleout as the
+first advanced guard of that impatiently awaited Otsego army; and
+I heard Boyd telling him very gaily that they were bringing more
+than two hundred batteaux, loaded with provisions. And, this, I
+think, was the best news any man could have brought to our
+Commander at that moment. One thing I do know; from that time
+Boyd was an indulged favourite of our General, who admired his
+many admirable qualities, his gay spirits, his dashing
+enterprise, his utter fearlessness; and who overlooked his
+military failings, which were rashness to the point of folly, and
+a tendency to obey orders in a manner which best suited his own
+ideas. Captain Cummings was a far safer man.</p>
+
+<p>I say this with nothing in my heart but kindness for Boyd. God
+knows I desire to do him justice&#151; would wish it for him even
+more than for myself. And I not only was not envious of his good
+fortune in so pleasing our General, but was glad of it, hoping
+that this honour might carry with it a new and graver
+responsibility sufficiently heavy to curb in him what was least
+admirable and bring out in him those nobler qualities so
+desirable in officer and man.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned to my hut there were any fish smoking hot on
+their bark plates, and Lana and Lois in dry woollen dresses,
+worsted stockings, and stout, buckled shoon, already at
+porridge.</p>
+
+<p>So I sat down with them and ate, and it was, or seemed to be,
+a happy company there before our little hut, with officers and
+troops passing to and fro and glancing curiously at us, and our
+Indians squatted behind us all a-row, and shining up knife and
+hatchet and rifle; and the bugle-horns of the various regiments
+sounding prettily at intervals, and the fifers and drummers down
+by the river at distant morning practice.</p>
+
+<p>"You love best the bellowing conch-horn of the rifles,"
+observed Lana to Lois, with a touch of her old-time
+impudence.</p>
+
+<p>"I?" exclaimed Lois.</p>
+
+<p>"You once told me that every blast of it sets you
+a-trembling," insisted Lana. "Naturally I take it that you quiver
+with delight&#151; having some friend in that
+corps&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lana! Have done, you little baggage!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!" said Lana. "'Twas Major Parr I meant. What does an
+infant Ensign concern such aged dames as you and I?"</p>
+
+<p>Lois, lovely under her mounting colour, continued busy with
+her porridge. Lana said in my ear:</p>
+
+<p>"She is a wild thing, Euan, and endures neither plaguing nor
+wooing easily. How I have gained her I do not know.... Perhaps
+because I am aging very fast these days, and she hath a heart as
+tender as a forest dove's."</p>
+
+<p>Lois looked up, seeing us whispering together.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncouth manners!" said she. "I am greatly ashamed of you
+both."</p>
+
+<p>I thought to myself, wondering, how utter a change had come
+over the characters of these two in twice as many weeks! Lois had
+now something of that quick and mischievous gaiety that once was
+Lana's; and the troubled eyes that once belonged to Lois now were
+hers no longer, but Lana's. It seemed very strange and sad to
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"Had I a dozen beaux," quoth Lois airily, "I might ask of one
+o' them another bit of trout." And, "Oh!" she exclaimed, in
+affected surprise, as I aided her. "It would seem that I have at
+least one young man who aspires to that ridiculous title. Do you
+covet it, Euan? And humbly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do I merit it?" I asked, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my honour," she exclaimed, turning to Lana, "I believe
+the poor young gentleman thinks he does merit the title. Did you
+ever hear of such insufferable conceit? And merely because he
+offers me a bit of trout."</p>
+
+<p>"I caught them, too," said I. "That should secure me in my
+title."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! You caught them too, did you! And so you deem yourself
+entitled to be a beau of mine? Lana, do you very kindly explain
+to the unfortunate Ensign that you and I were accustomed at
+Otsego to a popularity and an adulation of which he has no
+conception. Colonels and majors were at our feet. Inform him very
+gently, Lana."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Lana, "you behaved very indiscreetly at Otsego
+Camp, dear one&#151; sitting alone for hours and hours over this
+young gentleman's letters&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Traitor!" exclaimed Lois, blushing. "It was a letter from his
+solicitor, Mr. Hake, that you found me doting on!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you then hear from Mr. Hake?" I asked, laughing and very
+happy.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I did, by every post! That respectable Albany
+gentleman seemed to feel it his duty to write me by every batteau
+and inquire concerning my health, happiness, and pleasure, and if
+I lacked anything on earth to please me. Was it not most
+extraordinary behaviour, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>She was laughing when she spoke, and for a moment her eyes
+grew strangely tender, but they brightened immediately and she
+tossed her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lana!" said she. "I think I may seriously consider Mr.
+Hake and his very evident intentions. So I shall require no more
+beaux, Euan, and thank you kindly for volunteering. Besides, if I
+want 'em, this camp seems moderately furnished with handsome and
+gallant young officers," she added airily, glancing around her.
+"Lana! Do you please observe that tall captain with the red
+facings! And the other staff-major yonder in blue and buff! Is he
+not beautiful as Apollo? And I make no doubt that this agreeable
+young Ensign of ours will presently make them known to us for our
+proper diversion."</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, now, with the prospect of all these officers
+besetting her with their civilities and polite assiduities,
+nothing of the old and silly jealousy seemed to stir within me.
+Perhaps because, although for days I had not seen her, I knew her
+better. And also I had begun to know myself. Even though she
+loved not me in the manner I desired, yet the lesser, cruder, and
+more unworthy solicitude which at first seemed to have possessed
+me in her regard was now gone. And if inexperience and youth had
+inspired me with unworthy jealousies I do not know; but I do know
+that I now felt myself older&#151; years older than when first I
+knew Lois; and perhaps my being so honestly in love with her
+wrought the respectable change in me. For real love ages the
+mind, even when it makes more youthful the body, and so controls
+both body and mind. And I think it was something that way with
+me.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, as we sat chattering there, came men to take away
+Lana's box to Block-House No. 2 on the peninsula. So Lana went
+into the bush-hut and refilled and locked the box, and then we
+all walked together to the military works which were being
+erected on a cleared knoll overlooking both rivers, and upon
+which artillerymen were now mounting the three-pounder and the
+cohorn, or "grasshopper," as our men had named it, because our
+artillery officers had taken it from its wooden carriage and had
+mounted it on a tripod. And at every discharge it jumped into the
+air and kicked over backward.</p>
+
+<p>This miniature fortress, now called Fort Sullivan, was about
+three hundred feet square, with strong block-forts at the four
+corners, so situated as to command both rivers; and these
+fortifications were now so nearly completed that the men of the
+invalid corps who were to garrison the place had already marched
+into their barracks, and were now paraded for inspection.</p>
+
+<p>The forts had been very solidly constructed of great logs, the
+serrated palisade, deeply and solidly embedded, rose twelve feet
+high. A rifle platform ran inside this, connecting the rough
+barracks and stables, which also were built of logs, the crevices
+stuffed with moss and smeared and plastered with blue clay from
+the creek.</p>
+
+<p>These, with the curtain, block-forts, and a deep ditch over
+which was a log bridge, composed the military works at Tioga; and
+this was the place into which we now walked, a sentry directing
+us to Block-House No. 2, which overlooked the Chemung.</p>
+
+<p>And no sooner had we entered and climbed the ladder to the
+women's quarters overhead, than:</p>
+
+<p>"What luxury!" exclaimed Lois, looking down at her bed of
+fresh-cut balsam, over which their blankets had been cast. "Could
+any reasonable woman demand more? With a full view of the pretty
+river in the rain, and a real puncheon floor, and a bed of
+perfume to dream on, and a brave loop to shoot from! What more
+could a vain maid ask?" She glanced at me with sweet and humorous
+eyes, saying: "Fort Orange is no safer than this log bastion, so
+scowl on me no more, Euan, but presently take Lanette and me to
+the parapet where other and lovelier wonders are doubtless to be
+seen."</p>
+
+<p>"What further wonders?" asked Lana indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, sky and earth and river, dear, and the little dicky
+birds all a-preening under this sweet, sunny veil of rain. Is not
+all this mystery of nature wonderful enough to lure us to the
+rifle-platform?"</p>
+
+<p>Said Lana listlessly: "I had liefer court a deeper
+mystery."</p>
+
+<p>"Which, dear one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep," said Lana briefly; and I saw how pale she was,
+kneeling there beside the opened box and sorting out the simple
+clothing they had brought with them.</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes longer we conversed, talking of Otsego and
+of our friends there; and I learned how Colonel Gansevoort had
+left with his regiment and Lieutenant-Colonel Willet, and was
+marching hither with Clinton after all.</p>
+
+<p>A soldier brought a wooden bowl, an iron sap-kettle full of
+sweet water, a hewn bench, and nailed up a blanket cutting the
+room in two. Their quarters were now furnished.</p>
+
+<p>I pushed aside the blanket, walked to the inner loop, and
+gazed down on the miniature parade where the invalids were now
+being inspected by Colonel Shreve. When I returned, Lana had
+changed to a levete and was lying on her balsam couch, cheek on
+hand, looking up at Lois, who knelt beside her on the puncheon
+floor, smoothing back her thick, bright hair. And in the eyes of
+these two was an expression the like of which I had never before
+seen, and I stepped back instinctively, like a man who intrudes
+on privacy unawares.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, Euan!" cried Lois, with a gaiety which seemed
+slightly forced; and I came, awkwardly, not meeting their eyes,
+and made for the ladder to get myself below.</p>
+
+<p>Whereat both laughed. Lois rose and went behind the blanket to
+the loop, and Lana said, with a trace of her former levity:</p>
+
+<p>"Broad-brim! Do you fly blushing from my levete? The Queen of
+France receives in scanter attire, I hear. Sit you on yonder
+bench and play courtier amiably for once."</p>
+
+<p>She seemed so frail and white and young, lying there, her fair
+hair unpowdered and tumbled about her face&#151; so childlike and
+helpless&#151; that a strange and inexplicable apprehension
+filled me; and, scarce thinking what I did, I went over to her
+and knelt down beside her, putting one arm around her
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Her expression, which had been smiling and vaguely audacious,
+changed subtly. She lay looking up at me very wistfully for a
+moment, then lifted her hands a little way. I laid them to my
+lips, looking over them down into her altered eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Always," she said under her breath, "always you have been
+kind and true, Euan, even when I have used you with scant
+courtesy."</p>
+
+<p>"You have never used me ill."</p>
+
+<p>"No&#151; only to plague you as a girl torments what she truly
+loves.... Lois and I have spoken much of you
+together&#151;&#151;" She turned her head. "Where are you,
+sweeting?"</p>
+
+<p>Lois came from behind the blanket and knelt down so close to
+me that the fragrance of her freshened the air; and once again,
+as it happened at the first day's meeting in Westchester, the
+same thrill invaded me., And I thought of the wild rose that
+starlight night, and how fitly was it her symbol and her
+flower.</p>
+
+<p>Lana looked at us both, unsmiling; then drew her hands from
+mine and crook'd her arms behind her neck, cradling her head on
+them, looking at us both all the while. Presently her lids
+drooped on her white cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>When we rose on tiptoe, I thought she was asleep, but Lois was
+not certain; and as we crept out onto the rifle-platform and
+seated ourselves in a sheltered corner under the parapet, she
+said uneasily;</p>
+
+<p>"Lanette is a strange maid, Euan. At first I knew she disliked
+me. Then, of a sudden, one day she came to me and clung like a
+child afraid. And we loved from that minute.... It is
+strange."</p>
+
+<p>"Is she ill?"</p>
+
+<p>"In mind, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know, Euan."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it love, think you&#151; her disorder?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know, I tell you. Once I thought it was &#151; that.
+But knew not how to be certain."</p>
+
+<p>"Does Boyd still court her?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&#151; I do not know," she said with a troubled look.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it that affair which makes her unhappy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so once. They were ever together. Then she avoided
+him&#151; or seemed to. It was Betty Bleecker who interfered
+between them. For Mrs. Bleecker was very wrathful, Euan, and
+Lana's indiscretions madded her.... There was a scene.... So Boyd
+came no more, save when other officers came, which was every day.
+Somehow I have never been certain that he and Lana did not meet
+in secret when none suspected."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you proof?" I asked, cold with rage.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head, and her gaze grew vague and remote. After
+a while she seemed to put away her apprehensions, and, smiling,
+she turned to me, challenging me with her clear, sunny eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Euan, you shall do me reason, now that my curly pate is
+innocent of powder, no French red to tint my lips and hide my
+freckles, and but a linsey-woolsey gown instead of chintz and
+silk to cover me! So tell me honestly, does not the enchantment
+break that for a little while seemed to hold you near me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you forget," said I, "that I first saw my enchantress in
+rags and tattered shoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she said, tossing her pretty head. "Extremes attract all
+men. But now in this sober and common guise of every day, I am
+neither Cinderella nor yet the Princess&#151; merely a frowsy,
+rustic, freckled maid with a mouth somewhat too large for beauty,
+and the clipped and curly poll of a careless boy. And I desire to
+know, once for all, how I now suit you, Euan."</p>
+
+<p>"You are perfection&#151; once for all."</p>
+
+<p>"I? What obstinate foolishness you utter! In all
+seriousness&#151; "</p>
+
+<p>"You are&#151; more beautiful than ever&#151; in all
+seriousness!"</p>
+
+<p>"What folly!" She began to laugh nervously, then shrugged her
+shoulders, adding: "This young man is plainly partizan and deaf
+to reason."</p>
+
+<p>"Being in love."</p>
+
+<p><i>"You!</i> In <i>love!</i> What nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you doubt it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she said carelessly. "You are in love with
+<i>love</i>&#151; as all men are&#151; and not particularly in
+love with <i>me.</i> Men, my dear Euan, are gamblers. When first
+you saw me in tatters, you laid a wager with yourself that I'd
+please you in silks. A gay hazard! A sporting wager! And straight
+you dressed me up to suit you; and being a man, and therefore
+conceited, you could scarcely admit that you had lost your wager
+to your better senses. Could you? But now you shall admit that in
+this frowsy, woollen gown the magic of both Cinderella and the
+Princess vanishes with yesterday's enchantment, and, instead of
+Chloe, pink and simpering, only a sturdy comrade stands revealed
+who now, as guerdon for the future, strikes hands with you&#151;
+like this! Koue!" And with the clear and joyous cry on her lips
+she struck my palm violently with hers, nor winced under my
+quick-closing grip.</p>
+
+<p>"Is all now clear and plain between us, Euan?" she inquired.
+And it seemed to me that her eagerness and fervour rang
+false.</p>
+
+<p>"You can not love me, then?" I asked in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I? What has love to do with us&#151; here in the woods&#151;
+and I without knowledge and experience&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"You do not love me, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can not."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>She made no answer, but bit her lip.</p>
+
+<p>"You need not reply," said I. "Yet&#151; that night I left
+Otsego&#151; and when I passed you in the dark&#151; I
+thought&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"My heart was full that night! What comrade could feel less
+and still possess a human heart?" she said almost sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Your letter&#151; and mine&#151; encouraged me to
+believe&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know," she said, with the curt and almost breathless
+impatience of haste, "but have I ever denied our bond of
+intimacy, Euan? Closer bond have I with no man. But it must be a
+comrade's bond between us.... I meant to make that plain to
+you&#151; and doubtless, my heart being full&#151; and I but a
+girl&#151; conveyed to you&#151; by what I said&#151; and
+did&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lois! Is it not in you to love me as a woman loves a
+man?"</p>
+
+<p>"I told you that when the time arrived I would doubtless be
+what you wish me to be&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>can</i> love me, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do I know? You perplex and vex me. Who else would I love
+but you? Who else is there in the world&#151; except my
+mother?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence; then I said:</p>
+
+<p>"Has this passionate quest of her so wholly absorbed and
+controlled you that all else counts as nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes! You know it. You knew it at Otsego! Nothing else
+matters. I will not permit anything else to matter! And, lest you
+deem me cold, thankless, inhuman, ask of yourself, Euan, why such
+a lonely girl as I should close her eyes and stop her ears and
+lock her heart and&#151; and turn her face away when the
+man&#151; to whom she owes all&#151; to whom she is&#151; utterly
+devoted&#151; urges her toward emotions&#151; toward matters
+strange to her&#151; and too profound as yet. So I ask you, for a
+time, to let what sleeps within us both lie sleeping,
+undisturbed. There is a love more natural, more imperious, more
+passionate still; and&#151; <i>it has led me here!</i> And I will
+not confuse it with any other sentiment; nor share it with any
+man&#151; not even with you&#151; dear as you have become to
+me&#151; lonely as I am, &#151; no, not even with you will I
+share it! For I have vowed that I shall never slake my thirst
+with love save first in her dear embrace.... After these wistful,
+stark, and barren years&#151; loveless, weary, naked, and
+unkind&#151;&#151;" Suddenly she covered her face with her hands,
+bowing her head to her knees.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet you bid me hope, Lois?" I asked under my breath.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You make me happy beyond words," I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up from her hands:</p>
+
+<p>"Is <i>that</i> all you required to make you happy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can I ask more?"</p>
+
+<p>"I&#151; I thought men were more ruthless&#151; more imperious
+and hotly impatient with the mistress of their hearts&#151; if
+truly I am mistress of yours, as you tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"I am impatient only for your happiness; ruthless only to
+secure it."</p>
+
+<p>"For <i>my</i> happiness? Not for your <i>own?"</i></p>
+
+<p>"How can that come to me save when yours comes to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!... I did not understand. I had not thought it mattered
+very greatly to men, so that they found <i>their</i>
+happiness&#151; so that they found contentment in their
+sweethearts' yielding.... Then my surrender would mean nothing to
+you unless I yielded happily?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing. Good God! In what school have you learned of
+love!"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded thoughtfully, looking me in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"What you tell me, Euan, is pleasant to think on. It reassures
+and comforts; nay, it is the sweetest thing you ever said to
+me&#151; that you could find no happiness in my yielding unless I
+yield happily.... Why, Euan, that alone would win me&#151; were
+it time. It clears up much that I have never understood
+concerning you.... Men have not used me gently.... And then
+<i>you</i> came.... And I thought you must be like the others,
+being a man, except that you are the only one to whom I was at
+all inclined&#151; perhaps because you were from the beginning
+gentler and more honest with me.... What a way to win a woman's
+heart! To seek <i>her</i> happiness first of all!... Could you
+give me to another&#151; if my happiness required it?"</p>
+
+<p>"What else could I do, Lois?"</p>
+
+<p>"Would you do <i>that!"</i> she demanded hotly.</p>
+
+<p>"Have I any choice?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not if your strange creed be sincere. Is it sincere?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no other creed for those who really love."</p>
+
+<p>"You are wrong," she said angrily, looking at me with
+tightened lips.</p>
+
+<p>"How wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because&#151; <i>I</i> would not give <i>you</i> to another
+woman, though you cried out for her till the heavens fell!"</p>
+
+<p>I began to laugh, but her eyes still harboured lightning.</p>
+
+<p>"You should not go to her, whether or not you loved her!" she
+repeated. "I would not have it. I would not endure it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yet&#151; if I loved another&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"No! That is treason! Your happiness should be in me. And if
+you wavered I would hold you prisoner against your treacherous
+and very self!"</p>
+
+<p>"How could you hold me?"</p>
+
+<p>"What? Why&#151; why&#151; I&#151;&#151;" She sat biting her
+scarlet lips and thinking, with straight brows deeply knitted,
+her greyish-purple eyes fixed hard on me. Then a slight colour
+stained her cheeks, and she looked elsewhere, murmuring: "I do
+not know how I would hold you prisoner. But I know I should do
+it, somehow."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it, too," said I, looking at my ring she wore.</p>
+
+<p>She blushed hotly: "It is well that you do, Euan. Death is the
+dire penalty if my prisoner escapes!" She hesitated, bit her lip,
+then added faintly: "Death for me, I mean." After a moment she
+slowly lifted her eyes to mine, and so still and clear were they
+that it seemed my regard plunged to the very depths of her.</p>
+
+<p>"You do love me then," I said, taking her hand in mine.</p>
+
+<p>Her face paled, and she caught her breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you not wait&#151; a little while&#151; before you court
+me?" she faltered. "Will you not wait because I ask it of
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I will wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor speak of love&#151; until&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Nor speak of love until you bid me speak."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor&#151; caress me&#151; nor touch me&#151; nor look in my
+eyes&#151; this way&#151;&#151; " Her hand had melted somehow
+closely into mine. We both were trembling now; and she withdrew
+her hand and slowly pressed it close against her heart, gazing at
+me in a white and childish wonder, as though dumb and reproachful
+of some wound that I had dealt her. And as I saw her there, so
+hurt and white and sweet, all quivering under the first swift
+consciousness of love, I trembled, too, with the fierce desire to
+take her in my arms and whisper what was raging in my heart of
+passionate assurance and devotion.</p>
+
+<p>And I said nothing, nor did she. But presently the wild-rose
+tint crept back into her pale cheeks, and her head dropped, and
+she sat with eyes remote and vaguely sweet, her hands listless in
+her lap.</p>
+
+<p>And I, my heart in furious protest, condemned to batter at its
+walls in a vain summons to the silent lips that should have
+voiced its every beat, remained mute in futile and impotent
+adoration of the miracle love had wrought under my very eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Consigned to silence, condemned to patience super-human, I
+scarce knew how to conduct. And so cruelly the restraint cut and
+checked me that what with my perplexity, my happiness, and my
+wretchedness, I was in a plight.</p>
+
+<p>No doubt the spectacle that my features presented&#151; a very
+playground for my varying emotions&#151; was somewhat startling
+to a maid so new at love. For, glancing with veiled eyes at me,
+presently her own eyes flew open wide. And:</p>
+
+<p>"Euan!" she faltered. "Is aught amiss with you? Are you ill,
+dear lad? And have not told me?"</p>
+
+<p>Whereat I was confused and hot and vexed; and I told her very
+plainly what it was that ailed me. And now mark! In place of an
+understanding and sympathy and a nice appreciation of my
+honourable discomfort, she laughed; and as her cheeks cooled she
+laughed the more, tossing back her pretty head while her mirth,
+now uncontrolled, rippled forth till the wild birds, excited,
+joined in with restless chirping, and a squirrel sprung his elfin
+rattle overhead.</p>
+
+<p>"And that," said I, furious, "is what I get for deferring to
+your wishes! I've a mind to kiss you now!"</p>
+
+<p>Breathless, her hands pressed to her breast, she looked at me,
+and made as though to speak, but laughter seized her and she
+surrendered to it helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>Whereat I sprang to my feet and marched to the parapet, and
+she after me, laying her hand on my arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear lad&#151; I do not mean unkindness.... But it is all so
+new to me&#151; and you are so tall a man to pull such funny
+faces&#151; as though love was a stomach pain&#151;&#151;" She
+swayed, helpless again with laughter, still clinging to my
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>"If you truly find my features ridiculous&#151;&#151;" I
+began, but her hand instantly closed my lips. I kissed it,
+however, with angry satisfaction, and she took it away
+hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ashamed&#151; you great, sulky and hulking boy&#151;
+to take my harmless pleasantry <i>so</i> uncouthly? And how is
+this?" says she, stamping her foot. "May I not laugh a little at
+my lover if I choose? I will have you know, Euan, that I do what
+pleases me with mine own, and am not to sit in dread of your
+displeasure if I have a mind to laugh."</p>
+
+<p>"It hurt me that you should make a mockery&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I made no <i>mockery!</i> I <i>laughed.</i> And you shall
+know that one day, please God, I shall laugh at you, plague you,
+torment you, and&#151;&#151;" She looked at me smilingly,
+hesitating; then in a low voice: "All my caprices you shall
+endure as in duty bound.... Because your reward shall be&#151;
+the adoration of one who is at heart&#151; your slave already....
+And your desires will ever be her own&#151; are hers already,
+Euan.... Have I made amends?"</p>
+
+<p>"More fully than&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then be content," she said hastily, "and pull me no more
+lugubrious faces to fright me. Lord! What a vexing paradox is
+this young man who sits and glowers and gnaws his lips in the
+very moment of his victory, while I, his victim, tranquil and
+happy in defeat, sit calmly telling my thoughts like holy beads
+to salve my new-born soul. Ai-me! There are many things yet to be
+learned in this mad world of men."</p>
+
+<p>We leaned over the parapet, shoulder to shoulder, looking down
+upon the river. The rain had ceased, but the sun gleamed only at
+intervals, and briefly.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment she turned and looked at me with her beautiful
+and candid eyes&#151; the most honest eyes I ever looked
+upon.</p>
+
+<p>"Euan," she said in a quiet voice, "I know how hard it is for
+us to remain silent in the first flush of what has so sweetly
+happened to us both. I know how natural it is for you to speak of
+it and for me to listen. But if I were to listen, now, and when
+one dear word of yours had followed another, and the next another
+still; and when our hands had met, and then our lips&#151; alas,
+dear lad, I had become so wholly yours, and you had so wholly
+filled my mind and heart that&#151; I do not know, but l deeply
+fear&#151; something of my virgin resolution might relax. The
+inflexible will&#151; the undeviating obstinacy with which I have
+pursued my quest as far as this forest place, might falter, be
+swerved, perhaps, by this new and other passion&#151; for I am as
+yet ignorant of its force and possibilities. I would not have it
+master me until I am free to yield. And that freedom can come
+happily and honourably to me only when I set my foot in
+Catharines-town. Do you understand me, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&#151; we will not speak of love. Or even let the
+language of our eyes trouble each other with all we may not say
+and venture.... You will not kiss me, will you? Before I ask it
+of you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Under no provocation? Will you&#151; even if I should ask
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you why, Euan. I have promised myself&#151; it is
+odd, too, for I first thought of it the day I first laid eyes on
+you. I said to myself that, as God had kept me pure in spite of
+all&#151; I should wish that the first one ever to touch my lips
+should be my mother. And I made that vow&#151; having no doubt of
+keeping it&#151; until I saw you again&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"When?"</p>
+
+<p>"When you came to me in Westchester before the storm."</p>
+
+<p>"Then!" I exclaimed, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it not strange, Euan? I know not how it was with me or
+why, all suddenly, I seemed to know&#151; seemed to catch a
+sudden glimmer of my destiny&#151; a brief, confusing gleam. And
+only seemed to fear and hate you&#151; yet, it was not hate or
+fear, either.... And when I came to you in the rain&#151; there
+at the stable shed&#151; and when you followed, and gave your
+ring&#151; such hell and heaven as awakened in my heart you could
+not fathom&#151; nor could I&#151; nor can I yet understand....
+Do you think I loved you even then? Not knowing that I loved
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"How could you love me then?"</p>
+
+<p>"God knows.... And afterward, on the rock in the
+moonlight&#151; as you lay there asleep&#151; oh, I knew not what
+so moved me to leave you my message and a wild-rose lying
+there.... It was my destiny&#151; my destiny! I seemed to fathom
+it.... For when you spoke to me on the parade at the Middle Fort,
+such a thrill of happiness possessed me&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"You rebuked and rebuked me, sweeting!"</p>
+
+<p>"Because all my solicitude was for you, and how it might
+disgrace you."</p>
+
+<p>"I could have knelt there at your ragged feet, in sight of all
+the fort!"</p>
+
+<p>"Could you truly, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"As willingly as I kneel at prayer!"</p>
+
+<p>"How dear and gallant and sweet you are to me&#151;&#151;" She
+broke off in dismay. "Ai-me! Heaven pity us both, for we are
+saying what should wait to be said, and have talked of love only
+while vowing not to do so!... Let loose my hand, Euan&#151; that
+somehow has stolen into yours. Ai-me! This is a very maze I seem
+to travel in, with every pitfall hiding all I would avoid, and
+everywhere ambush laid for me.... Listen, dear lad, I am more
+pitifully at your mercy than I dreamed of. Be faithful to my
+faithless self that falters. Point out the path from your own
+strength and compassion.... I&#151; I must find my way to
+Catharines-town before I can give myself to thoughts of you&#151;
+to dreams of all that you inspire in me."</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Lois. This fort is as far as you may go."</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Truly, dear maid. It is not alone the perils of an unknown
+country that must check you here. There is a danger that you know
+not of&#151; that you never even heard of."</p>
+
+<p>"A danger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Worse. A threat of terrors hellish, inconceivable, terrible
+beyond words."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean? The hatchet? The stake? Dear lad, may I not
+then venture what you soldiers brave so lightly?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not what <i>we</i> brave that threatens
+<i>you!"</i></p>
+
+<p>"What then?" she asked, startled.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear did you ever learn that you are a 'Hidden Child'?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is that, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you do not know?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>And so I told her; told her also all that we had guessed
+concerning her; how that her captive mother, terrified by Amochol
+and his red acolytes, had concealed her, consecrated her, and,
+somehow, had found a runner to carry her beyond the doors of the
+Long House to safety.</p>
+
+<p>This runner must have written the Iroquois message which I had
+read amid the corn-husks of her garret. It was all utterly plain
+and horrible now, to her and to myself.</p>
+
+<p>As for the moccasins, the same faithful runner must have
+carried them to her, year after year, and taken back with him to
+the desolate mother the assurance that her child was living and
+still undiscovered and unharmed by Amochol.</p>
+
+<p>All this I made plain to her; and I also told her that I, too,
+was of the Hidden Ones; and made it most clear to her who I
+really was. And I told her of the Cat-People, and of the Erie,
+and how the Sorcerer had defied us and boasted that the Hidden
+Child should yet die strangled upon the altar of Red Amochol.</p>
+
+<p>She was quiet and very pale while I was speaking, and at
+moments her grey eyes widened with the unearthly horror of the
+thing; but never a tremour touched her, nor did lid or lips
+quiver or her gaze falter.</p>
+
+<p>And when I had done she remained silent, looking out over the
+river at our feet, which was now all crinkling with the sun's
+bright network through the tracery of leaves.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a danger to you," I said, "which will not cease
+until this army has left the Red Priest dead amid the
+sacrilegious ashes of his own vile altar. My Indians have made a
+vow to leave no Erie, no blasphemous and perverted priest alive.
+Amochol, the Wyoming Witch, the Toad-Woman&#151; all that
+accursed spawn of Frontenac must die.</p>
+
+<p>"Major Parr is of the same opinion; Clinton sees the
+importance of this, having had the sense to learn of Amherst how
+to stop the Seneca demons with a stout hempen rope. Two Sachems
+he hung, and the whole nation cowed down in terror of him while
+his authority remained.</p>
+
+<p>"But Amherst left us; and the yelps of the Toad-Woman aroused
+the Sorcerers from their torpor. But I swear to you by St.
+Catharine, who is the saint of the Iroquois also, that the sway
+of Amochol shall end, and that he shall lie on his own bloody
+altar, nor die there before he sees the flames of Catharines-town
+touch the very heaven of an affronted God!"</p>
+
+<p>"Can <i>you</i> do this?"</p>
+
+<p>"With God's help and General Sullivan's," I said cheerfully.
+"For I daily pray to the One, and I have the promise of the other
+that before our marching army alarms Catharines-town, I and my
+Indians and Boyd and his riflemen shall strike the Red Priest
+there at the Onon-hou-aroria."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Their devil-rites&#151; an honest feast which they have
+perverted. It was the Dream Feast, Lois, but Amochol has made of
+it an orgy unspeakable, where human sacrifices are offered to the
+Moon Witch, Atensi, and to Leshi and the Stone-Throwers, and the
+Little People&#151; many of which were not goblins and ghouls
+until Amochol so decreed them."</p>
+
+<p>"When is this feast to be held in Catharines-town?"</p>
+
+<p>"On the last day of this month. Until then you must not leave
+this camp; and after the army marches you must not go outside
+this fort. Amochol's arm is long. His acolytes are watching. And
+now I think you understand at last."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. Presently she rested her pale cheek on her arms
+and looked at the reddening edges of the woods. Northwest lay
+Catharines-town, so Mayaro said. And into the northwest her grey
+eyes now gazed, calmly and steadily, while the sun went out
+behind the forest and the high heavens were plumed with fire.</p>
+
+<p>Under us the river ran, all pink and primrose, save where
+deep, glassy shadows bounded it under either bank. The tips of
+the trees glowed with rosy flame, faded to ashes, then, burnt
+out, stood once more dark and serrated against the evening
+sky.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly an unearthly cry rang out from somewhere close to the
+river bank up stream. Instantly a sentry on the parapet near us
+fired his piece.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, God! What is it!" faltered Lois, grasping my arm. But I
+sprang for the ladder and ran down it; and the scattered soldiers
+and officers below on the parade were already running some
+grasping their muskets, others drawing pistols and hangers.</p>
+
+<p>We could hear musketry firing ahead, and drums beating to arms
+in our camp behind us.</p>
+
+<p>"The cattle-guard!" panted an officer at my elbow as we ran up
+stream along the river-bank. "The Senecas have made their kill
+again, God curse them!"</p>
+
+<p>It was so. Out of the woods came running our frightened
+cattle, with the guard plodding heavily on their flanks; and in
+the rear two of our soldiers urged them on with kicks and blow;
+two more retreated backward, facing the dusky forest with
+levelled muskets, and a third staggered beside them, half
+carrying, half trailing a man whose head hung down crimsoning the
+leaves as it dragged over them.</p>
+
+<p>He had been smoking a cob pipe when the silent assassin's
+hatchet struck him, and the pipe now remained clenched between
+his set teeth. At first, for the dead leaves stuck to him, we
+could not see that he had been scalped, but when we turned him
+over the loose and horrible features, all wrinkled where the
+severed brow-muscles had released the skin, left us in no
+doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"This man never uttered that abominable cry," I said,
+shuddering. "Is there yet another missing from the guard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, sir," said the soldier who had dragged him. "That
+there was a heifer bawling when them devils cut her throat."</p>
+
+<p>He stood scratching his head and gazing blankly down at his
+dead comrade.</p>
+
+<p>"Jesus," he drawled. "What be I a-goin' for to tell his woman
+now?"</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVI</h3>
+
+<h4>LANA HELMER</h4>
+
+<p>Our Sunday morning gun had scarce been fired when from up the
+river came the answering thunder of artillery. Thirteen times did
+the distant cannon bellow their salute, announcing Clinton's
+advance, our camp swarmed like an excited hive, mounted officers
+galloping, foot officers running, troops tumbling out as the
+drums rattled the "general" in every regimental bivouac.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Proctor's artillery band marched out toward the
+landing place as I entered No. 2 Block-House and ran up the
+ladder, and I heard the ford-guard hurrahing and the garrison
+troops on the unfinished parapets answering them with cheer after
+cheer.</p>
+
+<p>At my loud rapping on the flooring, Lois opened the trap for
+me, her lovely, youthful features flushed with excitement; Lana,
+behind her, beckoned me; and I sprang up into the loft and paid
+my duty to them both.</p>
+
+<p>"What a noble earthquake of artillery up the river!" said
+Lois. "Butler has no cannon, has he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not even a grasshopper!" said I gaily. "Those cannon shot are
+Clinton's how d'ye do!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor's guns, were they not?" asked Lana, striving to smile.
+"And that means you march away and leave us with 'The World
+Turned Upside Down!'" And she shrugged her shoulders and whistled
+a bar of the old-time British air.</p>
+
+<p>"Come to the parapet!" said Lois impatiently. "For the last
+few minutes there has been a sound in the woods&#151; very far
+away, Euan&#151; yet, if one could hear so far I would swear that
+I heard the conch-horn of your rifles!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I not tell you she knew it well?" said Lana with her
+pallid smile, as we opened the massive guard-door, squeezed
+through the covered way, and came out along the rifle-platform
+among our noisy soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" murmured Lois, close at my elbow. "There! It comes
+again! Do you not hear it, Euan! That low, long, sustained and
+heart-thrilling undertone droning in the air through all this
+tumult!"</p>
+
+<p>And presently I heard the sound&#151; the wondrous melancholy,
+yet seductive music of our conch-horn. Its magic call set my
+every pulse a-throbbing. All the alluring mystery and solitude,
+all the sorrow of the wilderness were in those long-drawn blasts;
+all the enchantment of the woodland, too, calling, calling to the
+sons of the forest, riflemen, hunter, Coureur-de-Bois.</p>
+
+<p>For its elfin monotone was the very voice of the forest
+itself&#151; the deep, sweet whisper of virgin wilds, sacred,
+impenetrable, undefiled, tempting forever the sons of men.</p>
+
+<p>And now, across the misty river, there was a great tumult of
+shouting as the first Otsego batteaux came into view; louder
+boomed our jolly cohorn, leaping high in its sulphurous
+powder-cloud; and the artillery band at the landing began to play
+"Iunadilla," which so deeply pleasured me that I forgot and
+caught Lois's hands between my own and pressed them there while
+her shoulder trembled against mine, and her breath came faster as
+the music swung into "The Huron" with a barbaric clash of
+cymbals.</p>
+
+<p>It was a wondrous spectacle to see the navy of our Right Wing
+coming on, the waves slapping on bow and quarter&#151; two
+hundred and ten loaded batteaux in line falling grandly down with
+the smooth and sunlit current, three men to every boat. Then,
+opposite, a wild flurry of bugle-horns announced our light
+infantry; and on they came, our merry General Hand riding ahead.
+And we saw him dismount, fling his bridle to an orderly, and
+lifting his sword and belt above his head, wade straight into the
+ford. And Asa Chapman and Justus Gaylord guided him.</p>
+
+<p>After these came the light troops in their cocked hats, guided
+by Frederick Eveland; then a dun-coloured and dusty column
+emerged from the brilliant green of the woods, a mass of tossing
+fringes and ringed coon-tails and flashing rifle-barrels.</p>
+
+<p>"The Rifles! hurrah for Morgan's men! Ha-i! The Eleventh
+Virginia!" roared the soldiery all about us, while Lois tightened
+her arm around mine and almost crushed my fingers with her
+own.</p>
+
+<p>"There is Major Parr&#151; and Captain Simpson&#151; oh, and
+yonder minces my macaroni Ensign!" cried Lois, as the brown
+column swung straight into the ford, every rifle lifted,
+powder-horn and cartouche-box high swinging and glittering in the
+sun.</p>
+
+<p>I turned to look for Lana; and first caught sight of the
+handsome wench, Dolly Glenn. And, following her restless gaze, I
+saw that Boyd had come up to the rifle-platform to join Lana, and
+that they stood together at a little distance from us. Also, I
+noticed that Lana's hand was resting an his arm. In sharp
+contrast to the excited, cheering soldiery thronging the
+platform, the attitude of these two seemed dull and spiritless;
+and Boyd looked more frequently at her than on the stirring
+pageant below; and once, under cover of the movement and tumult,
+I saw her pale cheek press for a moment against his green fringed
+shoulder cape&#151; lightly&#151; only for one brief moment.
+Yonder was no coquetry, no caprice of audacity. There was a heart
+there as heavy as the cheek was pale. It was love and nothing
+less&#151; the pitiful devotion of a lass in love whose lover
+marches on the morrow. Lord&#151; Lord! Had we but known!</p>
+
+<p>As I stood beside Lois, I could not refrain from glancing
+toward them at moments, not meaning to spy, yet somehow held
+fascinated and troubled by what I had seen; for it seemed plain
+to me that if there was love there, little of happiness flavored
+it. Also, whenever I looked at them always I saw Dolly Glenn
+watching Boyd out of her darkly beautiful and hostile eyes.</p>
+
+<p>And afterward, when our big riflemen marched on to the parade
+below, and we all hastened down, and the whole fort was a hubbub
+of cries and cheers and the jolly voices of friends greeting
+friends&#151; even then I could scarce keep my eyes from these
+two and from the Glenn girl. And I was glad when a large, fat
+dame came a-waddling, who proved to be Mrs. Sabin; and she had a
+cold and baleful eye for Boyd, which his gay spirits and airy
+blandishments neither softened nor abated.</p>
+
+<p>Lois made me known to her very innocently and discreetly, and
+I made her my best manners; but to my mortification, the disdain
+in her gaze increased, as did her stiffness with Boyd and her
+chilling hauteur. Lord! Here was no friend to men&#151; at least,
+no friend to young men! That I comprehended in a trice; and my
+chagrin was nothing mended as I caught a sly glance from the
+merry and slightly malicious eyes of Boyd.</p>
+
+<p>"Her husband is a fussy fat-head and she's a basalisk," he
+whispered. "I thought she'd bite my head of when the ladies came
+on under my protection."</p>
+
+<p>She was more square and heavily solid than fat, like a squat
+block-house; and as I stole another glance at her I wondered how
+she was to mount the ladder and get her through the trap above.
+And by heaven! When the moment came to try it, she could not. She
+attempted it thrice; and the third effort hung her there, wedged
+in, squeaking like a fat doe-rabbit&#151; and Boyd and I,
+stifling with laughter, now pushing, now tugging at her fat
+ankles. And finally got her out upon the ladder platform, crimson
+and speechless in her fury; and we lingered not, but fled
+together, not daring to face the lady at whose pudgy and nether
+limbs we had pulled so heartily.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!" said Boyd. "If she complains of us to her Commissary
+husband, there'll be a new issue not included in his
+department!"</p>
+
+<p>And it doubled us with laughter to think on't, so that for
+lack o' breath I sat down upon a log to hold my aching sides.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, she'll be ever on their heels," muttered Boyd,
+"hen-like, malevolent, and unaccountable. No man dare face and
+flout that lady, whose husband also is utterly subjected. It was
+Betty Bleecker who set her on me. Well, so no more of yonder
+ladies save in her bristling presence."</p>
+
+<p>Yet, as it happened, one thing barred Mistress Sabin from a
+perpetual domination and sleepless supervision of her charges,
+and that was the trap-door. Through it she could not force
+herself, nor could she come around by the guard-door, for the
+covered way would not admit her ample proportions. She could but
+mount her guard at the ladder's foot. And there were two exits to
+that garret room.</p>
+
+<p>That day I would have messed with my own people, Major Parr
+inviting me, but that our General had all the Otsego officers to
+dine with him at headquarters, and a huge punch afterward, from
+which I begged to be excused, as it was best that I look to my
+Indians when any rum was served in camp.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd came later to the bush-hut, overflushed with punch,
+saying that he had drawn sixty pair of shoes for his men, to
+spite old Sabin, and meant to distribute them with music playing;
+and that afterward I was to join him at the fort as he had orders
+for himself and for me from the General, and desired to confer
+with me concerning them.</p>
+
+<p>Later came word from him that he had a headache and would
+confer with me on the morrow. Neither did I see Lois again that
+evening, a gill of rum having been issued to every man, and I
+sticking close as a wood-tick to my red comrades&#151; indeed, I
+had them out after sunset to watch the cattle-guard, who were in
+a sorry pickle, sixty head having strayed and two soldiers
+missing. And the manoeuvres of that same guard did ever sicken
+me.</p>
+
+<p>It proved another bloody story, too, for first we found an ox
+with throat cut; and, it being good meat, we ordered it taken in.
+And then, in the bushes ahead, a soldier begins a-bawling that
+the devil is in his horses, and that they have run back into the
+woods.</p>
+
+<p>I heard him chasing them, and shouted for him to wait, but the
+poor fool pays no heed, but runs on after his three horses; and
+soon he screams out:</p>
+
+<p>"God a'mighty!" And, "Christ have mercy!"</p>
+
+<p>With that I blow my ranger's whistle, and my Indians pass me
+like phantoms in the dusk, and I hot-foot after them; but it was
+too late to save young Elliott, who lay there dead and already
+scalped, doubled up in the bed of a little brook, his clenched
+hand across his eyes and a Seneca knife in his smooth, boyish
+throat.</p>
+
+<p>Late that night the Sagamore started, chased, and quickly
+cornered something in a clump of laurel close to the river bank;
+and my Indians gathered around like fiercely-whining hounds. It
+was starlight, but too dark to see, except what was shadowed
+against the river; so we all lay flat, waiting, listening for
+whatever it was, deer or bear or man.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Night Hawk, who stood guard at the river, uttered the
+shrill Oneida view-halloo; and into the thicket we all sprang
+crashing, and strove to catch the creature alive; but the
+Sagamore had to strike to save his own skull; and out of the
+bushes we dragged one of Amochol's greasy-skinned assassins,
+still writhing, twisting, and clawing as we flung him heavily and
+like a scotched snake upon the river sand, where the Mohican
+struck him lifeless and ripped the scalp from his oiled and
+shaven head.</p>
+
+<p>The Erie's lifeless fist still clutched the painted casse-tete
+with which he had aimed a silently murderous blow at the
+Sagamore. Grey-Feather drew the death-maul from the dead
+warrior's grasp, and handed it to the Siwanois.</p>
+
+<p>Then Tahoontowhee, straightening his slim, naked figure to its
+full and graceful height, raised himself on tiptoe and, placing
+his hollowed hands to his cheeks, raised the shuddering echoes
+with the most terrific note an Indian can utter.</p>
+
+<p>As the forest rang with the fierce Oneida scalp-yell, very far
+away along the low-browed mountain flank we could hear the far
+tinkle of hoof and pebble, where the stolen horses moved; and out
+of the intense blackness of the hills came faintly the answering
+defiance of the Senecas, and the hideous miauling of the Eries,
+quavering, shuddering, dying into the tremendous stillness of the
+Dark Empire which we had insulted, challenged, and which we were
+now about to brave.</p>
+
+<p>Once more Tahoontowhee's piercing defiance split the quivering
+silence; once more the whining panther cry of the Cat-People
+floated back through the far darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Then we turned away toward our pickets; and, as we filed into
+our lines, I could smell the paint and oil on the scalp that the
+Siwanois had taken. And it smelled rank enough, God wot!</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>About nine on Monday morning the entire camp was alarmed by
+irregular and heavy firing along the river; but it proved to be
+my riflemen clearing their pieces; which did mortify General
+Clinton, and was the subject of a blunt order from headquarters,
+and a blunter rebuke from Major Parr to Boyd, who, I am inclined
+to think, did do this out of sheer deviltry. For that schoolboy
+delight of mischief which never, while he lived, was entirely
+quenched, was ever sparkling in those handsome and roving eyes of
+his. For which our riflemen adored him, being by every instinct
+reckless and irresponsible themselves, and only held to
+discipline by their worship of Daniel Morgan, and the upright
+character and the iron rigour of Major Parr.</p>
+
+<p>Not that the 11th Virginia ever shrank from duty. No regiment
+in the Continental army had a prouder record. But the men of that
+corps were drawn mostly from those free-limbed, free-thinking,
+powerful, headlong, and sometimes ruthless backwoodsmen who
+carried law into regions where none but Nature's had ever before
+existed. And the law they carried was their own.</p>
+
+<p>It was a reproach to us that we scalped our red enemies. No
+officer in the corps could prevent these men from answering an
+Indian's insult with another of the same kind. And there remained
+always men in that command who took their scalps as carelessly as
+they clipped a catamount of ears and pads.</p>
+
+<p>As for my special detail, I understood perfectly that I could
+no more prevent my Indians from scalping enemies of their own
+race than I could whistle a wolf-pack up wind. But I could stop
+their lifting the hair from a dead man of my own race, and had
+made them understand very plainly that any such attempt would be
+instantly punished as a personal insult to myself. Which every
+warrior understood. And I have often wondered why other officers
+commanding Indians, and who were ever complaining that they could
+not prevent scalping of white enemies, did not employ this
+argument, and enforce it, too. For had one of my men, no matter
+which one, disobeyed, I would have had him triced up in a
+twinkling and given a hundred lashes.</p>
+
+<p>Which meant, also, that I would have had to kill him sooner or
+later.</p>
+
+<p>There was a stink of rum in camp that morning and it is a
+quaffing beverage which while I like to drink it in punch, the
+smell of it abhors me. And ever and anon my Indians lifted their
+noses, sniffling the tainted air; so that I was glad when a note
+was handed me from Boyd saying that we were to take a forest
+stroll with my Indians around the herd-guard, during which time
+he would unfold to me his plans.</p>
+
+<p>So I started for the fort, my little party carrying rifles and
+sidearms but no packs; and there waited across the ditch in the
+sunshine my Indians, cross-legged in a row on the grass, and
+gravely cracking and munching the sweet, green hazelnuts with
+which these woods abound.</p>
+
+<p>On the parade inside the fort, and out o' the tail of my eye,
+I saw Mistress Sabin knitting on a rustic settle at the base of
+Block-house No. 2, and Captain Sabin beside her writing fussily
+in a large, leather-bound book.</p>
+
+<p>She did not know that the dovecote overhead was now empty, and
+that the pigeons had flown; nor did I myself suspect such a
+business, even when from the woods behind me came the low sound
+of a ranger's whistle blown very softly. I turned my head and saw
+Boyd beckoning; and arose and went thither, my Indians trotting
+at my heels.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as I came up and stood to offer the officer's salute,
+Lois stepped from behind a tree, laughing and laying her finger
+across her lips, but extending her other hand to me.</p>
+
+<p>And there was Lana, too, paler it seemed to me than ever, yet
+sweet and simple in her greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"The ladies desire to see our cattle," said Boyd, "The
+herd-guard is doubled, our pickets trebled, and the rounds pass
+every half hour. So it is safe enough, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet, scarce the country for a picnic," I said, looking
+uneasily at Lois.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Broad-brim, Broad-brim!" quoth she. "Is there any spice
+in life to compare to a little dash o' danger?"</p>
+
+<p>Whereat I smiled at her heartily, and said to Boyd:</p>
+
+<p>"We pass not outside our lines, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!" he answered carelessly. Which left me still
+reluctant and unconvinced. But he walked forward with Lana
+through the open forest, and I followed beside Lois; and, without
+any signal from me my Indians quietly glided out ahead, silently
+extending as flankers on either side.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you notice what they are about?" said I sourly. "Even here
+within whisper of the fort?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you not happy to see me, Euan?" she cooed close to my
+ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Not here; inside that log curtain yonder."</p>
+
+<p>"But there is a dragon yonder," she whispered, with mischief
+adorable in her sparkling eyes; then slipped hastily beyond my
+reach, saying: "Oh, Euan! Forget not our vows, but let our
+conduct remain seemly still, else I return."</p>
+
+<p>I had no choice, for we were now passing our inner pickets,
+where a line of bush-huts, widely set, circled the main camp.
+There were some few people wandering along this line&#151;
+officers, servants, boatmen, soldiers off duty, one or two
+women.</p>
+
+<p>Just within the lines there was a group of people from which a
+fiddle sounded; and I saw Boyd and Lana turn thither; and we
+followed them.</p>
+
+<p>Coming up to see who was making such scare-crow music, Lana
+said in a low voice to us:</p>
+
+<p>"It's an old, old man&#151; more than a hundred years old, he
+tells us&#151; who has lived on the Ouleout undisturbed among the
+Indians until yesterday, when we burnt the village. And now he
+has come to us for food and protection. Is it not pitiful?"</p>
+
+<p>I had a hard dollar in my pouch, and went to him and offered
+it. Boyd had Continental money, and gave him a handful.</p>
+
+<p>He was not very feeble, this ancient creature, yet, except
+among Indians who live sometimes for more than a hundred years, I
+think I never before saw such an aged visage, all cracked into a
+thousand wrinkles, and his little, bluish eyes peering out at us
+through a sort of film.</p>
+
+<p>To smile, he displayed his shrivelled gums, then picked up his
+fiddle with an agility somewhat surprising, and drew the bow
+harshly, saying in his cracked voice that he would, to oblige us,
+sing for us a ballad made in 1690; and that he himself had ridden
+in the company of horse therein described, being at that time
+thirteen years of age.</p>
+
+<p>And Lord! But it was a doleful ballad, yet our soldiers
+listened, fascinated, to his squeaking voice and fiddle; and I
+saw the tears standing in Lois's eyes, and Lana's lips a-quiver.
+As for Boyd, he yawned, and I most devoutly wished us all
+elsewhere, yet lost no word of his distressing tale:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><br>
+"God prosper long our King and Queen,<br>
+  Our lives and safeties all;<br>
+A sad misfortune once there did<br>
+  Schenectady befall.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"From forth the woods of Canady<br>
+  The Frenchmen tooke their way,<br>
+The people of Schenectady<br>
+  To captivate and slay.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"They march for two and twenty daies,<br>
+  All thro' ye deepest snow;<br>
+And on a dismal winter night<br>
+  They strucke ye cruel blow.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"The lightsome sunne that rules the day<br>
+  Had gone down in the West;<br>
+And eke the drowsie villagers<br>
+  Had sought and found their reste.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"They thought they were in safetie all,<br>
+  Nor dreamt not of the foe;<br>
+But att midnight they all swoke<br>
+  In wonderment and woe.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"For they were in their pleasant beddes,<br>
+  And soundlie sleeping, when<br>
+Each door was sudden open broke<br>
+  By six or seven menne!<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"The menne and women, younge and olde,<br>
+  And eke the girls and boys,<br>
+All started up in great affright<br>
+  Att the alarming noise.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"They then were murthered in their beddes<br>
+  Without shame or remorse;<br>
+And soon the floors and streets were strew'd<br>
+  With many a bleeding corse.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"The village soon began to blaze,<br>
+  Which shew'd the horrid sight;<br>
+But, O, I scarce can beare to tell<br>
+  The mis'ries of that night.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"They threw the infants in the fire,<br>
+  The menne they did not spare;<br>
+But killed all which they could find,<br>
+  Tho' aged or tho' fair.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>.  .  .  .  .  .</p>
+
+<p>.  .  .  .  .  .</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"But some run off to Albany<br>
+  And told the doleful tale;<br>
+Yett, tho' we gave our chearful aid,<br>
+  It did not much avail.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"And we were horribly afraid,<br>
+  And shook with terror, when<br>
+They gave account the Frenchmen were<br>
+  More than a thousand menne.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"The news came on a Sabbath morn,<br>
+  Just att ye break o' day;<br>
+And with my companie of horse<br>
+  I galloped away.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"Our soldiers fell upon their reare,<br>
+  And killed twenty-five;<br>
+Our young menne were so much enrag'd<br>
+  They took scarce one alive.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"D'Aillebout them did command,<br>
+  Which were but thievish rogues,<br>
+Else why did they consent to goe<br>
+  With bloodye Indian dogges?<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"And here I end my long ballad,<br>
+  The which you just heard said;<br>
+And wish that it may stay on earth<br>
+  Long after I be dead."<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The old man bowed his palsied head over his fiddle, struck
+with his wrinkled thumb a string or two; and I saw tears falling
+from his almost sightless eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Around him, under the giant trees, his homely audience stood
+silent and spellbound. Many of his hearers had seen with their
+own eyes horrors that compared with the infamous butchery at
+Schenectady almost a hundred years ago. Doubtless that was what
+fascinated us all.</p>
+
+<p>But Boyd, on whom nothing doleful made anything except an
+irritable impression, drew us away, saying that it was tiresome
+enough to fight battles without being forced to listen to the
+account of 'em afterward; at which, it being true enough, I
+laughed. And Lois looked up winking away her tears with a quick
+smile. As for Lana, her face was tragic and colourless as death
+itself. Seeing which, Boyd said cheerfully:</p>
+
+<p>"What is there in all the world to sigh about, Lanette? Death
+is far away and the woods are green."</p>
+
+<p>"The woods are green, repeated Lana under her breath, "yet,
+there are many within call who shall not live to see one leaf
+fall."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what a very dirge you sing this sunny morning!" he
+protested, still laughing; and I, too, was surprised and
+disturbed, for never had I heard Lana Helmer speak in such a
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>"'Twas that dreary old fiddler," he added with a shrug. "Now,
+God save us all, from croaking birds of every plumage, and give
+us to live for the golden moment."</p>
+
+<p>"And for the future," said Lois.</p>
+
+<p>"The devil take the future," said Boyd, his quick, careless
+laugh ringing out again. "Today I am lieutenant, and Loskiel,
+here, is ensign. Tomorrow we may be captains or corpses. But is
+that a reason for pulling a long face and confessing every
+sin?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have <i>you,</i> then, aught to confess?" asked Lois, in
+pretense of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I? Not a peccadillo, my pretty maid&#151; not a single one.
+What I do, I do; and ask no leniency for the doing. Therefore, I
+have nothing to confess."</p>
+
+<p>Lana stopped, bent low over a forest blossom, and touched her
+face to it. Her cheeks were burning. All about us these frail,
+snowy blossoms grew, and Lois gathered one here and yonder while
+Boyd and I threw ourselves down on a vast, deep bed of moss,
+under which a thread of icy water trickled.</p>
+
+<p>Ahead of us, in plain view, stood one of our outer picket
+guards, and below in a wide and bowl-shaped hollow, running south
+to the river, we could see cattle moving amid the trees, and the
+rifle-barrel of a herd guard shining here and there.</p>
+
+<p>My Indians on either flank advanced to the picket line, and
+squatted there, paying no heed to the challenge of the sentinels,
+until Boyd was obliged to go forward and satisfy the sullen
+Pennsylvania soldiery on duty there.</p>
+
+<p>He came back in his graceful, swinging stride, chewing a twig
+of black-birch, his thumbs hooked in his belt, damning all
+Pennsylvanians for surly dogs.</p>
+
+<p>I pointed out that many of them were as loyal as any man among
+us; and he said he meant the Quakers only, and cursed them for
+rascals, every one. Again I reminded him that Alsop Hunt was a
+Quaker; and he said that he meant not the Westchester folk, but
+John Penn's people, Tories, every one, who would have hired
+ruffians to do to the Connecticut people in Forty Fort what later
+was done to them by Indians and Tory rangers.</p>
+
+<p>Lana protested in behalf of the Shippens in Philadelphia, but
+Boyd said they were all tarred with the same brush, and all were
+selfish and murderous, lacking only the courage to bite&#151;
+yes, every Quaker in Penn's Proprietary&#151; the Shippens,
+Griscoms, Pembertons, Norrises, Whartons, Baileys, Barkers,
+Storys&#151; "'Every damned one o' them!" he said, "devised that
+scheme for the wanton and cruel massacre of the Wyoming settlers,
+and meant to turn it to their own pecuniary profit!"</p>
+
+<p>He was more than partly right; yet, knowing many of these to
+be friends and kinsmen to Lana Helmer, he might have more
+gracefully remained silent. But Boyd had not that instinctive
+dread of hurting others with ill-considered facts; he blurted out
+all truths, whether timely or untimely, wherever and whenever it
+suited him.</p>
+
+<p>For the Tory Quakers he mentioned I had no more respect than
+had he, they being neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but a smooth,
+sanctimonious and treacherous lot, more calculated to work us
+mischief because of their superior education and financial means.
+Indeed, they generally remained undisturbed by the ferocious
+Iroquois allies of our late and gentle King; secure in their
+property and lives while all around them men, women, and little
+children fell under the dripping hatchets.</p>
+
+<p>"Had I my say," remarked Boyd loudly, "I'd take a regiment and
+scour me out these rattlesnakes from the Proprietary, and pack
+'em off to prison, bag and baggage!"</p>
+
+<p>Lana had knelt, making a cup of her hand, and was drinking
+from the silvery thread of water at our feet. Now, as Boyd spoke,
+she straightened up and cast a shower of sparkling drops in his
+face, saying calmly that she prayed God he might have the like
+done for him when next he needed a cooling off.</p>
+
+<p>"Lanette," said he, disconcerted but laughing, "do you mean in
+hell or at the Iroquois stake?"</p>
+
+<p>Whereupon Lana flushed and said somewhat violently that he
+should not make a jest of either hell or stake; and that she for
+one marvelled at his ill-timed pleasantries and unbecoming
+jests.</p>
+
+<p>So here was a pretty quarrel already <i>sur le tapis;</i> but
+neither I nor Lois interposed, and Lana, pink and angry, seated
+herself on the moss and gazed steadily at our watchful Indians.
+But in her fixed gaze I saw the faint glimmer of tears.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment Boyd got up, went down to her, and asked her
+pardon. She made no answer; they remained looking at each other
+for another second, then both smiled, and Boyd lay down at her
+feet, resting his elbow on the moss and his cheek on his hand, so
+that he could converse with me across her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>And first he cautioned both Lana and Lois to keep secret
+whatever was to be said between us two, then, nodding gaily at
+me:</p>
+
+<p>"You were quite right, Loskiel, in speaking to the General
+about the proper trap for this Wizard-Sachem Amochol, who is
+inflaming the entire Seneca nation to such a fury."</p>
+
+<p>"I know no other way to take and destroy him," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no other way. It must be done secretly, and by a
+small party manoeuvring ahead and independently of our main
+force."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you to command?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am to have that honour," he said eagerly, "and I take you,
+your savages, and twenty riflemen&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"What is this?" said Lana sharply; but he lifted an impatient
+hand and went on in his quick, interested manner, to detail to me
+the plan he had conceived for striking Amochol at
+Catharines-town, in the very midst of the Onon-hou-aroria.</p>
+
+<p>"Last night," he said, "I sent out Hanierri and Iaowania, the
+headquarters scouts; and I'm sorry I did, for they came in this
+morning with their tails between their legs, saying the forest
+swarmed with the Seneca scouts, and it was death to stir.</p>
+
+<p>"And I was that disgusted&#151; what with their cowardice and
+the aftermath of that headquarters punch&#151; that I bade them
+go paint and sing their death-songs&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lord! You should not lose your temper with an Indian!" I
+said, vexed at his indiscretion.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it. I'll not interfere with your tame wolves, Loskiel.
+But Hanierri madded me; and now he's told Dominie Kirkland's
+praying Indians, and not one o' them will stir from Tioga&#151;
+the chicken-hearted knaves! What do you think of that,
+Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry. But we really need no other Indians than my
+Sagamore, the two Oneidas, and the Stockbridge, Yellow Moth, to
+do Amochol's business for him, if you and your twenty riflemen
+are going."</p>
+
+<p>"I think as you do; and so I told the General, who wanted
+Major Parr to command and the entire battalion to march. 'Oh,
+Lord!' says I. 'Best bring Colonel Proctor's artillery band,
+also!' And was frightened afterward at what I said, with so
+little reflection and respect; but the General, who had turned
+red as a pippin, burst out laughing and says he: 'You are a
+damnably disrespectful young man, sir, but you and your friend
+Loskiel may suit yourselves concerning the taking of this same
+Amochol. Only have a care to take or destroy him, for if you do
+not, by God, you shall be detailed to the batteaux and cool your
+heels in Fort Sullivan until we return!'"</p>
+
+<p>We both laughed heartily, and Boyd added:</p>
+
+<p>"He said it to fright me for my impudence. Trust that man to
+know a man when he sees one!"</p>
+
+<p>"Meaning yourself?" said I, convulsed.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, too, Loskiel," he said so naively that Lois, too,
+laughed, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"What modest opinions of themselves have these two boys! Do
+you hear them, Lana, dubbing each other men?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hear," said Lana listlessly.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd plucked a long, feathery stalk, and with its tip caressed
+Lana's cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Spiders!" said he. "Spinning a goblin veil for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish the veil of Fate were as transparent," said she.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you see behind it if you could?"</p>
+
+<p>She said under her breath:</p>
+
+<p>"I sometimes dream I see behind it now."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you see?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head; but we all begged her to disclose her
+dreams, saying laughingly that as dreams were the most important
+things in the lives of all Indians, our close association with
+them had rendered us credulous.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Lanette," urged Boyd, "tell us what it is you see in
+dreams behind the veil."</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated, shuddered:</p>
+
+<p>"Flames&#151; always flames. And a man in black with leaden
+buttons, whose face is always hidden in his cloak. But, oh! I
+know&#151; I seem to know that he has no face at all, but is like
+a skull under his black cloak."</p>
+
+<p>"A merry dream," said Boyd, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there more to it?" asked Lois seriously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... Lieutenant Boyd is there, and he makes a sign&#151;
+like this&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" exclaimed Boyd, sitting up, astounded. "Where did you
+learn that sign?"</p>
+
+<p>"In my dream. What does it mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Make it no more, Lana," he said, in a curiously disturbed
+voice. "For wherever you have learned it&#151; if truly from a
+dream, or from some careless fellow&#151; of my own&#151;&#151;"
+He hesitated, glanced at me. "You are not a Mason, Loskiel. And
+Lana has just given the Masonic signal of distress&#151; having
+seen me give it in a dream. It is odd." He sat very silent for a
+moment, then lay down again at Lana's feet; and for a little
+while they conversed in whispers, as though forgetting that we
+were there at all, his handsome head resting against her knees,
+and her hand touching the hair on his forehead lightly at
+intervals.</p>
+
+<p>After a few moments I rose and, with Lois, walked forward
+toward our picket line, from where we could see very plainly the
+great cattle herd among the trees along the river.</p>
+
+<p>She said in a low and troubled voice:</p>
+
+<p>"It has come so far, then, that Lana makes no longer a
+disguise of her sentiments before you and me. It seems as though
+they had bewitched each other&#151; and find scant happiness in
+the mutual infatuation."</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he not free to marry her?" asked Lois.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes&#151; I suppose he is&#151; if she will have him," I
+said, startled by the direct question. "Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Once, at Otsego Camp I overheard bitter words
+between them&#151; not from him, for he only laughed at what she
+said. It was in the dusk, close to our tent; and either they were
+careless or thought I slept.... And I heard her say that he was
+neither free nor fit to speak of marriage. And he laughed and
+vowed that he was as free and fit as was any man. 'No,' says she,
+'there are other men like Euan Loskiel in the world.' 'Exceptions
+prove the case,' says he, laughing; and there was a great sob in
+her voice as she answered that such men as he were born to damn
+women. And he retorted coolly that it was such women as she who
+ever furnished the provocation, but that only women could lose
+their own souls, and that it was the same with men; but neither
+of 'em could or ever had contributed one iota toward the
+destruction of any soul except their own.... Then Lana came into
+our tent and stood looking down at me where I lay; and dimly
+through my lashes I could perceive the shadow of Boyd behind her
+on the tent wall, wavering, gigantic, towering to the ridge-pole
+as he set the camp-torch in its socket on the flooring." She
+passed her slim hand across her eyes. "It was like an unreal
+scene&#151; a fevered vision of two phantoms in the smoky, lurid
+lustre of the torch. Boyd stood there dark against the light,
+edged with flickering flame as with a mantle, figure and visage
+scintilant with Lucifer's own beauty&#151; and Lana, her proud
+head drooping, and her sad, young eyes fixed on me&#151; Oh,
+Euan!" She stood pressing down both eyelids with her fingers,
+motionless; then, with a quick-drawn breath and a brusque
+gesture, flung her arms wide and let them drop to her sides. "How
+can men follow what they call their 'fortune,' headlong,
+unheeding, ranging through the world as a hot-jowled hound ranges
+for rabbits? Are they never satiated? Are they never done with
+the ruthless madness? Does the endless chase with its intervals
+of killing never pall?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hounds are hounds," I said slowly. "And the hound will chase
+his thousandth hare with all the unslaked eagerness that thrilled
+him when his first quarry fled before him."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>But I shook my head in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you that way?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have not been."</p>
+
+<p>"The instinct then is not within you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the instinct is.... But some hounds are trained to range
+only as far as their mistress, Old Dame Reason, permits. Others
+slip leash and take to the runways to range uncontrolled and
+mastered only by a dark and second self, urging them ever
+forward.... There are but two kinds of men, Lois&#151; the
+self-disciplined, and the unbroken. But the raw nature of the two
+differed nothing at their birth."</p>
+
+<p>She stood looking down at the distant cattle along the river
+for a while without speaking; then her hand, which hung beside
+her, sought mine and softly rested within my clasp.</p>
+
+<p>"It is wonderful," she murmured, "that it has been God's
+pleasure I should come to you unblemished&#151; after all that I
+have lived to learn and see. But more wonderful and blessed still
+it is to me to find you what you are amid this restless, lawless,
+ruthless world of soldiery&#151; upright and pure in heart.... It
+seems almost, with us, as though our mothers had truly made of us
+two Hidden Children, white and mysterious within the enchanted
+husks, which only our own hands may strip from us, and reveal
+ourselves unsullied as God made us, each to the other&#151; on
+our wedding morn."</p>
+
+<p>I lifted her little hand and laid my lips to it, touching the
+ring. Then she bent timidly and kissed the rough gold circlet
+where my lips had rested. Somehow, a shaft of sunlight had
+penetrated the green roof above, and slanted across her hair, so
+that the lovely contour of her head was delicately edged with
+light.</p>
+
+<p>* "Nene-nea-wen-ne, Lois!" I whispered passionately.</p>
+
+<p class="Footnote">[* "This thing shall happen, Lois!"]</p>
+
+<p>* "Nen-ya-wen-ne, O Loskiel! Teni-non-wes."</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "It shall happen, O Loskiel! We love, thou
+and I."]</p>
+
+<p>We stood yet a while together there, and I saw her lift her
+eyes and gaze straight ahead of us beyond our picket line, and
+remain so, gazing as though her regard could penetrate those dim
+and silent forest aisles to the red altar far beyond in unseen
+Catharines-town.</p>
+
+<p>"When must you go?" she asked under her breath.</p>
+
+<p>"The army is making ready today."</p>
+
+<p>"To march into the Indian country?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"When does it march?"</p>
+
+<p>"On Friday. But that is not to be known at present."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand. By what route do you go?"</p>
+
+<p>"By Chemung."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"At Chemung we leave the army, Boyd and I. You heard."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Euan."</p>
+
+<p>I said, forcing myself to speak lightly:</p>
+
+<p>"You are not to be afraid for us, Little Rosy Pigeon of the
+Forest. Follow me with your swift-winged thoughts and no harm
+shall come to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Must you go?"</p>
+
+<p>I laughed: * "Ka-teri-oseres, Lois."</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "I am going to this war, Lois."]</p>
+
+<p>* "Wa-ka-ton-te-tsihon," she said calmly.
+"Wa-ka-ta-tiats-kon."</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "I understand perfectly. I am
+resigned."]</p>
+
+<p>Then I gave way to my increasing surprise:</p>
+
+<p>"Wonder-child!" I exclaimed. "When and where have you learned
+to understand and answer me in the tongue of the Long House?"</p>
+
+<p>*"Kio-ten-se," she said with a faint smile.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "I am working for somebody."]</p>
+
+<p>"For whom?"</p>
+
+<p>"For my mother, Euan. Did you suppose I could neglect anything
+that might be useful in my life's quest? Who knows when I might
+need the tongue I am slowly learning to speak?... Oh, and I know
+so little, yet. Something of Algonquin the Mohican taught me; and
+with it a little of the Huron tongue. And now for nearly a month
+every day I have learned a little from the Oneidas at
+Otsego&#151; from the Oneida girl whose bridal dress you bought
+to give to me. Do you remember her? The maid called Drooping
+Wings?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&#151; but&#151; I do not understand. To what end is all
+this? When and where is your knowledge of the Iroquois tongue
+likely to aid you?"</p>
+
+<p>She gave me a curious, veiled look&#151; then turned her face
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"You do not dream of following our army, do you?" I demanded.
+"Not one woman would be permitted to go. It is utterly useless
+for you to expect it, folly to dream of such a thing.... You and
+Lana are to go to Easton as soon as the heavier artillery is sent
+down the river, which will be the day we start&#151; Friday. This
+frontier gypsying is ended&#151; all this coquetting with danger
+is over now. The fort here is no place for you and Lana. Your
+visit, brief as it has been, is rash and unwarranted. And I tell
+you very plainly, Lois, that I shall never rest until you are at
+Easton, which is a stone town and within the borders of
+civilization. The artillery will be sent down by boat, and all
+the women and children are to go also. Neither Boyd nor I have
+told this to you and Lana, but&#151;&#151;" I glanced over my
+shoulder. "I think he is telling her now."</p>
+
+<p>Lois slowly turned and looked toward them. Evidently they no
+longer cared what others saw or thought, for Lana's cheek lay
+pressed against his shoulder, and his arm encircled her body.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>We walked back, all together, to the fort, and left Lois and
+Lana at the postern; then Boyd and I continued on to my bush-hut,
+the Indians following.</p>
+
+<p>Muffled drums of a regiment were passing, and an escort with
+reversed arms, to bury poor Kimball, Captain in Colonel Cilly's
+command, shot this morning through the heart by the accidental
+discharge of a musket in the careless hands of one of his own
+men.</p>
+
+<p>We stood at salute while the slow cortege passed.</p>
+
+<p>Said Boyd thoughtfully:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Kimball's done with all earthly worries. There are
+those who might envy him."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not one," I said bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>"I? No. I have not yet played hard enough in the jolly blind
+man's buff&#151; which others call the game of life. I wear the
+bandage still, and still my hands clutch at the empty air, and in
+my ears the world's sweet laughter rings&#151;&#151;" He smiled,
+then shrugged. "The charm of Fortune's bag is not what you pull
+from it, but what remains within."</p>
+
+<p>"Boyd," I said abruptly. "Who is that handsome wench that
+followed us from Otsego?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dolly Glenn?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is her name."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, how she pesters me!" he said fretfully. "I chanced upon
+her at the Middle Fort one evening&#151; down by the river. And
+what are our wenches coming to," he exclaimed impatiently, "that
+a kiss on a summer's night should mean to them more than a kiss
+on a night in summer!"</p>
+
+<p>"She is a laundress, is she not?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do I know? A tailoress, too, I believe, for she has
+patched and mended for me; and she madded me because she would
+take no pay. There are times," he added, "when sentiment is
+inconvenient&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor thing," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"My God, why? When I slipped my arm around her she put up her
+face to be kissed. It was give and take, and no harm done&#151;
+and the moon a-laughing at us both. And why the devil she should
+look at me reproachfully is more than I can comprehend."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems a cruel business," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Cruel!"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye&#151; to awake a heart and pass your way
+a-whistling."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Loskiel," he began, plainly vexed, "I am not cruel by
+nature, and you know it well enough. Men kiss and go their
+way&#151; &#151; "</p>
+
+<p>"But women linger still."</p>
+
+<p>"Not those I've known."</p>
+
+<p>"Yet, here is one&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"A silly fancy that will pass with her. Lord! Do you think a
+gentleman accountable to every pretty chit of a girl he notices
+on his way through life?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some dare believe so."</p>
+
+<p>He stared at me, then laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"You are different to other men, of course," he said gaily.
+"We all understand that. So let it go&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"One moment, Boyd. There is a matter I must speak of&#151;
+because friendship and loyalty to a childhood friend both warrant
+it. Can you tell me why Lana Helmer is unhappy?"</p>
+
+<p>A dark red flush surged up to the roots of his hair, and the
+muscles in his jaw tightened. He remained a moment mute and
+motionless, staring at me. But if my question, for the first
+moment, had enraged him, that quickly died out; and into his eyes
+there came a haggard look such as I had never seen there.</p>
+
+<p>He said slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"Were you not the man you are, Loskiel, I had answered in a
+manner you might scarcely relish. Now, I answer you that if Lana
+is unhappy I am more so. And that our unhappiness is totally
+unnecessary&#151; if she would but listen to what I say to
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is it that you say to her?" I inquired as coolly as
+though his answer might not very easily be a slap with his
+fringed sleeve across my face.</p>
+
+<p>"I have asked her to marry me," he said. "Do you understand
+why I tell you this?"</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head.</p>
+
+<p>"To avoid killing you at twenty paces across the river.... I
+had rather tell you than do that."</p>
+
+<p>"So that you have told me," said I, "the reason for your
+telling matters nothing. And my business with you ends with your
+answer.... Only&#151; she is my friend, Boyd&#151; a playmate of
+pleasant days. And if you can efface that wretchedness from her
+face&#151; brighten the quenched sparkle of her eyes, paint her
+cheeks with rose again&#151; do it, in God's name, and make of me
+a friend for life."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I tell you what has gone amiss&#151; from the very
+first there at Otsego?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&#151; that concerns not me&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I shall tell you! It's that she knew about&#151; the
+wench here&#151; Dolly Glenn."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that why she refuses you and elects to remain unhappy?" I
+said incredulously.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&#151; I can say no more.... You are right, Loskiel, and
+such men as I are wrong&#151; utterly and wretchedly wrong.
+Sooner or later comes the bolt of lightning. Hell! To think that
+wench should hurl it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But what bolt had she to hurl?" said I, astonished.</p>
+
+<p>He reddened, bit his lip savagely, made as though to speak,
+then, with a violent gesture, turned away.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later a cannon shot sounded. It was the signal
+for striking tents and packing up; and in every regiment hurry
+and confusion reigned and the whole camp swarmed with busy
+soldiery.</p>
+
+<p>But toward evening orders came to unpack and pitch tents
+again; and whether it had been an exercise to test the quickness
+of our army for marching, or whether some accident postponed the
+advance, I do not know.</p>
+
+<p>All that evening, being on duty with my Indians to watch the
+cattle-guard, I did not see Lois.</p>
+
+<p>The next day I was ordered to take the Indians a mile or two
+toward Chemung and lie there till relieved; so we went very early
+and remained near the creek on observation, seeing nothing, until
+evening, when the relief came with Hanierri and three
+Stockbridges. These gave us an account that another soldier had
+been shot in camp by the accidental discharge of a musket, and
+that the Light Troops had marched out of their old encampment and
+had pitched tents one hundred rods in advance.</p>
+
+<p>Also, they informed us that the flying hospital and stores had
+been removed to the fort, and that Colonel Shreve had taken over
+the command of that place.</p>
+
+<p>By reason of the darkness, we were late in getting into camp,
+so again that day I saw nothing of Lois.</p>
+
+<p>On Wednesday it rained heavily about eleven o'clock, and the
+troops made no movement. Some Oneidas came in and went to
+headquarters. My Indians did not seem to know them.</p>
+
+<p>I was on duty all day at headquarters, translating into
+Iroquois for the General a speech which he meant to deliver to
+the Tuscaroras on his return through Easton. The rain ceased late
+in the afternoon. Later, an express came through from Fort Pitt;
+and before evening orders had gone out that the entire army was
+to march at eight o'clock in the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Morning came with a booming of cannon. We did not stir.</p>
+
+<p>Toward eleven, however, the army began to march out as though
+departing in earnest; but as Major Parr remained with the Rifles,
+I knew something had gone amiss.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, the other regiments, including my own, marched away gaily
+enough, with music sounding and colours displayed; and the
+garrison, boatmen, artillerymen, and all the civil servants and
+women and children waved them adieu from the parapets of the
+fort.</p>
+
+<p>But high water at Tioga ford, a mile or two above, soon
+checked them, and there they remained that night. As I was again
+on duty with Hanierri and the Dominie, I saw not Lois that
+day.</p>
+
+<p>Friday was fair and sunny, and the ground dried out. And all
+the morning I was with Dominie Kirkland and Hanierri,
+translating, transcribing, and writing out the various speeches
+and addresses left for me by General Sullivan.</p>
+
+<p>Runners came in toward noon with news that our main forces had
+encamped at the pass before Chemung, and were there awaiting
+us.</p>
+
+<p>Murphy, the rifleman, came saying that our detail was packing
+up at the fort, that Major Parr had sent word for Lieutenant Boyd
+to strike tents and pull foot, and that the boats were now making
+ready to drop down the river with the non-combatants.</p>
+
+<p>My pack, and those of my Indians, had been prepared for days,
+and there was little for me to do to make ready. Some batt-men
+carried my military chest to the fort, where it was bestowed with
+the officers' baggage until we returned.</p>
+
+<p>Then I hastened away to the fort and discovered our twenty
+riflemen paraded there, and Boyd inspecting them and their packs.
+His face seemed very haggard under its dark coat of sunburn, but
+he returned my salute with a smile, and presently came over to
+where I stood, saying coolly enough:</p>
+
+<p>"I have made my adieux to the ladies. They are at the landing
+place expecting you. Best not linger. We should reach Chemung by
+dusk."</p>
+
+<p>"My Indians are ready," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," he said absently, and returned to his men,
+continuing his careful inspection.</p>
+
+<p>As I passed the log bridge, I saw Dolly Glenn standing there
+with a frightened look on her face, but she paid no heed to me,
+and I went on still haunted by the girl's expression.</p>
+
+<p>A throng of people&#151; civilians and soldiers&#151; were at
+the landing. The redoubtable Mrs. Sabin was bustling about a
+batteau, terrorizing its crew and bullying the servants, who were
+stowing away her property. Looking about me, I finally discovered
+Lois and Lana standing on the shore a little way down stream, and
+hastened to them.</p>
+
+<p>Lana was as white as a ghost, but to my surprise Lois seemed
+cheerful and in gayest spirits, and laughed when I saluted her
+hand. And it relieved me greatly to find her so animated and full
+of confidence that all would be well with us, and the parting but
+a brief one.</p>
+
+<p>"I know in my heart it will be brief," she said smilingly, and
+permitting both her hands to remain in mine. "Soon, very soon, we
+shall be again together, Euan, and this interrupted fairy tale,
+so prettily begun by you and me, shall be once more resumed."</p>
+
+<p>"To no fairy finish," I said, "but in sober reality."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at Lana, laughing:</p>
+
+<p>"What a lad is this, dear! How can a fairy tale be ever real?
+Yet, he is a magician like Okwencha, this tall young Ensign of
+mine, and I make no doubt that his wizardry can change fancy to
+fact in the twinkling of an eye. Indeed, I think I, too, am
+something of a witch. Shall I make magic for you, Euan? What most
+of anything on earth would you care to see tonight?"</p>
+
+<p>"You, Lois."</p>
+
+<p>"Hai-e! That is easy. I will some night send to you my spirit,
+and it shall be so like me and so vivid nay, so warm and
+breathing&#151; that you shall think to even touch it.... Shall I
+do this with a spell?"</p>
+
+<p>"I only have to close my eyes and see you. Make it that I can
+also touch you."</p>
+
+<p>"It shall be done."</p>
+
+<p>We both were smiling, and I for one was forcing my gay
+spirits, for now that the moment had arrived, I knew that chance
+might well make of our gay adieux an endless separation.</p>
+
+<p>Lana had wandered a little way apart; I glanced at Lois, then
+turned and joined her. She laid her hand on my arm, as though her
+knees could scarcely prop her, and turned to me a deathly
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"Euan," she breathed, "I have said adieu to him. Somehow, I
+know that he and I shall never meet again.... Tell him I pray for
+him&#151; for his soul.... And mine.... And that before he goes
+he shall do the thing I bid him do.... And if he will not&#151;
+tell him I ask God's mercy on him.... Tell him that, Euan."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, awed.</p>
+
+<p>She stood resting her arm on mine to support her, closed her
+eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked at me. And in her
+eyes I saw her heart was breaking as she stood there.</p>
+
+<p>"Lana! Lanette! Little comrade! What is this dreadful thing
+that crushes you? Could you not tell me?" I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask <i>him,</i> Euan."</p>
+
+<p>"Lana, why will you not marry him, if you love him so?"</p>
+
+<p>She shuddered and closed her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of us spoke again. Lois, watching us, came slowly
+toward us, and linked her arm in Lana's.</p>
+
+<p>"Our batteau is waiting," she said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>I continued to preserve my spirits as we walked together down
+to the shore where Mrs. Sabin stood glaring at me, then turned
+her broad back and waddled across the planks.</p>
+
+<p>Lana followed; Lois clung a second to my hands, smiling still;
+then I released her and she sprang lightly aboard.</p>
+
+<p>And now batteau after batteau swung out into the stream, and
+all in line dropped slowly down the river, pole and paddle
+flashing, kerchiefs fluttering.</p>
+
+<p>For a long way I could see the boat that carried Lois gliding
+in the channel close along shore, and the escort following along
+the bank above, with the sunshine glancing on their slanting
+rifles. Then a bend in the river hid them; and I turned away and
+walked slowly toward the fort.</p>
+
+<p>By the gate my Indians were waiting. The Sagamore had my pack
+and rifle for me. On the rifle-platform above, the soldiers of
+the garrison stood looking down at us.</p>
+
+<p>And now I heard the short, ringing word of command, and out of
+the gate marched our twenty riflemen, Boyd striding lightly
+ahead.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as he set foot on the log bridge, I saw Dolly Glenn
+standing there, confronting him, blocking his way, her arms
+extended and her eyes fixed on him.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you mad?" he said curtly.</p>
+
+<p>"If you go," she retorted unsteadily, "leaving me behind you
+here&#151; unwedded&#151; God will punish you."</p>
+
+<p>The column had came to a halt. There was a dead silence on
+parapet and parade while three hundred pair of eyes watched those
+two there on the bridge of logs.</p>
+
+<p>"Dolly, you are mad!" he said, with the angry colour flashing
+in his face and staining throat and brow.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you do me justice before you go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you stand aside?" he said between his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&#151; I will stand aside.... And may you remember me when
+you burn at the last reckoning with God!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Tention! Trail arms! By the left flank&#151; march!" he
+cried, his voice trembling with rage.</p>
+
+<p>The shuffling velvet tread of his riflemen fell on the bridge;
+and they passed, rifles at a trail, and fringes blowing in the
+freshening breeze.</p>
+
+<p>Without a word I fell in behind. After me loped my Indians in
+perfect silence.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVII</h3>
+
+<h4>THE BATTLE OF CHEMUNG</h4>
+
+<p>Toward sundown we hailed our bullock guard below the ruins of
+Old Chemung, and passed forward through the army to the throat of
+the pass, where the Rifles lay.</p>
+
+<p>The artillery was already in a sorry mess, nine guns stalled
+and an ammunition wagon overturned in the ford. And I heard the
+infantry cursing the drivers and saying that we had lost
+thousands of cartridges. Stewart's bullock-guard was in a plight,
+too, forty head having strayed.</p>
+
+<p>At the outlet to the pass Major Parr met us, cautioning
+silence. No fires burned and the woods were very still, so that
+we could hear in front of us the distant movement of men; and
+supposed that the enemy had come down to Chemung in force. But
+Major Parr told us that our scouts could make nothing of these
+incessant noises, reporting only a boatload of Sir John Johnson's
+green-coated soldiers on the river, and a few Indians in two
+canoes; and that he had no knowledge whether Sir John, the two
+Butlers, McDonald, and Brant lay truly in front of us, or whether
+these people were only a mixed scalping party of blue-eyed
+Indians, Senecas, and other ragamuffin marauders bent on a more
+distant foray, and now merely lingering along our front over
+night to spy out what we might be about.</p>
+
+<p>Also, he informed us that a little way ahead, on the Great
+Warrior trail, lay an Indian town which our scouts reported to be
+abandoned; and said that he had desired to post our pickets
+there, but that orders from General Hand had prevented that
+precaution until the General commanding arrived at the front.</p>
+
+<p>Some few minutes after our appearance in camp, and while we
+were eating supper, there came a ruddy glimmer of torches from
+behind us, lighting up the leaves overhead; and Generals
+Sullivan, Clinton, Hand, and Poor rode up and drew bridle beside
+Major Parr, listening intently to the ominous sounds in front of
+us.</p>
+
+<p>And, "What the devil do you make of it, Major?" says Sullivan,
+in a low voice. "It sounds like a log-rolling in March."</p>
+
+<p>"My scouts give me no explanation," says Parr grimly. "I think
+the rascals are terrified."</p>
+
+<p>"Send Boyd and that young interpreter," said Sullivan
+curtly.</p>
+
+<p>So, as nobody could understand exactly what these noises
+indicated, and as headquarters' scouts could obtain no
+information, Lieutenant Boyd and I, with my Indians, left our
+supper of fresh roast corn and beans and went forward at once. We
+moved out of the defile with every precaution, passing the throat
+of the rocky pass and wading the little trout-brook over which
+our trail led, the Chemung River now lying almost south of us.
+Low mountains rose to the north and west, very dark and clear
+against the stars; and directly ahead of us we saw the small
+Indian town surrounded by corn fields; and found it utterly
+deserted, save for bats and owls; and not even an Indian dog
+a-prowling there.</p>
+
+<p>A little way beyond it we crossed another brook close to where
+it entered the river, opposite an island. Here the Chemung makes
+a great bend, flowing in more than half a circle; and there are
+little hills to the north, around which we crept, hearing always
+the stirring and movements of men ahead of us, and utterly unable
+to comprehend what they were so busily about.</p>
+
+<p>Just beyond the island another and larger creek enters the
+river; and here, no longer daring to follow the Seneca trail, we
+turned southwest, slinking across the river flats, through the
+high Indian grass, until we came to a hardwood ridge, from whence
+some of these sounds proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>We heard voices very plainly, the splintering of saplings, and
+a heavier, thumping sound, which the Mohican whispered to us was
+like hewn logs being dragged over the ground and then piled up. A
+few moments later, Tahoontowhee, who had crept on ahead, glided
+up to us and whispered that there was a high breastwork of logs
+on the ridge, and that many men were cutting bushes, sharpening
+the stems, and planting them to screen this breastwork so that it
+could not be seen from the Seneca trail north of us, along which
+lay our army's line of march. A pretty ambuscade, in truth! But
+Braddock's breed had passed.</p>
+
+<p>Silently, stealthily, scarcely breathing, we got out of that
+dangerous place, recrossed the grassy flats, and took to the
+river willows the entire way back. At the mouth of the pass,
+where my battalion lay asleep, we found Major Parr anxiously
+awaiting us. He sent Captain Simpson back with the
+information.</p>
+
+<p>Before I could unlace my shirt, drag my pack under my head,
+and compose myself to sleep, Boyd, who had stretched himself out
+beside me, touched my arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you minded to sleep, Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>"I own that I am somewhat inclined that way," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"As you please."</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Are you unwell?"</p>
+
+<p>He lay silent for a few moments, then:</p>
+
+<p>"What a mortifying business was that at the Tioga fort," he
+said under his breath. "The entire garrison saw it, did they not,
+Loskiel? Colonel Shreve and all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I fear so,"</p>
+
+<p>"It will be common gossip tomorrow," he said bitterly. "What a
+miserable affair to happen to an officer of Morgan's!"</p>
+
+<p>"A sad affair," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"It will come to <i>her</i> ears, no doubt. Shreve's batt-men
+will carry it down the river."</p>
+
+<p>I was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Rumour runs the woods like lightning," he said. <i>"She</i>
+will surely hear of this disgraceful scene. She will hear of it
+at Easton.... Strange," he muttered, "strange how the old truths
+hold!... Our sins shall find us out.... I never before believed
+that, Loskiel&#151; not in a wilderness, anyway.... I had rather
+be here dead and scalped than have had that happen and know that
+she must hear of it one day."</p>
+
+<p>He lay motionless for a while, then turned heavily on his
+side, facing me across the heap of dead leaves.</p>
+
+<p>"Somehow or other," he said, "she heard of that miserable
+business&#151; heard of it even at Otsego.... <i>That</i> is why
+she would not marry me, Loskiel. Did you ever hear the like! That
+a man must be so utterly and hopelessly damned for a moment's
+careless folly&#151; lose everything in the world for a
+thoughtless moonlight frolic! Where lies the justice in such a
+judgment?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not the world that judges you severely. The world cares
+little what a man's way may be with a maid."</p>
+
+<p>"But&#151; Lana cares. It has ended everything for her."</p>
+
+<p>I said in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"You ended everything for Dolly Glenn."</p>
+
+<p>"How was I to know she was no light o' love&#151; this camp
+tailoress&#151; this silly little wench who&#151; but let it go!
+Had she but whimpered, and seemed abashed and unfamiliar with a
+kiss&#151;&#151; Well, let it go.... But I could cut my tongue
+out that I ever spoke to her. God! How lightly steps a man into a
+trap of his own contriving!... And here I lie tonight, caring not
+whether I live or die in tomorrow's battle already dawning on the
+Chemung. And yonder, south of us, in the black starlight, drift
+the batteaux, dropping down to Easton under the very sky that
+shines above us here.... If Lana be asleep at this moment I do
+not know.... She tells me I have broke her heart&#151; but yet
+will have none of me.... Tells me my duty lies elsewhere; that I
+shall make amends. How can a man make amends when his heart lies
+not in the deed?... Am I then to be fettered to a passing whim
+for all eternity? Does an instant's idle folly entail endless
+responsibility? Do I merit punishment everlasting for a silly
+amourette that lasted no longer than the July moon? Tell me,
+Loskiel, you who are called among us blameless and unstained, is
+there no hope for a guilty man to shrive himself and walk
+henceforward upright?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can not answer you," I said dully. "Nor do I know how, of
+such a business, a man may be shriven, or what should be his
+amends.... It all seems pitiful and sad to me&#151; a matter
+perplexing, unhappy, and far beyond my solving.... I know it is
+the fashion of the times to regard such affairs lightly, making
+of them nothing.... Much I have heard, little learned, save that
+the old lessons seem to be the truest; the old laws the best. And
+that our cynical and modern disregard of them make one's
+salvation none the surer, one's happiness none the safer."</p>
+
+<p>I heard Boyd sigh heavily, where he lay; but he said nothing
+more that I heard; for I slept soon afterward, and was awakened
+only at dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Everywhere in the rocky pass the yawning riflemen were falling
+in and calling off; a detail of surly Jersey men, carrying ropes,
+passed us, cursing the artillery which, it appeared, was in a
+sorry plight again, the nine guns all stalled behind us, and an
+entire New Jersey brigade detailed to pull them out o' the mud
+and over the rocks of the narrowing defile.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd shared my breakfast, seeming to have recovered something
+of his old-time spirits. And if the camp that night had gossiped
+concerning what took place at Tioga Fort, it seemed to make no
+difference to his friends, who one and all greeted him with the
+same fellowship and affection that he had ever inspired among
+fighting men. No man, I think, was more beloved and admired in
+this Western army, by officers and men alike; for in him were
+naturally combined all those brilliant qualities of daring,
+fearlessness, and gaiety in the face of peril, which endear, and
+which men strive to emulate. In no enterprise had he ever failed
+to perform the part allotted him; never had he faltered in the
+hundred battles fought by Morgan's veteran corps; never had he
+seemed dismayed. And if sometimes he did a little more than he
+was asked to do, his superior officers forgave this handsome,
+impetuous young man&#151; the more readily, perhaps, because, so
+far, no disaster had befallen when he exceeded the orders given
+him.</p>
+
+<p>My Indians had eaten, and were touching up their paint when
+Major Parr came up, wearing a magnificent new suit of fringed
+buckskins, and ordered us to guide the rifle battalion. A moment
+later our conch-horn boomed out its thrilling and melodious
+warning. Far in the rear I heard the drums and bugle-horns of the
+light infantry sounding the general.</p>
+
+<p>As we went forward in the early daylight, the nature of the
+ambuscade prepared for us became very plain to me; and I pointed
+out to Major Parr where the unseen enemy rested, his right flank
+protected by the river, his left extending north along the
+hog-bank, so that his lines enveloped the trail on which we
+marched, threatening our entire army in a most cunning and evil
+manner. Truly there was no fox like Butler in the Northland!</p>
+
+<p>All was very still about us as we marched; the river mist hung
+along the woods; a few birds sang; the tops of the Indian corn
+rustled.</p>
+
+<p>Toward eight o'clock the conch-horn blew; our riflemen halted
+and deployed in perfect silence, facing the unseen works on the
+wooded ridge ahead. Another division of troops swung to the left,
+continuing the movement to the river in splendid order, where
+they also halted and formed a line of battle, facing north. And
+still the unseen enemy gave no sign; birds sang; the mist drifted
+up through the trees.</p>
+
+<p>From where we lay we could see our artillery horses straining,
+plunging, stumbling up a high knoll in the centre of our line,
+while Maxwell's division halted and extended behind our riflemen
+to support the artillery, and Clinton's four splendid New York
+regiments hurried forward on a double, regiment after regiment
+dropping their packs behind our lines and running north through
+the open woods, their officers all finely mounted and cantering
+ahead, swords drawn.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later, General Sullivan passed along our front
+on horseback, and drew bridle for a moment where Boyd and I were
+standing at salute.</p>
+
+<p>"Now is your opportunity, young gentlemen," he said in a low
+voice. "If you would gain Catharines-town and destroy Amochol
+before we drive this motley Tory army headlong through it, you
+should start immediately. And have a care; Butler's entire army
+and Brant's Mohawks are now intrenched in front of us; and it is
+a pitched battle we're facing&#151; God be thanked!"</p>
+
+<p>He spurred forward with a friendly gesture toward us, as we
+saluted; and his staff officers followed him at a canter while
+our riflemen turned their heads curiously to watch the brilliant
+cavalcade.</p>
+
+<p>"Where the devil are their log works?" demanded Major Parr,
+using his field glasses. "I can see naught but green on that
+ridge ahead."</p>
+
+<p>Boyd painted at the crest; but our Major could see nothing;
+and I called to Timothy Murphy and Dave Elerson to climb trees
+and spy out if the works were still occupied.</p>
+
+<p>Murphy came down presently from the dizzy top of a huge
+black-walnut tree, reporting that he had been able to see into
+the river angle of their works; had for a while distinguished
+nothing, but presently discovered Indians, crouched motionless,
+the brilliancy of their paint, which at first he had mistaken for
+patches of autumn leaves, betraying them when they moved.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, God be praised!" said Major Parr grimly. "For we shall
+this day furnish these Western-Gate Keepers with material for a
+Condolence Feast such as no Seneca ever dreamed of. And if you
+gentlemen can surprise and destroy Amochol, it will be a most
+blessed day for our unhappy country."</p>
+
+<p>General Hand, in his patched and faded uniform of blue and
+buff, drew his long, heavy sword and walked his horse over to
+Major Parr.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, sir," he said, "we must amuse them, I suppose, until
+the New Yorkers gain their left. Push your men forward and draw
+their fire, Major."</p>
+
+<p>There came a low order; the soft shuffle of many mocassined
+feet; silence. Presently, ahead of us, a single rifle-shot
+shattered the stillness.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly a mighty roar of Tory musketry filled the forest;
+and their Indians, realizing that the ambuscade had been
+discovered, came leaping down the wooded ridge, yelling and
+firing all along our front; and our rifles began to speak quicker
+and quicker from every rock and tuft and fallen log.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we to miss this?" said Boyd, restlessly. "Listen to that
+firing! The devil take this fellow Amochol and his Eries! I wish
+we were yonder with our own people. I wish at least that I could
+see what our New Yorkers are about!"</p>
+
+<p>Behind us, Boyd's twenty riflemen stood craning their sunburnt
+necks; and my Indians, terribly excited, fairly quivered where
+they crouched beside us. But all we could see was the rifle smoke
+sifting through the trees, and early sunshine slanting on the
+misty river.</p>
+
+<p>The fierce yelling of the unseen Mohawks and Senecas on the
+wooded ridge above us had become one continuous and hideous
+scream, shrill and piercing above the racket of musketry and
+rifle fire; sometimes the dreadful volume of sound surged nearer
+as though they were charging, or showing themselves in order to
+draw us into a frontal attack on their pits and log breastworks;
+but always after a little while the yelping tumult receded, and
+our rifle fire slackened while the musketry from the breastworks
+grew more furious, crashing out volley on volley, while the
+entire ridge steamed like a volcano in action. Further to the
+north we heard more musketry break out, as our New York regiments
+passed rapidly toward Butler's left flank. And by the running
+fire we could follow their hurried progress.</p>
+
+<p>"Hell!" said Boyd, furiously, flinging his rifle to his
+shoulder. "Come on, Loskiel, or we'll miss this accursed Amochol
+also." And he gave the signal to march.</p>
+
+<p>As we skirted the high knoll where our artillery was planted,
+the first howitzer shot shook the forest, and my Indians cringed
+as they ran beside me. High towering rose the shell, screaming
+like a living thing, and plunged with a shriek into the woods on
+the ridge, exploding there with a most infernal bang.</p>
+
+<p>Up through the trees gushed a very fountain of smoke, through
+which we could dimly see dark objects falling; but whether these
+were the limbs of trees or of men we could not tell.</p>
+
+<p>Crash! A howitzer hurled its five and a half inch shell high
+into the sunshine. Boom! Another shot from a three-pounder. Bang!
+The little cohorn added its miniature bellow to the bigger guns,
+which now began to thunder regularly, one after another, shaking
+the ground we trod. The ridge was ruddy with the red lightning of
+exploding shells. Very far away in the forest we could hear
+entire regiments, as they climbed the slopes, cheering above the
+continuous racket of musketry; the yelling of the Senecas and
+Mohawks grew wavering, becoming ragged and thinner.</p>
+
+<p>It was hard for us all, I think, to turn our backs on the
+first real battle we had seen in months&#151; hard for Boyd, for
+me, and for our twenty riflemen; harder, perhaps, for our
+Indians, who could hear the yells of their most deadly enemies,
+and who knew that they were within striking distance at last.</p>
+
+<p>As we marched in single file, I leading with my Indians, I
+said aloud, in the Iroquois tongue:</p>
+
+<p>"If in this Battle of the Chemung the Mountain Snake be left
+writhing, yet unless we crush his head at Catharines-town, the
+serpent will live to strike again. For though a hundred arrows
+stick in the Western Serpent's body, his poison lies in his
+fangs; his fangs are rooted in his head; and the head still
+hisses at God and man from the shaggy depths of Catharines-town.
+It is for us of the elect to slay him there&#151; for us few and
+chosen ones honoured by this mandate from our commander. Why,
+then, should the thunder of Proctor's guns arouse in us envy for
+those who join in battle? Let the iron guns do their part; let
+the men of New York, of Jersey, of Virginia, of New Hampshire, of
+Pennsylvania, do the great part allotted them. Let us in our
+hearts pray God to speed them. For if we do our part as worthily,
+only then shall their labour be not in vain. Their true title to
+glory is in our keeping, locked inevitably with our own. If we
+fail, they have failed. Judge, therefore, O Sagamore, judge, you
+Yellow Moth, and you Oneidas&#151; Grey-Feather, with your
+war-chief's feather and your Sachem's ensign, Tahoontowhee,
+chieftain to be&#151; judge, all of you, where the real glory
+lies&#151; whether behind us in the rifle smoke or before us in
+the red glare of Amochol's accursed altar!"</p>
+
+<p>They had been listening to every word as I walked beside them.
+The Mohican made answer first:</p>
+
+<p>"It was hard for us to leave the Chemung, O Loskiel, my
+brother&#151; with the dog-yelps at the Sinako and Mowawaks
+insulting our ears. But it was wiser. I, a Sagamore, say it!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is God's will," said the Yellow Moth. But his eyes were
+still red with his fierce excitement; and the distant cannonade
+steadily continued as we marched.</p>
+
+<p>"I am Roya-neh!" said the Grey-Feather. "What wisdom counsels
+I understand, He who would wear the scaly girdle must first know
+where the fangs lie buried.... But to hear the Antouhonoran
+scalp-yelp, and to turn one's back, is very hard, O my friend,
+Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>The Night-Hawk controlled his youthful features, forcing a
+merry smile as my eye fell on him.</p>
+
+<p>"Koue!" he exclaimed softly. "I have made promise to my
+thirsty hatchet, O Loskiel! Else it might have leaped from its
+sheath and bitten some one."</p>
+
+<p>"A good hatchet and a good dog bite only under orders," I
+said. "My younger brother's hatchet has acquired glory; now it is
+acquiring wisdom."</p>
+
+<p>Boyd came up along the line, his deerskin shirt open to the
+breastbone, the green fringe blowing in the hill wind.</p>
+
+<p>Far below us in the river valley sounded the uproar of the
+battle&#151; a dull, confused, and distant thunder&#151; for now
+we could no longer hear the musketry and rifle fire, only the
+boom-booming of the guns and the endless roar of echoes.</p>
+
+<p>Here on a high hill's spur, with a brisk wind blowing in our
+faces, the heavy rumble of forest warfare became deadened; and we
+looked out over the naked ridge of rock, across the forests of
+this broken country, into a sea of green which stretched from
+horizon to horizon, accented only by the silver glimmer of lakes
+and the low mountain peaks east, west, and south of us.</p>
+
+<p>Below us lay a creek, its glittering thread visible here and
+there. The Great Warrior trail crossed it somewhere in that
+ravine.</p>
+
+<p>I drew the Mohican aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Sagamore," said I, "now is your time come. Now we depend on
+you. If it lay with us, not one white man here, not one Indian,
+could take us straight to Catharines-town; for the Great Warrior
+trail runs not thither. Are you, then, confident that you know
+the way?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know the way, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there then a trail that leads from the Great Warrior trail
+below?"</p>
+
+<p>"There are many."</p>
+
+<p>"And you know the right one?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have spoken, brother."</p>
+
+<p>"I am satisfied. But we must clearly mark the trail for our
+surveyors and for the army."</p>
+
+<p>"We will mark it," he said meaningly, "so that no Seneca dog
+can ever mistake which way we passed."</p>
+
+<p>I did not exactly understand him, but I nodded to Boyd and he
+gave the signal, and we began the descent through the warm
+twilight of an open forest that sloped to the creek a thousand
+feet below us.</p>
+
+<p>Down and down we went, partly sliding, and plowing up the moss
+and leaves knee-deep, careless how we left our trail, as there
+was none to follow, save the debris of a flying army or the
+flanking scouts of a victorious one.</p>
+
+<p>Below us the foaming rifles of the creek showed white in the
+woodland gloom, and presently we heard its windy voice amid rocks
+and fallen trees, soughing all alone through leafy solitudes; and
+its cool, damp breath mounted to us as we descended.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians dropped prone to slake their thirst; the riflemen
+squatted and used their cups of bark or leather, pouring the
+sweet, icy water over their cropped heads and wrists.</p>
+
+<p>"Off packs!" said Boyd quietly, and drew a bit of bread and
+meat from his beaded wallet. And so the Mohican and I left them
+all eating by the stream, and crossed to the western bank. Here
+the Sagamore pointed to the opposite slope; I gave a low whistle,
+and Boyd looked across the water at me.</p>
+
+<p>Then I drew my hatchet and notched a tree so that he saw what
+I did; he nodded comprehension; we went on, notching trees at
+intervals, and so ascended the slope ahead until we arrived at
+the top.</p>
+
+<p>Here the forest lay flat beyond, and the Great Warrior trail
+ran through it&#151; a narrow path fifteen inches wide, perhaps,
+and worn nearly a foot deep, and patted as hard as rock by the
+light feet of generations&#151; men and wild beasts&#151; which
+had traversed it for centuries.</p>
+
+<p>North and south the deeply graven war trail ran straight
+through the wilderness. The Mohican bent low above it,
+scrutinizing it in the subdued light, then stepped lightly into
+it, and I behind him.</p>
+
+<p>For a little way we followed it, seeing other and narrower
+trails branching from it right and left, running I knew not
+whither&#151; the narrow, delicate lanes made by game&#151; deer
+and bear, fox and hare&#151; all spreading out into the dusk of
+the unknown forest.</p>
+
+<p>Presently we came to a trail which seemed wet, as though
+swampy land were not far away; and into this the Mohican turned,
+slashing a great scar on the nearest tree as he entered it.</p>
+
+<p>There was a mossy stream ahead, and the banks of it were dark
+and soft. Here we rested high and dry on the huge roots of an
+oak, and ate our midday meal.</p>
+
+<p>In a little while the remainder of our party came gliding
+through the trees, Boyd ahead.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the Catharines-town trail?" he asked. "By God,
+they'll never get their artillery through here. Mark it, all the
+same," he added indifferently, and seated himself beside me,
+dropping his rifle across his knees with a gesture of
+weariness.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you tired?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at me with a wan smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Weary of myself, Loskiel, and of a life lived too lightly and
+now nigh ended."</p>
+
+<p>"Nigh ended!" I repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"I go not back again," he said, sombrely.</p>
+
+<p>I glanced sharply at him, where he sat brooding over his
+rifle; and there was in his face an expression such as I had
+never before seen there&#151; something unnatural that altered
+him altogether, as death alters the features, leaving them
+strangely unfamiliar. And even as I looked, the expression
+passed. He lifted his eyes to mine, and even smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"There is," he said, "a viewless farm which companions even
+the swiftest on the last long trail, a phantom-pilot which leads
+only toward that Shadowed Valley of endless rest. In my ears all
+day&#151; close, close to my ear, I have heard the whisper of
+this unseen ghost&#151; everywhere I have heard it, amid the din
+of the artillery, on windy hill-tops, in the long silence of the
+forest, through the noise of torrents in lost ravines, by flowing
+rivers sparkling in the sun&#151; everywhere my pilot whispers to
+me. I can not escape,, Loskiel; whatever trail I take,
+<i>that</i> is the trail; whichever way I turn, <i>that</i> is
+the way. And ever my phantom pilots me&#151; forward or back,
+aside or around&#151; it is all one to him and to me, for at the
+end of every trail I take, nearer and nearer draw I to mine
+end."</p>
+
+<p>I had heard of premonitions before a battle; had known
+officers and soldiers to utter them&#151; brave men, too, yet
+obsessed by the conviction of their approaching death. Sometimes
+they die; sometimes escape, and the premonition ends forever. But
+until the moment of peril is passed, or they fall as they had
+foretold, no argument will move them, no assurance cheer them.
+But our corps had been in many battles during the last three
+years, and I had never before seen Boyd this way.</p>
+
+<p>He said, brooding on his rifle:</p>
+
+<p>"The one true passion of my life has been Lana Helmer. It
+began ignobly; it continues through all this pain and
+bewilderment, a pure, clean current, running to the deep, still
+sea of dreams.... There it is lost; I follow it no further....
+And were I here today as upright and as stainless as are you,
+Loskiel, still I could follow it no further than that sea of
+dreams. Nor would my viewless pilot lead me elsewhere than to the
+destiny of silence that awaits me; and none the less would I hear
+his whisper in my ears.... My race is run."</p>
+
+<p>I said: "Is it vain to appeal to your reason when your heart
+is heavy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Had I another chance," he said, "I would lighten the load of
+sin I bear&#151; the heavy load I bear with me into the
+unknown."</p>
+
+<p>"God gives us all our chance."</p>
+
+<p>"He gave me my last chance at Tioga Fort. And I cursed it in
+my heart and put it aside."</p>
+
+<p>"One day you will return,"</p>
+
+<p>"Never again, Loskiel.... I am no coward. I dare face the
+wrath to come. It is not that; but&#151; I am sorry I did not
+spare when I might have been more generous.... The little thing
+was ignorant.... Doves mate like that.... And somewhere&#151;
+somehow&#151; I shall be required to answer for it all&#151;
+shall be condemned to make amends.... I wonder how the dead make
+their amends?... For me to burn in hell avails her nothing.... If
+she thought it she would weep uncomforted.... No; there <i>is</i>
+a justice. But how it operates I shall never understand until it
+summons me to hear my sentence."</p>
+
+<p>"You will return and do what a contrite heart bids you to do,"
+I said.</p>
+
+<p>"If that might be," he said gently, "that would I do&#151; for
+the child's sake and for hers."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" I said under my breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you not surmise it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, now you know how deeply I am damned.... God gave
+me a last chance. There was a chaplain at the fort."</p>
+
+<p>"Kirkland."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Gann went forward.... But&#151; God's grace was not
+within me.... And to see her angered me&#151; that and the
+blinding hurt I had when Lana left&#151; heart-broken, wretched,
+still loving me, but consigning me to my duty.... So I denied her
+at the bridge.... And from that moment has my unseen pilot walked
+beside me, and I know he leads me swiftly to my end."</p>
+
+<p>I raised my troubled eyes and glanced toward my Indians. They
+had stripped great squares of bark from half a dozen trees, and
+were busily painting upon them, in red and blue, insulting signs
+and symbols&#151; a dead tree-cat, scalped, and full of arrows; a
+snake severed into sections; a Seneca tied to a post and a broken
+wampum belt at his feet. And on every tree they had also painted
+the symbol of their own clans and nation&#151; pointed stones and
+the stars of the Pleiades; a witch-wolf and an enchanted bear; a
+yellow moth alighted on a white cross; a night-hawk, perfectly
+recognizable, soaring high above a sun, setting, bisecting the
+line of the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>Every scalp taken was duly enumerated and painted there,
+together with every captured weapon. Such a gallery of art in the
+wilderness I had never before beheld.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd's riflemen sat around, cross-legged on the moss, watching
+the Indians at their labour&#151; all except Murphy and Elerson,
+who, true to their habits, had each selected a tree to decorate,
+and were hard at work with their hunting knives on the bark.</p>
+
+<p>On Murphy's tree I read: "To hell with Walter Butler."</p>
+
+<p>Elerson, who no doubt had scraped the outlines of this legend
+with his knife-point before Murphy carved it, had produced
+another message on his own tree, not a whit more complimentary:
+"Dam Butler, Brant, Hiakotoo, and McDonald for bloody rogues and
+murtherin' rascals all!"</p>
+
+<p>They were ever like this, these two great overgrown boys,
+already celebrated so terribly in song and legend. And the rank
+and file of Morgan's resembled them&#151; brave to a fault,
+innately lawless, of scant education save what the forest had
+taught them, headstrong, quick to anger, quick to forgive,
+violent in every emotion through the entire gamut from love to
+hatred.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd rose, glanced quietly at me, then made his signal. And in
+a few moments the riflemen were on the trail again, spotting it
+wherever a new path led away, trotting steadily forward in single
+file, my Indians ranging wide on either flank.</p>
+
+<p>Late in the afternoon we came to the height of land, where the
+little water-courses all ran north; and here we halted, dropped
+packs, and the men sat down while the Sagamore and I once more
+went forward to the headwaters of a stream, beside which the
+narrow and swampy trail ran due north. And here the nature of the
+country changed entirely, for beyond it was all one vast swamp,
+as still and dark as death.</p>
+
+<p>A little way along this blackish stream Mayaro halted, and for
+a while stood motionless, his powerful arms folded, gazing
+straight in front of him with the half-closed eyes of a dreaming
+wolf.</p>
+
+<p>Never had I looked upon so sinister a country or a swamp so
+vast and desolate. It seemed more black than dusky, and the gloom
+lay not in the obscure light of thick-set spruce, pine, and
+hemlock, but in the shaggy, monstrous, and forbidding growth
+which appeared to be soiled with some common dye, water, earth,
+tree-trunks, foliage&#151; all wore the same inky livery, and
+seemed wrought of rusty iron, so still the huge trees stood, with
+every melancholy branch a-droop.</p>
+
+<p>Sign of life there was none; the current of the narrow stream
+ran like smooth oil; nor was its motion visible where it wound
+between soft, black banks of depthless swamp through immemorial
+shadows.</p>
+
+<p>The Mohican's voice came to me, low in the silence, sounding
+dull and remote; nor did his dreaming eyes move in their vague
+intensity.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the land of Amochol," he said. "Here, through these
+viewless shades, his sway begins, as this stream begins, whose
+source is darkness and whose current moves slowly like thick
+blood. Here is the haunt of witch and sorcerer&#151; of the hag
+Catrine, of the Wyoming Fiend, of Amochol&#151; of Amochol! Here
+run the Andastes, hunting through the dusk like wolves and
+foxes&#151; running, smelling, listening, ever hunting. Here
+slink the Cat-People under a moon which is hidden forever by this
+matted forest roof. <i>This</i> is the Dark Empire, O Loskiel!
+Behold!"</p>
+
+<p>A slight shudder chilled me, but I said calmly enough:</p>
+
+<p>"Where lies Catharines-town, O Sagamore?"</p>
+
+<p>"This thick, dark stream runs through it."</p>
+
+<p>"Through Catharines-town?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Along the vast chain of inland seas&#151; first into the Lake
+of the Senecas, then to that of the Cayugas, fed by Owasco, by
+Onondaga, by Oneida, until it is called Oswego, and flows north
+by the great fort into the sea Ontario."</p>
+
+<p>"And where lies Catharines-town?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nine miles beyond us, northward."</p>
+
+<p>"And the trail?"</p>
+
+<p>"None, Loskiel, save for the maze of game trails where long
+leaps are made from tussock to swale, from root to rotting log
+across black pools of mud, and quivering quicksands whose depths
+are white as snow under the skin of mud, set with tarnished
+rainbow bubbles."</p>
+
+<p>"But&#151; those who come after us, Mayaro! The army&#151; the
+wagons, horses, artillery, cattle&#151; nay, the men themselves!
+How are they to pass?"</p>
+
+<p>He pointed east, then west: "For six miles, flanking this
+swamp, run ridges of high hills northward. By these must the army
+march to Catharines-town, the pioneers opening a road for the
+artillery. This you shall make plain to Boyd presently, for he
+must march that way, marking plain the trail north on the eastern
+ridge of hills, then west. Thus shall Boyd move to cut off
+Amochol from the lake, while you and I and the Oneidas and the
+Yellow Moth must thread this swamp and comb it clean to head him
+from the rivers south of us."</p>
+
+<p>"Is there a path along the ridge?"</p>
+
+<p>"No path, Loskiel. So Boyd shall march by compass, slowly,
+seeking over the level way, and open woods, with the artillery
+and wagons ever in his thoughts. Six miles due north shall he
+march; then, where the hills end a swamp begins&#151; thick,
+miry, set with maple, brier, and tamarack. But through this he
+must blaze his trail, and the pioneers who are to follow shall
+lay their wagon-path across felled trees, northward still, across
+the forests that border the flats of Catharines-town; and then,
+still northward for a mile; and so swing west, severing the lake
+trail. Thus we shall trap Amochol between us."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly we walked back together to the height of land, where
+our little party lay looking down at the dark country below. I
+sat down beside Boyd, cleared from the soil the leaves for a
+little space, drew my knife, and with its point traced out the
+map.</p>
+
+<p>He listened in silence, while I went over all that the
+Sagamore had taught me; and around us squatted our Indians,
+motionless, fiercely intent upon my every word and gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Today is Sunday," I said. "By this hour, Butler's people
+should be in headlong flight. Our army will not follow them at
+once, because it will take all day tomorrow for our men to
+destroy the corn along the Chemung. But on Tuesday our army will
+surely march, laying waste the Indian towns and fields.
+Therefore, giving them ample time for this, they should arrive at
+this spot on Wednesday."</p>
+
+<p>"I have so calculated," said Boyd, listlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"But Wednesday is the first day of September; and if we are to
+strike Amochol at all it must be done during the Onon-hou-aroria.
+And that ends on Tuesday. Therefore, must you move within the
+hour. And by tomorrow evening you shall have blazed your
+hill-trail and shall be lying with your men beside the stream and
+across the lake trail, north of Catharines-town."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Tonight," said I, "I and my Indians lie here on this height
+of land, watching the swamp below, that nothing creep out of it.
+On Monday morning, we move through it, straight northward,
+following the stream, and by Monday night we scout to
+Catharines-town."</p>
+
+<p>"That is clear," he said, lifting his handsome head from his
+hands. "And the signal should come from me. Listen, Loskiel; you
+shall expect that signal between midnight of Monday and
+dawn."</p>
+
+<p>He rose, and I stood up; and for a moment we looked each other
+steadily in the eye. Then he smiled faintly, shaking his
+head:</p>
+
+<p>"Not this time, Loskiel," he said in a low voice. "My spectral
+pilot gives no sign. Death lies beyond the fires of
+Catharines-town. I know, Loskiel&#151; I know."</p>
+
+<p>"I also," said I in a low voice, taking his outstretched hand,
+"for you shall live to make material amends as you have made them
+spiritually. Only the act of deep contrition lies between you and
+God's swift pardon. It were a sin to doubt it."</p>
+
+<p>But he slowly shook his head, the faint smile lingering still.
+Then his grip closed suddenly on my hand, released it, and he
+swung on his heel.</p>
+
+<p>"Attention!" he said crisply. "Sling packs! Fall in! Tr-r-rail
+arms! March!"</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XVIII</h3>
+
+<h4>THE RITE OF THE HIDDEN CHILDREN</h4>
+
+<p>My Indians and I stood watching our riflemen as they swung to
+the east and trotted out of sight among the trees. Then, at a
+curt nod from me, the Indians lengthened their line, extending it
+westward along the height of land, and so spreading out that they
+entirely commanded the only outlet to the swamp below, by
+encircling both the trail and the headwaters of the evil-looking
+little stream.</p>
+
+<p>Through the unbroken thatch of matted foliage overhead no
+faintest ray of sunlight filtered&#151; not even where the stream
+coiled its slimy way among the tamaracks and spruces. But south
+of us, along the ascending trail by which we had come, the
+westering sun glowed red across a ledge of rock, from which the
+hill fell sheer away, plunging into profound green depths, where
+unseen waters flowed southward to the Susquehanna.</p>
+
+<p>Around the massive elbow of this ledge, our back-trail,
+ascending into view, curved under shouldering boulders. Blueberry
+scrub, already turning gold and crimson, grew sparsely on the
+crag&#151; cover enough for any watcher of the trail. And thither
+I crept and stretched me out flat in the bushes, where I could
+see the trail we had lately traversed, and look along it far to
+our rear as clearly as one sees through a dim and pillared
+corridor.</p>
+
+<p>West of me, a purplish ridge ran north, the sun shining low
+through a pine-clad notch. Southwest of me, little blue peaks
+pricked the primrose sky; south-east lay endless forests, their
+green already veiled in an ashy blue bloom. Far down, under me,
+wound the narrow back-trail through the gulf below.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, beside me came creeping the lithe Mohican, and lay
+down prone, smooth and golden, and shining like a sleek panther
+in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>"Is all well guarded, brother?" I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Not even a wood-mouse could creep from the swamp unless our
+warriors see it."</p>
+
+<p>"And when dark comes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Our ears must be our eyes, Loskiel.... But neither the
+Cat-People nor the Andastes will venture out of that morass, save
+only by the trail. And we shall have two watchers on it through
+the night."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no other outlet?"</p>
+
+<p>"None, except by the ridge Boyd travels. He blocks that pass
+with his twenty men."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we should have their egress blocked, except only in the
+north?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&#151; unless they learn of this by magic," muttered the
+Mohican.</p>
+
+<p>It was utterly useless for me to decry or ridicule his
+superstitions; and there was but one way to combat them.</p>
+
+<p>"If witchcraft there truly be in Catharines-town," said I, "it
+is bad magic, and therefore weak; and can avail nothing against
+true priesthood. What could the degraded acolytes of this Red
+Priest do against a consecrated Sagamore of the Lenape&#151;
+against an ensign of the Enchanted Clan? Else why do you wear
+your crest&#151; or the great Ghost Bear there rearing upon your
+breast?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is true," he murmured uneasily. "What spell can Amochol
+lay upon us? What magic can he make to escape us? For the trail
+from Catharines-town is stopped by a Siwanois Sagamore and a
+Mohican warrior! It is closed by an Oneida Sachem who stand
+watching. When the Ghost Bear and the Were-Wolf watch, then the
+whole forest watches with them&#151; Loup, Blue Wolf, and Bear.
+Where, then, can the Forest Cats slink out? Where can the filthy
+Carcajou escape?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mayaro has spoken. It is a holy barrier that locks and bolts
+this door of secret evils. Under Tharon shall this trap remain
+inviolate till the last sorcerer be taken in it, the last demon
+be dead!"</p>
+
+<p>*"Yo-ya-ne-re!" he said, deliberately employing the Canienga
+expression with a fierce scorn that, for a moment, made his noble
+features terrible. Then he spat as though to wash from his mouth
+the taste of the hated language that had soiled it, even when
+used in contempt and derision; and he said in the suave tongue of
+his own people: "Pray to <i>your</i> white God, Holder of Heaven,
+Master of Life and Death, that into our hands be delivered these
+scoffers who mock at Him and at Tharon&#151; these Cat-murderers
+of little children, these pollutors of the Three Fires. And in
+the morning I shall arise and look into the rising sun, and ask
+the same of the far god who made of me a Mohican, a Siwanois, and
+a Sagamore. Let these things be done, brother, ere our hatchets
+redden in the flames of Catharines-town. For," he added, naively,
+"it is well that God should know what we are about, lest He
+misunderstand our purpose."</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "It is well!"]</p>
+
+<p>I assented gravely.</p>
+
+<p>The sun hung level, now, sending its blinding light straight
+into our eyes; and for precaution's sake we edged away under the
+blue shadows of the shrubbery, in case some far prowler note the
+light spots where our faces showed against the wall of green
+behind us.</p>
+
+<p>"How far from Catharines-town," I asked, "lies the Vale
+Yndaia, of which our little Lois has spoken?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is the next valley to the westward. A pass runs through
+and a little brook. Pleasant it is, Loskiel, with grassy glades
+and half a hundred little springs which we call 'Eyes of the
+Inland Seas.'"</p>
+
+<p>"You know," I said, "that in this valley all the hopes of Lois
+de Contrecoeur are centred."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, Loskiel," he answered gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe her mother lives there still?"</p>
+
+<p>"How shall I know, brother? If it were with these depraved and
+perverted Senecas as it is with other nations, the mother of a
+Hidden Child had lived there unmolested. Her lodge would have
+remained her sanctuary; her person had been respected; her Hidden
+One undisturbed down to this very hour. But see how the accursed
+Senecas have dealt with her, so that to save her child from
+Amochol she sent it far beyond the borders of the Long House
+itself! What shame upon the Iroquois that the Senecas have
+defiled their purest law! May Leshi seize them all! So how, then,
+shall I know whether this white captive mother lives in the Vale
+Yndaia still&#151; or if she lives at all? Or if they have not
+made of her a priestess&#151; a sorceress&#151; perhaps The
+Dreaming Prophetess of the Onon-hou-aroria!&#151; <i>by reason of
+her throat being white!"</i></p>
+
+<p>"What!" I exclaimed, startled.</p>
+
+<p>"Did not the Erie boast a Prophetess to confound us all?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did not comprehend."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he not squat, squalling at us from his cave, deriding
+every secret plan we entertained, and boasting that the Senecas
+had now a prophetess who could reveal to them everything their
+white enemies were plotting&#151; <i>because her own throat was
+white?"</i></p>
+
+<p>I looked at him in silent horror.</p>
+
+<p>"Hai-ee!" he said grimly. "If she still lives at all it is
+because she dreams for Amochol. And this, Loskiel, has long
+remained my opinion. Else they had slain her on their altars long
+ago&#151; strangled her as soon as ever she sent her child beyond
+their reach. For what she did broke sanctuary. According to the
+code of the Long House, the child belonged to the nation in which
+the mother was a captive. And by the mother's act this child was
+dedicated to a stainless marriage with some other child who also
+had been hidden. But the Red Sorcerer has perverted this ancient
+law; and when he would have taken the child to sacrifice it, then
+did the mother break the law of sanctuary and send her child
+away, knowing, perhaps, that the punishment for this is
+death.</p>
+
+<p>"So you ask me whether or not she still lives. And I say to
+you that I do not know; only I judge by the boasting of that vile
+Erie Cat that she has bought her life of them by dreaming for
+their Red Priest. And if she has done this thing, and has
+deceived them until this day, then it is very plain to me that
+they believe her to be a witch. For it is true, Loskiel, that
+those who dream wield heavy influences among all Indians&#151;
+and among the Iroquois in particular. Yet, with all this, I doubt
+not that, if she truly be alive, her life hangs by a single
+thread, ever menaced by the bloody knife of Amochol."</p>
+
+<p>"I can not understand," said I, "why she sent out no appeal
+during her long captivity. Before this war broke, had her
+messengers to Lois gone to Sir William Johnson, or to Guy
+Johnson, with word that the Senecas held in their country a white
+woman captive, she had been released within a fortnight, I
+warrant you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Loskiel, had that appeal gone out, and a belt been sent to
+Catharines-town from Johnstown or Guy Park, the Senecas would
+have killed her instantly and endured the consequences&#151; even
+though Amherst himself was thundering on their Western Gate."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure, Mayaro?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certain, Loskiel. She could not have lived a single moment
+after the Senecas learned that she had sent out word of her
+captivity. That is their law, which even Amochol could not
+break."</p>
+
+<p>"It was a mercy that our little Lois appealed not to His
+Excellency, so that the word ran through Canada by flag to
+Haldimand."</p>
+
+<p>"She might have done this," said the Sagamore quietly. "She
+asked me at Poundridge how this might be accomplished. But when I
+made it clear to her that it meant her mother's death, she said
+no more about it."</p>
+
+<p>"But pushed on blindly by herself," I exclaimed, "braving the
+sombre Northland forests with her little ragged feet&#151; half
+naked, hungry, friendless, and alone, facing each terror calmly,
+possessed only of her single purpose! O Sagamore of a warrior
+clan that makes a history of brave deeds done, can you read in
+the records of your most ancient wampum a braver history than
+this?"</p>
+
+<p>He said: "Let what this maid has done be written in the
+archives of the white men, where are gathered the records of
+brave but unwise deeds. So shall those who come after you know
+how to praise and where to pity our little rosy pigeon of the
+forest. No rash young warrior of my own people, bound to the
+stake itself can boast of greater bravery than this. And you,
+blood-brother to a Siwanois, shall witness what I say."</p>
+
+<p>After a silence I said: "They must have passed Wyoming
+already. At this hour our little Lois may be secure under the
+guns of Easton. Do you not think so, Mayaro?"</p>
+
+<p>As he made no answer, I glanced around at him and found him
+staring fixedly at the trail below us.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you see on our back-trail?" I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"A man, Loskiel&#151; if it be not a deer."</p>
+
+<p>A moment and I also saw something moving far below us among
+the trees. As yet it was only a mere spot in the dim light of the
+trail, slowly ascending the height of land. Nearer, nearer it
+came, until at length we could see that it was a man. But no
+rifle slanted across his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"He must be one of our own people," I said, puzzled. "Somebody
+sends us a messenger. Is he white or Indian?"</p>
+
+<p>"White," said the Sagamore briefly, his eyes still riveted on
+the approaching figure, which now I could see was clothed in
+deerskin shirt and leggins.</p>
+
+<p>"He carries neither pack nor rifle; only a knife and pouch. He
+is a wood-running fool!" I said, disgusted. "Why do they send us
+such a forest-running battman, when they have Oneidas at
+headquarters, and Coureurs-de-Bois to spare who understand their
+business?"</p>
+
+<p>"I make nothing of him," murmured the Mohican, his eyes fairly
+glittering with excitement and perplexity.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he, perhaps, some fugitive from Butler's rangers?" I
+whispered, utterly at a loss to account for such a silly
+spectacle. "The pitiful idiot! Did you ever gaze upon the like,
+Mayaro&#151; unless he be some French mission priest. Otherwise,
+yonder walks the greatest of God's fools!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then he is easily taken," muttered Mayaro. "Fix thy flint,
+Loskiel, and prime. Here is a business I do not understand."</p>
+
+<p>Once the man halted and looked up at our ledge of rock, where
+the last sun rays still lingered, then lightly continued the
+ascent. And I, turning to the Mohican for some possible
+explanation of this amazing sight, ere we crept out to closer
+ambush, found Mayaro staring through the trees with a glassy and
+singular expression which changed swiftly to astonishment, and
+then to utter blankness.</p>
+
+<p>"Etho!" he exclaimed, bluntly, springing to his feet behind
+the nearer trees, regardless whether or not the stranger saw him.
+"Go forward now, Loskiel. This is a fool's business&#151; and
+badly begun. Now, let a white man's wisdom finish it."</p>
+
+<p>I, too, had risen in surprise, stepping backward also, in
+order that the trees might screen me. And at the same moment the
+stranger rounded the jutting shoulder of our crag, and came
+suddenly face to face with me in midtrail.</p>
+
+<p>"Euan!"</p>
+
+<p>So astounded was I that my rifle fell clattering from my
+nerveless hand as she sprang forward and caught my shoulders with
+both her hands. And I saw her grey eyes filling and her lips
+quivering with words she could not utter.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois!" I repeated, as though stupefied. "Lois!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Euan! Euan! I thought I would never, never come up with
+you!" she whimpered. "I left the batteau where it touched at
+Towanda Creek, and hid in the woods and dressed me in the Oneida
+dress you gave me. Then, by the first batt-man who passed, I sent
+a message to Lana saying that I was going back to&#151; to join
+you. Are you displeased?"</p>
+
+<p>Her trembling hands clasped my shoulders tighter, and her face
+drew closer, so that her sweet, excited breath fell on my
+cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" she stammered. "I desire to tell you everything! I
+will tell you all, Euan! I ran back along the trail, meeting the
+boat-guard, batt-men, and the sick horses all along the way to
+Tioga, where they took me over on a raft of logs.... I paid them
+three hard shillings. Then Colonel Shreve heard of what I had
+been about, and sent a soldier after me, but I avoided the fort,
+Euan, and went boldly up through the deserted camps until I came
+to where the army had crossed. Some teamsters mending transport
+wagons gave me bread and meat enough to fill my pouch; and one of
+them, a kindly giant, took me over the Chemung dry shod, I
+clinging to his broad back like a very cat&#151; and all o' them
+a-laughing fit to burst!... Are you displeased, dear lad?...
+Then, just at night, I came up with the rear-guard, where they
+were searching for strayed cattle; and I stowed myself away in a
+broken-down wagon, full of powder&#151; quietly, like a mouse, no
+one dreaming that I was not the slender youth I looked. So none
+molested me where I lay amid the powder casks and sacking."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled wistfully, and stood caressing my arms with her
+eager little hands, as though to calm the wrath to come.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard your regiment's pretty conch-horn in the morning,"
+she said, "and slipped out of my wagon and edged forward amid all
+that swearing, sweating confusion, noticed not at all by anybody,
+save when a red-head Jersey sergeant bawled at me to man a rope
+and haul at the mired cannon with the others. But I was deaf just
+then, Euan, and got free o' them with nothing worse than a sound
+cursing from the sergeant; and away across the creek I legged it,
+where I hid in the bush until the firing began and the horrid
+shouting on the ridge. Then it was that, badly scared, I crept
+through the Indian grass like a hunted hare, and saw Lieutenant
+Boyd there, and his men, halted across the trail. And very soon
+our cannon began, and then it was that I saw you and your Indians
+filing out to the right. So I followed you. Oh, Euan, are you
+very angry? Because, dear lad, I have had so lonely a trail, what
+with keeping clear of your party so that you might not catch me
+and send me back, and what with losing you after you had left the
+main, trodden trail! Save for the marks you left on trees, I had
+been utterly lost&#151; and must have perished, no
+doubt&#151;&#151;" She looked at me with melting eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Think on that, Euan, ere you grow too angry and are cruel
+with me."</p>
+
+<p>"Cruel? Lois, you have been more heartless than I
+ever&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"There! I knew it! Your anger is about to burst its dreadful
+bounds&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Child! What is there to say or do now? What is there left for
+me, save to offer you what scant protection I may&#151; good
+God!&#151; and take you forward with us in the morning? This is a
+cruel, unmerited perplexity you have caused me, Lois. What unkind
+inspiration prompted you to do this rash, mad, foolish thing! How
+could you so conduct? What can you hope to accomplish in all this
+wicked and bloody business that now confronts us? How can I do my
+duty&#151; how perform it to the letter&#151; with <i>you</i>
+beside me&#151; with my very heart chilling to water at thought
+of your peril&#151; &#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, dearest lad," she whispered, tightening her fingers on
+my sleeve. "All in the world I care for lies in this place where
+we now stand&#151; or near it. Have I not told you that I must go
+to Catharines-town? How could I remain behind when every tie I
+have in all the world was tugging at my heart to draw me hither?
+You ask me what I can do&#151; what I can hope to accomplish. God
+knows&#151; but my mother and my lover are here&#151; and how
+could I stay away if there was a humble chance that I might do
+some little thing to aid her&#151; to aid you, Euan?</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you scowl at me? Try me, Test me. I am tough as an
+Indian youth, strong and straight and supple&#151; and as
+tireless. See&#151; I am not wearied with the trail! I am not
+afraid. I can do what you do. If you fast I can fast, too; when
+you go thirsty I can endure it also; and you may not even hope to
+out-travel me, Euan, for I am innured to sleeplessness, to
+hunger, to fatigue, by two years' vagabondage&#151; hardened of
+limb and firm of body, self-taught in self-denial, in quiet
+endurance, in stealth, and patience. Oh, Euan! Make me your
+comrade, as you would take a younger brother, to school him in
+the hardy ways of life you know so well! I will be no burden to
+you; I will serve you humbly and faithfully; prove docile,
+obedient, and grateful to the end. And if the end comes in the
+guise of death&#151; Euan&#151; Euan! Why may I not share that
+also with you? For the world's joy dies when you die, and my body
+might as well die with it!"</p>
+
+<p>So eager and earnest her argument, so tightly she clung to my
+arms, so pleading and sweet her ardent face, upturned, with the
+tears scarcely dry under her lashes, that I found nought to
+answer her, and could only look into her eyes&#151; deep, deep
+into those grey-blue wells of truth&#151; troubled to silence by
+her present plight and mine.</p>
+
+<p>I could not take her back now, and also keep my tryst with
+Boyd at Catharines-town. I could not leave her here by this
+trail, even guarded&#151; had I the guards to spare&#151; for
+soon in our wake would come thundering the maddened debris of the
+Chemung battle, pell-mell, headlong through the forests,
+desperate, with terror leading and fury lashing at their
+heels.</p>
+
+<p>I laid my hands heavily upon her firm, young shoulders, and
+strove to think the while I studied her; but the enchantment of
+her confused my mind, and I saw only the crisp and clustering
+curls, and clear, young eyes looting into mine, and the lips
+scarce parted, hanging breathless on my words.</p>
+
+<p>"O boy-girl comrade!" I said in a low, unsteady voice. "Little
+boy-girl born to do endless mischief in this wide and wind-swept
+forest world of men! What am I to say to you, who have your will
+of everyone beneath the sun? Who am I to halt the Starry Dancers,
+or bar your wayward trail when Tharon himself has hidden you, and
+the Little People carry to you 'winged moccasins for flying feet
+as light and swift!' For truly I begin to think it has been long
+since woven in the silvery and eternal wampum&#151; belt after
+belt, string twisted around string&#151; that you shall go to
+Catharines-town unscathed.</p>
+
+<p>"Where she was born returns the rosy Forest Pigeon to her
+native tree for mating. White-Throat&#151; White-Throat&#151;
+your course is flown! For <i>this</i> is Amochol's frontier; and
+by tomorrow night we enter Catharines-town&#151; thou and I,
+little Lois&#151; two Hidden Children&#151; one hidden by the
+Western Gate, one by the Eastern Gate's dark threshold, 'hidden
+in the husks.'...How shall it be with us now, 0 little rosy
+spirit of the home-wood? My Indians will ask. What shall I say to
+them concerning you?"</p>
+
+<p>"All laws break of themselves before us twain, who, having
+been hidden, are prepared for mating&#151; where we will&#151;
+and when.... And if the long flight be truly ended&#151; and the
+home forests guard our secret&#151; and if Tharon be God
+also&#151; and His stars the altar lights&#151; and his
+river-mist my veil&#151;&#151;" She faltered, and her clear gaze
+became confused. "Why should your Indians question you?" she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>The last ray of the sun reddened the forest, lingered, faded,
+and went out in ashes. I said:</p>
+
+<p>"God and Tharon are one. Priest and Sagamore, clergyman and
+Sachem, minister, ensign, Roya-neh&#151; red men or white, all
+are consecrated before the Master of Life. If in these Indians'
+eyes you are still to remain sacred, then must you promise
+yourself to me, little Lois. And let the Sagamore perform the
+rite at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Betroth myself, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, under the Rite of the Hidden Children. Will you do
+this&#151; so that my Indians can lay your hands upon their
+hearts? Else they may turn from you now&#151; perhaps prove
+hostile."</p>
+
+<p>"I had desired to have you take me from my mother's arms."</p>
+
+<p>"And so I will, in marriage&#151; if she be alive to give
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Then&#151; what is this we do?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is our White Bridal."</p>
+
+<p>"Summon the Sagamore," she said faintly.</p>
+
+<p>And so it was done there, I prompting her with her responses,
+and the mysterious rite witnessed by the priesthood of two
+nations&#151; Sachem and Sagamore, Iroquois and Algonquin, with
+the tall lodge-poles of the pines confirming it, and the pale
+ghost-flowers on the moss fulfilling it, and the stars coming one
+by one to nail our lodge door with silver nails, and the night
+winds, enchanted, chanting the Karenna of the Uncut Corn.</p>
+
+<p>And now the final and most sacred symbol of betrothal was at
+hand; and the Oneida Sachem drew away, and the Yellow Moth and
+the Night Hawk stood aside, with heads quietly averted, leaving
+the Sagamore alone before us. For only a Sagamore of the
+Enchanted Clan might stand as witness to the mystery, where now
+the awful, viewless form of Tharon was supposed to stand, white
+winged and plumed, and robed like the Eight Thunders in snowy
+white.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Loskiel," he said, "my younger brother, blood-brother
+to a Siwanois. Listen, also, O Rosy-Throated Pigeon of the
+Woods&#151; home from the unseen flight to mate at last!"</p>
+
+<p>He plucked four ghost-flowers, and cast the pale blossoms one
+by one to the four great winds.</p>
+
+<p>"O untainted winds that blow the Indian corn," he said, "winds
+of the wilderness, winds of the sounding skies&#151; clean and
+pure as ye are, not one of you has blown the green and silken
+blankets loose from these, our Hidden Children, nestling unseen,
+untouched, unstained, close cradled in a green embrace. Nor wind,
+nor rain, nor hail, not the fierce heat of many summers have
+revealed these Hidden Ones, stripped them of the folded verdure
+that conceals them still, each wrapped within the green leaves of
+the corn.</p>
+
+<p>"Continue to listen, winds of the sounding skies. Let the
+Eight White-plumed Thunders listen. An ensign of the Magic Clan
+bears witness under Tharon. A Sagamore veils his face. Let Tharon
+hear these children when they speak. Let Tamenund listen!"</p>
+
+<p>Standing straight and tall there in the starlight, he drew his
+blanket across his eyes. The Oneidas and the Stockbridge did the
+same.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, timidly, in compliance with my whispered bidding, the
+slender, trembling hands of Lois unlaced my throat-points to the
+shoulder, baring my chest. Then she said aloud, but in a voice
+scarce audible, I prompting every word:</p>
+
+<p>"It is true! Under the folded leaves a Hidden Youth is
+sleeping. I bid him sleep awhile. I promise to disturb no leaf.
+This is the White Bridal. I close what I have scarcely parted. I
+bid him sleep this night. When&#151; when&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>I whispered, prompting her, and she found her voice,
+continuing:</p>
+
+<p>"When at his lodge door they shall come softly and lay shadows
+to bar it, a moon to seal it, and many stars to nail it fast,
+then, in the dark within, I shall hear the painted quiver rattle
+as he puts it off; and the antlers fall clashing to the ground.
+Only the green and tender cloak of innocence shall endure&#151; a
+little while&#151; then, falling, enfold us twain embraced where
+only one had slept before. A promised bride has spoken."</p>
+
+<p>She bowed her head, took my hands in hers, laid them lightly
+on her heart; then straightened up, with a long-drawn, quivering
+breath, and stood, eyes closed, as I unlaced her throat-points,
+parting the fawn-skin cape till the soft thrums lay on her snowy
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"It is true," I whispered. "Under the folded leaves a Hidden
+Maid lies sleeping. I bid her sleep awhile; I bid her dream in
+innocence through this White Bridal night. I promise to disturb
+no leaf that sheathes her. I now refold and close again what I
+have scarcely touched and opened. I bid her sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"When on my lodge door they nail the Oneida stars, and seal my
+door with the moon of Tharon, and lay long shadows there to bar
+it; then I, within the darkness there, shall hear the tender
+rustle of her clinging husks, parting to cradle two where one
+alone had slept since she was born,"</p>
+
+<p>Gently I drew the points, closing the cape around her slender
+throat, knotted the laces, smoothed out the thrums, took her
+small hands and laid them on my breast.</p>
+
+<p>One by one the stately Indians came to make their homage,
+bending their war-crests proudly and placing her hands upon their
+painted breasts. Then they went away in silence, each to his
+proper post, no doubt. Yet, to be certain, I desired to make my
+rounds, and bade Lois await me there. But I had not proceeded
+three paces when lo! Of a sudden she was at my side, laughing her
+soft defiance at me in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"No orders do I take save what I give myself," she said.
+"Which is no mutiny, Euan, and no insubordination either, seeing
+that you and I are one&#151; or are like to be when the brigade
+chaplain passes&#151; if the Tories meddle not with his honest
+scalp! Come! Honest Euan, shall we make our rounds together? Or
+must I go alone?"</p>
+
+<p>And she linked her arm in mine and put one foot forward,
+looking up at me with all the light mischief of the very boy she
+seemed in her soft rifle-dress and leggins, and the bright hair
+crisply curling 'round her moleskin cap.</p>
+
+<p>"Have a care of the trees, then, little minx," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh! Can you not see in the dark?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely. When you and I went to the Spring Waiontha, I needed
+not your lantern light to guide me."</p>
+
+<p>"I see not well by night," I admitted.</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>do</i> see well by night&#151; through my two eyes!
+Are we not one? How often must I repeat it that you and I are
+one! One! One! O Loskiel&#151; stealer of hearts, if you could
+only know how often on my knees I am before you&#151; how truly I
+adore, how humbly, scarcely daring to believe my heart that tells
+me such a tale of magic and enchantment&#151; after these barren,
+loveless years. Mark! Yonder stands the Grey-Feather! Is that his
+post?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wonder-eyes, I see him not! Wait&#151; aye, you are right.
+And he is at his post. Pass to the left, little minx."</p>
+
+<p>And so we made the rounds, finding every Indian except the
+Sagamore at his post. He lay asleep. And after we had returned to
+our southern ledge of rock, and I had spread my blanket for her
+and laid my pack to pillow her, I picked up my rifle and rose
+from my knees.</p>
+
+<p>"And you?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I stand guard across the trail below."</p>
+
+<p>"Why? When all except the Siwanois are watching! The Night
+Hawk is there. Stretch yourself here beside me and try to sleep.
+Your watch will come too soon to suit you, or me either, for that
+matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to go on guard with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you dream that I shall let you stand your guard alone,
+young sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"This is folly, Lois&#151; "</p>
+
+<p>"Euan, you vex me. Lie beside me. Here is sufficient blanket
+room and pillow. And if you do not sleep presently and let me
+sleep too, our wits will all be sadly addled when they summon
+us."</p>
+
+<p>So I stretched myself out beside her and looked up, open eyed,
+into darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep well," she whispered, smothering a little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Sleep safely, Lois."</p>
+
+<p>"That is why I desired you&#151; so I might sleep safely,
+knowing myself safe when you are, too. And you are safe only when
+you are at my side. Do you follow my philosophy?"</p>
+
+<p>I said presently: "This is our White Bridal, Lois. The
+ceremony completes itself by dawn."</p>
+
+<p>"Save that the Sagamore is but a heathen priest, truly I feel
+myself already wedded to you, so solemn was our pretty rite....
+Dare you kiss me, Euan? You never have. Christians betrothed may
+kiss each other once, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"Not such as we&#151; if the rite means anything to us."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not on the White Bridal night&#151; if we regard this rite as
+sacred."</p>
+
+<p>"I feel its sacredness. That is why I thought no sin if you
+should kiss me&#151; on such a night."</p>
+
+<p>She sat up in her blanket; and I sat up, too.</p>
+
+<p>*"Tekasenthos," she said.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[*"I am weeping."]</p>
+
+<p>*"Chetena, you are laughing!"</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "Mouse."]</p>
+
+<p>*"Neah. Tekasenthos!" she insisted.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "No, I am weeping."]</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"You do not love me," she remarked, kicking off one ankle
+moccasin.</p>
+
+<p>* "Kenonwea-sasita-ha-wiyo, chetenaha!" I said, laughing.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "I love your beautiful foot, little
+mouse."]</p>
+
+<p>* "Akasita? Katontats. But is that all of me you love?"</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "My foot? I consent."]</p>
+
+<p>"The other one also."</p>
+
+<p>"The other one also."</p>
+
+<p>*"Neah-wenh-a, O Loskiel. I shall presently slay you and go to
+sleep."</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "I thank you."]</p>
+
+<p>There fell a silence, then:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not know in your heart how it is with me?" I said
+unsteadily.</p>
+
+<p>She lay down, facing me.</p>
+
+<p>"In my heart I know, beloved above all men! But I am like a
+child with you&#151; desiring to please, ardent, confused,
+unaccustomed. And everything you say delights me&#151; and all
+you do&#151; or refrain from doing&#151; thrills me with
+content.... It was so true and sweet of you to leave my lips
+untouched. I adore you for it&#151; but then I had adored you if
+you had kissed me, also. Always, your decision pleasures me."</p>
+
+<p>After a long while I spoke cautiously. She lay asleep, her
+lips scarce parted; but in her sleep she seemed to hear my voice,
+for one arm stole out in the dark and closed around my neck.</p>
+
+<p>And so we lay until the dark forms gliding from the forest
+summoned me to mount my guard, and Lois awoke with a little sigh,
+sat upright, then sprang to her feet to face the coming dawn
+alone with me.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XIX</h3>
+
+<h4>AMOCHOL</h4>
+
+<p>By daybreak we had salted our parched corn, soaked, and eaten
+it, and my Indians were already freshening their paint. The
+Sagamore, stripped for battle, barring clout and sporran, stood
+tall and powerfully magnificent in his white and vermilion hue of
+war. On his broad chest the scarlet Ghost Bear reared; on his
+crest the scarlet feathers slanted low. The Yellow Moth was
+unbelievably hideous in the poisonous hue of a toad-stool; his
+crest and all his skin glistened yellow, shining like the
+sulphurous belly of a snake. But the Grey-Feather was ghastly;
+his bony features were painted like a skull, spine, ribs, and
+limb-bones traced out heavily in yellowish white so that he
+seemed a stalking and articulated skeleton as he moved in the dim
+twilight of the trees. And I could see that he was very proud of
+the effect.</p>
+
+<p>As for the young and ambitious Night Hawk, he had simply made
+one murderous symbol of himself&#151; a single and terrific
+emblem of his entire body, for he was painted black from head to
+foot like an Iroquois executioner, and his skin glistened as the
+plumage of a sleek crow shines in the sunlight of a field. Every
+scalp-lock was neatly braided and oiled; every crown shaven;
+every knife and war-axe and rifle-barrel glimmered silver bright
+under the industrious rubbing; flints had been renewed; with
+finest priming powder pans reprimed; and now all my Indians
+squatted amiably together in perfect accord, very loquacious in
+their guarded voices, Iroquois, Mohican, and Stockbridge,
+foregathering as though there had never been a feud in all the
+world.</p>
+
+<p>Through the early dusk of morning, Lois had stolen away,
+having discovered a spring pool to bathe in, the creek water
+being dark and bitter; and I had freshened myself, too, when she
+returned, her soft cheeks abloom, and the crisp curls still wet
+with spray.</p>
+
+<p>When we had eaten, the Sagamore rose and moved noiselessly
+down the height of land to the trail level, where our path
+entered the ghostly gloom of the evergreens. I followed; Lois
+followed me, springing lightly from tussock to rotting log, from
+root to bunchy swale, swift, silent footed, dainty as a lithe and
+graceful panther crossing a morass dry-footed.</p>
+
+<p>Behind her trotted in order the Yellow Moth, Tohoontowhee, and
+lastly the Grey-Feather&#151; "Like Father Death herding us all
+to destruction," whispered Lois in my ear, as I halted while the
+Sagamore surveyed the trail ahead with cautious eyes.</p>
+
+<p>As we moved forward once more, I glanced around at Lois and
+thought I never had seen such fresh and splendid vigor in any
+woman. Nor had I ever seen her in such a bright and happy spirit,
+as though the nearness to the long sought goal was changing her
+every moment, under my very eyes, into a lovelier and more
+radiant being than ever had trod this war-scarred world.</p>
+
+<p>While we had eaten our hasty morning meal, I had told her what
+I had learned of the Vale Yndaia; and this had excited her more
+than anything I ever saw to happen to her, so that her grey eyes
+sparkled with brilliant azure lights, and the soft colour flew
+from throat to brow, waxing and waning with every quick-drawn
+breath.</p>
+
+<p>She wore also, and for the first time, the "moccasins for
+flying feet"&#151; and ere she put them on she showed them to me
+with eager and tender pride, kissing each soft and beaded shoe
+before she drew it over her slender foot. Around her throat,
+lying against her heart, nestled her father's faded picture. And
+as we sped I could hear her murmuring to herself:</p>
+
+<p>"Jean Coeur! Jean Coeur! Enfin! Me voici en chemin!"</p>
+
+<p>North, always north we journeyed, moving swiftly on a level
+runway, or, at fault, checked until the Sagamore found the path,
+sometimes picking our dangerous ways over the glistening bog,
+from swale to log, now leaping for some solid root or bunch of
+weed, now swinging across quicksands, hanging to tested branches
+by our hands.</p>
+
+<p>Duller grew the light as the foliage overhead became denser,
+until we could scarce see the warning glimmer of the bog. Closer,
+taller, more unkempt grew the hemlocks on very hand. In the
+ghostly twilight we could not distinguish their separate spectral
+trunks, so close they grew together. And it seemed like two solid
+walls through which wound a dusky corridor of mud and bitter
+tasting water.</p>
+
+<p>Then, far ahead a level gleam caught my eye. Nearer it grew
+and brighter; and presently out of the grewsome darkness of the
+swamp we stepped into a lovely oval intervale of green ferns and
+grasses, set with oak trees, and a clear, sweet thread of water
+dashing through it, and spraying the tall ferns along its banks
+so that they quivered and glistened with the sparkling drops. And
+here we saw a little bird flitting&#151; the first we had seen
+that day.</p>
+
+<p>At the western end of the oval glade a path ran straight away
+as far as we could see, seeming to pierce the western wall of the
+hills. The little brook followed at.</p>
+
+<p>As Lois knelt to drink, the Sagamore whispered to me:</p>
+
+<p>"This is the pass to the Vale Yndaia! You shall not tell her
+yet&#151; not till we have dealt with Amochol."</p>
+
+<p>"Not till we have dealt with Amochol," I repeated, staring at
+the narrow opening which crossed this black and desolate region
+like a streak of sunshine across burnt land.</p>
+
+<p>Tahoontowhee examined the trail; nothing had passed since the
+last rain, save deer and fox.</p>
+
+<p>So I went over to where Lois was bathing her flushed face in
+the tiny stream, and lay down to drink beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"The water is cold and sweet," she said, "not like that bitter
+water in the swamp." She held her cupped hands for me to drink
+from. And I kissed the fragrant cup.</p>
+
+<p>As we rose and I shouldered my rifle, the Grey-Feather began
+to sing in a low, musical, chanting voice; and all the Indians
+turned merry faces toward Lois and me as they nodded time to the
+refrain:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><br>
+"Continue to listen and hear the truth,<br>
+Maiden Hidden and Hidden Youth.<br>
+The song of those who are 'more than men'!<br>
+*Thi-ya-en-sa-y-e-ken!"<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "They will (live to) see it again!"]<br>
+</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>"It is the chant of the Stone Throwers&#151; the Little
+People!" said Mayaro, laughing. "Ye two are fit to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"They are singing the Song of the Hidden Children," I
+whispered to Lois. "Is it not strangely pretty?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is wild music, but sweet," she murmured, "&#151; the music
+of the Little People&#151; che-kah-a-hen-wah."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you catch the words?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, but do not understand them every one."</p>
+
+<p>"Some day I will make them into an English song for you.
+Listen! <i>'The Voices'</i> are beginning! Listen attentively to
+the Chant of *Ta-neh-u-weh-too!"</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "Hidden in the Husks."]</p>
+
+<p>The Night Hawk was singing now, as he walked through the
+sunlit glade, hip-deep in scented ferns and jewel-weed. Two
+brilliant humming-birds whirled around him as he strode.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>A VOICE</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"Who shall find my Hidden Maid<br>
+Where the tasselled corn is growing?<br>
+Let them seek her in Kandaia,<br>
+Let them seek her in Oswaya,<br>
+Where the giant pines are growing,<br>
+Let them seek and be afraid!<br>
+Where the Adriutha flowing<br>
+Splashes through the forest glade,<br>
+Where the Kennyetto flowing<br>
+Thunders through the hemlock shade,<br>
+Let them seek and be afraid,<br>
+From Oswaya To Yndaia,<br>
+All the way to Carenay!"<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+ANOTHER VOICE<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+"Who shall find my Hidden Son<br>
+Where the tasselled corn is growing?<br>
+Let them seek my Hidden One<br>
+From the Silver Horicon<br>
+North along the Saguenay,<br>
+Where the Huron cocks are crowing,<br>
+Where the Huron maids are mowing<br>
+Hay along the Saguenay;<br>
+Where the Mohawk maids are hoeing<br>
+Corn along the Carenay,<br>
+Let them seek my Hidden Son,<br>
+West across the inland seas,<br>
+South to where the cypress trees<br>
+Quench the flaming scarlet flora<br>
+Of the painted Esaurora,<br>
+Drenched in rivers to their knees!<br>
+*Honowehto! Like Thendara!<br>
+[* "They have vanished."]<br>
+Let them hunt to Danascara<br>
+Back along the Saguenay,<br>
+On the trail to Carenay,<br>
+Through the Silver Horicon<br>
+Till the night and day are one!<br>
+Where the Adriutha flowing<br>
+Sings below Oswaya glowing.<br>
+Where the sunset of Kandaia<br>
+Paints the meadows of Yndaia,<br>
+Let them seek my Hidden Son<br>
+'Till the sun and moon are one!"<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+*TE-KI-E-HO-KEN<br>
+[* "Two Voices (together)."]<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+*"Nai Shehawa! <i>She</i> lies sleeping,<br>
+[* "Behold thy children!"]<br>
+Where the green leaves closely fold her!<br>
+<i>He</i> shall wake first and behold her<br>
+Who is given to his keeping;<br>
+He shall strip her of her leaves<br>
+Where she sleeps amid the sheaves,<br>
+Snowy white, without a stain,<br>
+Nothing marred of wind or rain.<br>
+So from slumber she shall waken,<br>
+And behold the green robe shaken<br>
+From his shoulders to her own!<br>
+*Ye-ji-se-way-ad-kerone!"<br>
+[*"So ye two are laid together."]<br>
+</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>The pretty song of the Hidden Children softened to a murmur
+and died out as our trail entered the swamp once more, north of
+the oval glade. And into its sombre twilight we passed out of the
+brief gleam of sunshine. Once more the dark and bitter water
+coiled its tortuous channel through the slime; huge, gray
+evergreens, shaggy and forbidding, towered above, closing in
+closer and closer on every side, crowding us into an
+ever-narrowing trail.</p>
+
+<p>But this trail, since we had left the sunny glade, had become
+harder under foot, and far more easy to travel; and we made fast
+time along it, so that early in the afternoon we suddenly came
+out into that vast belt of firm ground and rocky, set with
+tremendous oaks and pines and hemlocks, on the northern edge of
+which lies Catharines-town, on both banks of the stream.</p>
+
+<p>And here the stream rushed out through this country as though
+frightened, running with a mournful sound into the northern
+forest; and the pines were never still, sighing and moaning high
+above us, so that the never ceasing plaint of wind and water
+filled the place.</p>
+
+<p>And here, on a low, bushy ridge, we lay all day, seeing in the
+forest not one living thing, nor any movement in that dim
+solitude, save where the grey and wraith-like water tossed a flat
+crest against some fallen tree, or its dull and sullen surface
+gleamed like lead athwart the valley far ahead.</p>
+
+<p>My Indians squatted, or sprawled prone along the ridge; Lois
+lay flat on her stomach beside me, her chin resting on her
+clasped hands. We talked of many things that afternoon&#151; of
+life as we had found it, and what it promised us&#151; of death,
+if we must find it here in these woods before I made her mine.
+And of how long was the spirit's trail to God&#151; if truly it
+were but a swift, upward flight like to the rushing of an arrow
+already flashing out of sight ere the twanging buzz of the
+bow-string died on the air. Or if it were perhaps a long, slow,
+painful journey through thick night, toilsome, blindly groping,
+wings adroop trailing against bruised heels. Or if we two must
+pass by hell, within sight and hearing of the thunderous
+darkness, and feel the rushing wind of the pit hot on one's
+face.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, like a very child, she prattled of happiness, which
+she had never experienced, but meant to savour, wedded or
+not&#151; talked to me there of all she had never known and would
+now know and realize within her mother's tender arms.</p>
+
+<p>"And sometimes, Euan, dreaming of her I scarce see how, within
+my heart, I can find room for you also. Yet, I know well there is
+room for both of you, and that one without the other would leave
+my happiness but half complete.... I wonder if I resemble her?
+Will she know me&#151; and I her? How shall we meet, Euan&#151;
+after more than a score of years? She will see my moccasins, and
+cry out! She will see my face and know me, calling me by name!
+Oh, happiness! Oh, miracle! Will the night never come!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear maid and tender! You should not build your hopes too
+high, so that they crush you utterly if they must fall to earth
+again."</p>
+
+<p>"I know. Amochol may have slain her. We will learn all when
+you take Amochol&#151; when God delivers him into your hands this
+night.... How will you do it, Euan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Take him, you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye."</p>
+
+<p>"We lie south, just outside the fire-ring's edge. Boyd watches
+them from the north. His signal to us begins the business. We
+leap straight for the altar and take Amochol at its very foot,
+the while Boyd's heavy rifles deal death on every side, keeping
+the others busy while we are securing Amochol. Then we all start
+south for the army, God willing, and meet our own people on the
+high-ridge east of us."</p>
+
+<p>"But Yndaia!"</p>
+
+<p>"That we will scour the instant we have Amochol."</p>
+
+<p>"You promise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest, I promise solemnly. Yet&#151; I think&#151; if your
+mother lives&#151; she may be here in Catharines-town tonight.
+This is the Dream Feast, Lois. I and my Indians believe that she
+has bought her life of Amochol by dreaming for them. And if this
+be true, and she has indeed become their Prophetess and
+Interpreter of Dreams, then this night she will be surely here to
+read their dreams for them,"</p>
+
+<p>"Will we see her before you begin the attack?"</p>
+
+<p>"Little Lois, how can I tell you such things? We are to creep
+up close to the central fire&#151; as close as we dare."</p>
+
+<p>"Will there be crowds of people there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Many people."</p>
+
+<p>"Warriors?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not many. They are with Hiokatoo and Brant. There will be
+hunters and Sachems, and the Cat-People, and the Andastes pack,
+and many women. The False Faces will not be there, nor the
+Wyoming Witch, nor the Toad Woman, because all these are now with
+Hiokatoo and Walter Butler. For which I thank God and am very
+grateful."</p>
+
+<p>"How shall I know her in this fire-lit throng?" murmured Lois,
+staring ahead of her where the evening dusk had now veiled the
+nearer trees with purple.</p>
+
+<p>Before I could reply, the Sagamore rose from his place on my
+left, and we all sprang lightly to our feet, looked to our
+priming, covered our pans, and trailed arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Now!" he muttered, passing in front of me and taking the
+lead; and we all filed after him through the open forest, moving
+rapidly, almost on a run, for half a mile, then swung sharply out
+to the right, where the trees grew slimmer and thinner, and
+plunged into a thicket of hazel and osier.</p>
+
+<p>"I smell smoke," whispered Lois, keeping close to me.</p>
+
+<p>I nodded. Presently we halted and stood in silence, minute
+after minute, while the purple dusk deepened swiftly around us,
+and overhead a few stars came out palely, as though
+frightened.</p>
+
+<p>Then Mayaro dropped noiselessly to the ground and began to
+crawl forward over the velvet moss; and we followed his example,
+feeling our way with our right hands to avoid dry branches and
+rocks. From time to time we paused to regain our strength and
+breathe; and the last time we did so the aromatic smell of
+birch-smoke blew strong in our nostrils, and there came to our
+ears a subdued murmur like the stirring of pine-tops in a steady
+breeze. But there were no pines around us now, only osier, hazel,
+and grey-birch, and the deep moss under foot.</p>
+
+<p>"A house!" whispered the Yellow Moth, pointing.</p>
+
+<p>There it stood, dark and shadowy against the north. Another
+loomed dimly beyond it; a haystack rose to the left.</p>
+
+<p>We were in Catharines-town.</p>
+
+<p>And now, as we crawled forward, we could see open country on
+our left, and many unlighted houses and fields of corn, dim and
+level against the encircling forest. The murmur on our right had
+become a sustained and distinct sound, now swelling in the volume
+of many voices, now subsiding, then waxing to a dull tumult. And
+against the borders of the woods, like a shining crimson curtain
+shifting, we could see the red reflection of a fire sweeping
+across the solid foliage.</p>
+
+<p>With infinite precautions, we moved through the thicket toward
+it, the glare growing yellower and more brilliant as we advanced.
+And now we remained motionless and very still.</p>
+
+<p>Massed against the flare of light were crowded many people in
+a vast, uneven circle ringing a great central fire, except at the
+southern end. And here, where the ring was open so that we could
+see the huge fire itself, stood a great, stone slab on end,
+between two round mounds of earth. It was the altar of Amochol,
+and we knew it instantly, where it stood between the ancient
+mounds raised by the Alligewi.</p>
+
+<p>The drums had not yet begun while we were still creeping up,
+but they began now, muttering like summer thunder, the painted
+drummers marching into the circle and around it twice before they
+took their places to the left of the altar, squatting there and
+ceaselessly beating their hollow sounding drums. Then, in file,
+the eight Sachems of the dishonoured Senecas filed into the fiery
+circle, chanting and timing their slow steps to the mournful
+measure of their chant. All wore the Sachem's crest painted
+white; their bodies were most barbarously striped with black and
+white, and their blankets were pure white, crossed by a single
+blood-red band.</p>
+
+<p>What they chanted I could not make out, but that it was some
+blasphemy which silently enraged my Indians was plain enough; and
+I laid a quieting hand on the Sagamore's shaking arm, cautioning
+him; and he touched the Oneidas and the Stockbridge, one by one,
+in warning.</p>
+
+<p>Opposite us, the ruddy firelight played over the massed
+savages, women, children, and old men mostly, gleaming on
+glistening eyes, sparkling on wampum and metal ornaments. To the
+right and left of us a few knives and hatchets caught the
+firelight, and many multi-coloured plumes and blankets glowed in
+its shifting brilliancy.</p>
+
+<p>The eight Sachems stood, tall and motionless, behind the
+altar; the drumming never ceased, and from around the massed
+circle rose a low sing-song chant, keeping time to the hollow
+rhythm of the drums:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p align="left" class="left">*"Onenh are oya<br>
+  Egh-des-ho-ti-ya-do-re-don<br>
+Nene ronenh<br>
+  'Ken-ki-ne ne-nya-wenne!"<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>[* "Now again they decided and said: 'This shall be
+done!'"]</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Above this rumbling undertone sounded the distant howling of
+dogs in Catharines-town; and presently the great forest owls woke
+up, yelping like goblins across the misty intervale. Strangely
+enough, the dulled pandemonium, joined in by dog and owl and drum
+and chanting savages, made but a single wild and melancholy
+monotone seeming to suit the time and place as though it were the
+voice of this fierce wilderness itself.</p>
+
+<p>Now into the circle, one by one, came those who had dreamed
+and must be answered&#151; not as in the old-time and merry Feast
+of Dreams, where the rites were harmless and the mirth and
+jollity innocent, if rough&#151; for Amochol had perverted the
+ancient and innocent ceremony, making of a fourteen-day feast a
+sinister rite which ended in a single night.</p>
+
+<p>I understood this more clearly now, as I lay watching the
+proceedings, for I had seen this feast in company with Guy
+Johnson on the Kennyetto, and found in it nothing offensive and
+no revolting license or blasphemy, though others may say this is
+not true.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, how can a rite which begins with three days religious
+services, including confession of sins on wampum, be otherwise
+than decent? As for the rest of the feast, the horse-play,
+skylarking, dancing, guessing contests&#151; the little
+children's dance on the tenth day, the Dance for Four on the
+eleventh, the Dance for the Eight Thunders on the
+thirteenth&#151; the noisy, violent, but innocent romping of the
+False Faces&#151; all this I had seen in the East, and found no
+evil in it and no debauchery.</p>
+
+<p>But what was now already going on I had never seen at any
+Iroquois feast or rite, and what Amochol had made of this
+festival I dared not conjecture as I gazed at the Dreamers now
+advancing into the circle with an abandon and an effrontery
+scarcely decent.</p>
+
+<p>Six young girls came first, naked except for a breadth of
+fawn-skin falling from waist to instep. Their bodies were painted
+vermilion from brow to ankle; they carried in their hands red
+harvest apples, which they tossed one to another as they move
+lightly across the open space in a slow, springy, yet not
+ungraceful dance.</p>
+
+<p>Behind them came a slim maid, wearing only a black fox-head,
+and the soft pelt dangling from her belt, and the tail behind.
+She was painted a ruddy yellow everywhere except a broad line of
+white in front, like a fox's belly; and, like a fox, too, her
+feet and hands were painted black.</p>
+
+<p>Following her came eight girls plumed in spotless white and
+clothed only in white feathers&#151; aping the Thunders,
+doubtless; but even to me, a white man and a Christian, it was a
+sinister and evil sight to see this mockery as they danced
+forward, arms entwined, and the snowy plumes floating out in the
+firelight, disclosing the white painted bodies which the
+firelight tinted with rose and amber lights.</p>
+
+<p>Then came dancing other girls, dressed in most offensive
+mockery of the harmless and ancient rite&#151; first the Fire
+Keeper, crowned with oak leaves instead of wild cherry, and
+wearing a sewed garment made of oak twigs and tufted leaves, from
+which the acorns hung. Followed two girls in cloaks of shimmering
+pine-needles, and wearing wooden masks, dragging after them the
+carcasses of two white dogs, to "Clothe the Moon Witch!" they
+cried to the burly Erie acolyte who followed them, his heavy
+knife shining in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Erie disemboweled the strangled dogs, cast their
+entrails into the fire, and kicked aside the carcasses,
+shouting:</p>
+
+<p>"Atensi stands naked upon the Moon! What shall she wear to
+cover her?"</p>
+
+<p>"The soft hide of a Hidden Child!" answered a Sachem from
+behind the altar. "We have so dreamed it."</p>
+
+<p>"It shall be done!" cried the Erie; and, lifting himself on
+tip toe, he threw back his brutal head and gave the Panther Cry
+so that his voice rang hideously through the night.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly into the circle came scurrying the Andastes, some
+wearing the heads of bulls, some of wolves, foxes, bears, their
+bodies painted horribly in raw reds and yellows, and running
+about like a pack of loosened hounds. All their movements were
+wild and aimless, and like animals, and they seemed to smell
+their way as they ran about hither and thither, sniffing,
+listening, but seldom looking long or directly at any one
+thing.</p>
+
+<p>I was sorely afraid that some among them might come roving and
+muzzling into the bushes where we lay; but they did not,
+gradually gathering into an uneasy pack and settling on their
+haunches near the dancing girls, who played with them, and
+tormented them with branches of hazel, samphire and green
+osier.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a young girl, jewelled with multi-coloured diamonds
+of paint, and jingling all over with little bells, came dancing
+into the ring, beating a tiny, painted drum as she advanced. She
+wore only a narrow sporran of blue-birds' feathers to her knees,
+glistening blue moccasins of the same plumage, and a feathered
+head dress of the scarlet fire-bird. Behind her filed the
+Cat-People, Amochol's hideous acolytes, each wearing the <i>Nez
+Perce</i> ridge of porcupine-like hair, the lynx-skin cloak and
+necklace of claws; and all howling to the measure of the little
+painted drum. I could feel Mayaro beside me, quivering with
+eagerness and fury; but the time was not yet, and he knew it, as
+did his enraged comrades.</p>
+
+<p>For behind the Eries, moving slowly, came a slender shape,
+shrouded in white. Her head was bent in the shadow of her cowl;
+her white wool vestments trailed behind her. Both hands were
+clasped together under her loose robe. On her cowl was a wreath
+of nightshade, with its dull purple fruit and blossoms clustering
+around her shadowed brow.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that?" whispered Lois, beginning to tremble, "God
+knows," I said. "Wait!"</p>
+
+<p>The shrouded shape moved straight to the great stone altar and
+stood there a moment facing it; then, veiling her face with her
+robe, she turned, mounted the left hand mound, and seated
+herself, head bowed.</p>
+
+<p>Toward her, advancing all alone, was now approaching a figure,
+painted, clothed, and plumed in scarlet. Everything was scarlet
+about him, his moccasins, his naked skin, the fantastic cloak and
+blanket, girdle, knife-hilt, axe shaft, and the rattling quiver
+on his back&#151; nay, the very arrows in it were set with
+scarlet feathers, and the looped bowstring was whipped with
+crimson sinew.</p>
+
+<p>The Andastes came moaning, cringing, fawning, and leaping
+about his knees; he noticed them not at all; the Cat-People,
+seated in a semicircle, looked up humbly as he passed; he ignored
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he moved to the altar and laid first his hand upon it,
+then unslung his bow and quiver and laid them there. A great
+silence fell upon the throng. And we knew we were looking at last
+upon the Scarlet Priest.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, this was Amochol, the Red Sachem, the vile, blaspheming,
+murderous, and degraded chief who had made of a pure religion a
+horror, and of a whole people a nation of unspeakable
+assassins.</p>
+
+<p>As the firelight flashed full in his face, I saw that his
+features were not painted; that they were delicate and regular,
+and that the skin was pale, betraying his French ancestry.</p>
+
+<p>And good God! What a brood of demons had that madman,
+Frontenac, begot to turn loose upon this Western World! For there
+appeared to be a Montour in every bit of devil's work we ever
+heard of&#151; and it seemed as though there was no end to their
+number. One, praise God, had been slain before Wyoming&#151;
+which some said enraged the Witch, his mother, to the fearsome
+deeds she did there&#151; and one was this man's sister, Lyn
+Montour&#151; a sleek, lithe girl of the forest, beautiful and
+depraved. But the Toad Woman, mother of Amochol, was absent, and
+of all the Montours only this strange priest had remained at
+Catharines-town. And him we were now about to take or slay.</p>
+
+<p>"Amochol!" whispered the Sagamore in my ear.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," I said. "It is strange. He is not like a monster,
+after all."</p>
+
+<p>"He is beautiful," whispered Lois.</p>
+
+<p>I stared at the pale, calm face over which the firelight
+played. The features seemed almost perfect, scarcely cruel, yet
+there was in the eyes a haunting beauty that was almost terrible
+when they became fixed.</p>
+
+<p>To his scarlet moccasins crept the Andastes, one by one, and
+squatted there in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Then a single warrior entered the ring. He was clad in the
+ancient arrow-proof armour of the Iroquois, woven of sinew and
+wood. His face was painted jet black, and he wore black plumes.
+He mounted the eastern mound, strung his bow, set an arrow to the
+string, and seated himself.</p>
+
+<p>The red acolytes came forward, and the slim Prophetess bent
+her head till the long, dark hair uncoiled and fell down,
+clouding her to the waist in shadow.</p>
+
+<p>"Hereckenes!" cried Amochol in a clear voice; and at the sound
+of their ancient name the Cat-People began a miauling chant.</p>
+
+<p>"Antauhonorans!" cried Amochol.</p>
+
+<p>Every Seneca took up the chant, and the drums timed it softly
+and steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Prophetess!" said Amochol in a ringing voice. "I have dreamed
+that the Moon Witch and her grandson Iuskeha shall be clothed.
+With what, then, shall they be clothed, O Woman of the Night Sky?
+Explain to my people this dream that I have dreamed."</p>
+
+<p>The slim, white-cowled figure answered slowly, with bowed
+head, brooding motionless in the shadow of her hair:</p>
+
+<p>"Two dogs lie yonder for Atensi and her grandson. Let them be
+painted with the sun and moon. So shall the dream of Amochol come
+true!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sorceress!" he retorted fiercely. "Shall I not offer to
+Atensi and Iuskeha two Hidden Children, that white robes may be
+made of their unblemished skins to clothe the Sun and Moon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Into the eternal wampum it is woven that the soft, white
+skins shall clothe their bodies till the husks fall from the
+silken corn."</p>
+
+<p>"And then, Witch of the East? Shall I not offer them when the
+husks are stripped?"</p>
+
+<p>"I see no further than you dream, O Amochol!"</p>
+
+<p>He stretched out his arm toward her, menacingly:</p>
+
+<p>"Yet they shall both be strangled here upon this stone!" he
+said. "Look, Witch! Can you not see them lying there together? I
+have dreamed it."</p>
+
+<p>She silently pointed at the two dead dogs.</p>
+
+<p>"Look again!" he cried in a loud voice. "What do you see?"</p>
+
+<p>She made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Answer!" he said sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"I have looked. And I see only the eternal wampum lying at my
+feet&#151; lacking a single belt."</p>
+
+<p>With a furious gesture the Red Priest turned and stared at the
+dancing girls who raised their bare arms, crying:</p>
+
+<p>"We have dreamed, O Amochol! Let your Sorceress explain our
+dreams to us!"</p>
+
+<p>And one after another, as their turns came, they leaped up
+from the ground and sprang forward. The first, a tawny, slender,
+mocking thing, flung wide her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Sorceress! I dreamed of a felled sapling and a
+wolverine! What means my dream?"</p>
+
+<p>And the slim, white figure, head bowed in her dark hair,
+answered quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"O dancer of the Na-usin, who wears okwencha at the
+Onon-hou-aroria, yet is no Seneca, the felled sapling is thou
+thyself. Heed lest the wolverine shall scent a human touch upon
+thy breast!" And she pointed at the Andastes.</p>
+
+<p>A dead silence followed, then the girl, horror struck, shrank
+back, her hands covering her face.</p>
+
+<p>Another sprang forward and cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Sorceress! I dreamed of falling water and a red cloud at
+sunset hanging like a plume!"</p>
+
+<p>"Water falls, daughter of Mountain Snakes. Every drop you saw
+was a dead man falling. And the red cloud was red by reason of
+blood; and the plume was the crest of a war chief."</p>
+
+<p>"What chief!" said Amochol, turning his deadly eyes on
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"A Gate-Keeper of the West."</p>
+
+<p>The shuddering silence was broken by the eager voice of
+another girl, bounding from her place&#151; a flash of azure and
+jewelled paint.</p>
+
+<p>"And I, O Sorceress! I dreamed of night, and a love song under
+the million stars. And of a great stag standing in the
+water."</p>
+
+<p>"Had the stag no antlers, little daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"None, for it was spring time."</p>
+
+<p>"You dreamed of night. It shall be night for a long
+while&#151; for ages and ages, ere the stag's wide antlers crown
+his head again. For the antlers were lying upon a new made grave.
+And the million stars were the lights of camp-fires. And the
+love-song was the Karenna. And the water you beheld was the river
+culled Chemung."</p>
+
+<p>The girl seemed stunned, standing there plucking at her
+fingers, scarlet lips parted, and her startled eyes fixed upon
+the white-draped sibyl.</p>
+
+<p>"Executioner! Bend your bow!" cried Amochol, with a terrible
+stare at the Sorceress.</p>
+
+<p>The man in woven armour raised his bow, bent it, drawing the
+arrow to the tip. At the same instant the Prophetess rose to her
+feet, flung back her cowl, and looked Amochol steadily in the
+eyes from the shadow of her hair.</p>
+
+<p>So, for a full minute in utter silence, they stared at each
+other; then Amochol said between his teeth:</p>
+
+<p>"Have a care that you read truly what my people dream!"</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I lie?" she asked in even tones. And, quivering with
+impotent rage and superstition, the Red Priest found no word to
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>"O Amochol," she said, "let the armoured executioner loose his
+shaft. It is poisoned. Never since the Cat-People were overthrown
+has a poisoned arrow been used within the Long House. Never since
+the Atotarho covered his face from Hiawatha&#151; never since the
+snakes were combed from his hair&#151; has a Priest of the Long
+House dared to doubt the Prophetess of the Seneca nation.
+Doubt&#151; and die!"</p>
+
+<p>Amochol's face was like pale brown marble; twice he half
+turned toward the executioner, but gave no signal. Finally, he
+laid his hand flat on the altar; the executioner unbent his bow
+and the arrow drooped from the painted haft and dangled there,
+its hammered iron war-head glinting in the firelight.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Prophetess turned and stood looking out over the
+throng through the thick, aromatic smoke from the birch-fire, and
+presently her clear voice rang through the deathly silence:</p>
+
+<p>"O People of the Evening Sky! Far on the Chemung lie many dead
+men. I see them lying there in green coats and in red, in
+feathers and in paint! Through forests, through mountains,
+through darkness, have my eyes beheld this thing. There is a new
+thunder in the hills, and red fire flowers high in the pines, and
+a hail falls, driving earthward in iron drops that slay all
+living things.</p>
+
+<p>"New clouds hang low along the river; and they are not of the
+water mist that comes at twilight and ascends with the sun. Nor
+is this new thunder in the hills the voice of the Eight White
+Plumed Ones; nor is the boiling of the waters the stirring of the
+Serpent Bride.</p>
+
+<p>"Red run the riffles, yet the sun is high; and those who would
+cross at the ford have laid them down to dam the waters with
+their bodies.</p>
+
+<p>"And I see fires along the flats; I see flames everywhere,
+towns on fire, corn burning, hay kindling to ashes under a white
+ocean of smoke&#151; the Three Sisters scorched, trampled, and
+defiled!" She lifted one arm; her spellbound audience never
+stirred.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" she cried, "I hear the crashing of many feet in
+northward flight! I hear horses galloping, and the rattle of
+swords. Many who run are stumbling, falling, lying still and
+crushed and wet with blood. I, Sorceress of the Senecas, see and
+hear these things; and as I see and hear, so must I speak my
+warning to you all!"</p>
+
+<p>She whirled on Amochol, flinging back her hair. <i>Her skin
+was as white us my own!</i></p>
+
+<p>With a stifled cry Lois sprang to her feet; but I caught her
+and held her fast.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" I whispered to the Sagamore. "Where is Boyd?"</p>
+
+<p>The executioner had risen, and was bending his bow; the
+Sorceress turned deathly pale but her blue eyes flashed, never
+swerving from the cruel stare of Amochol.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Boyd?" I whispered helplessly. "They mean to murder
+her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Kill that executioner!" panted Lois, struggling in my arms.
+"In God's name, slay him where he stands!"</p>
+
+<p>"It means our death," said the Sagamore.</p>
+
+<p>The Night Hawk came crouching close to my shoulder. He had
+unslung and strung his little painted bow of an adolescent, and
+was fitting the nock of a slim arrow to the string.</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at me; I nodded; and as the executioner clapped
+his heels together, straightened himself, and drew the arrow to
+his ear, we heard a low twang! And saw the black hand of the
+Seneca pinned to his own bow by the Night Hawk's shaft.</p>
+
+<p>So noiselessly was it done that the fascinated throng could
+not at first understand what had happened to the executioner, who
+sprang into the air, screamed, and stood clawing and plucking at
+the arrow while his bow hung dripping with blood, yet nailed to
+his shrinking palm.</p>
+
+<p>Amochol, frozen to a scarlet statue, stared at the contortions
+of the executioner for a moment, then, livid, wheeled on the
+Prophetess, shaking from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this your accursed magic?" he shouted. "Is this your
+witchcraft, Sorceress of Biskoonah? Is it thus you strike when
+threatened? Then you shall burn! Take her, Andastes!"</p>
+
+<p>But the Andastes, astounded and terrified, only cowered
+together in a swaying pack.</p>
+
+<p>Restraining Lois with all my strength, I said to the
+Mohican:</p>
+
+<p>"If Boyd comes not before they take her, concentrate your fire
+on Amochol, for we can not hope to make him
+prisoner&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hark!" motioned the Sagamore, grasping my arm. I heard also,
+and so did the others. The woods on our left were full of noises,
+the trample of people running, the noise of crackling
+underbrush.</p>
+
+<p>We all thought the same thing, and stood waiting to see Boyd's
+onset break from the forest. The Red Priest also heard it, for he
+had turned where he stood, his rigid arm still menacing the White
+Sorceress.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, into the firelit circle staggered a British soldier,
+hatless, dishevelled, his scarlet uniform in rags.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he stood staring about him, swaying where he
+stood, then with a hopeless gesture he flung his musket from him
+and passed a shaking hand across his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"O Amochol!" cried the Sorceress, pointing a slim and steady
+finger at the bloody soldier. "Have I dreamed lies or have I
+dreamed the truth? Hearken! The woods are full of people running!
+Do you hear? And have I lied to you, O Amochol?"</p>
+
+<p>"From whence do you come?" cried Amochol, striding toward the
+soldier.</p>
+
+<p>"From the Chemung. Except for the dead we all are coming&#151;
+Butler and Brant and all. Bring out your corn, Seneca! The army
+starves."</p>
+
+<p>Amochol stared at the soldier, at the executioner still
+writhing and struggling to loose his hand from the bloody arrow,
+at the Sorceress who had veiled her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Witch!" he cried, "get you to Yndaia. If you stir elsewhere
+you shall burn!"</p>
+
+<p>He had meant to say more, I think, but at that moment, from
+the southern woods men came reeling out into the
+fire-circle&#151; ghastly, bloody, ragged creatures in shreds of
+uniforms, green, red, and brown&#151; men and officers of Sir
+John's regiment, men of Butler's Rangers, British regulars. On
+their heels glided the Seneca warriors, warriors of the Cayugas,
+Onondagas, Caniengas, Esauroras, and here and there a traitorous
+Oneida, and even a few Hurons.</p>
+
+<p>Pell-mell this mob of fighting men came surging through the
+fire-circle, and straight into Catharines-town, while I and my
+Indians crouched there, appalled and astounded.</p>
+
+<p>I saw Sir John Johnson come up with the officers of his two
+battalions and a captain, a sergeant, a corporal, and fifteen
+British regulars.</p>
+
+<p>"Clear me out this ring of mummers!" he said in his cold,
+penetrating voice. "And thou, Amochol, if this damned town of
+thine be stocked, bring out the provisions and set these Eries
+a-roasting corn!"</p>
+
+<p>I saw McDonald storming and cursing at his irregulars, where
+the poor brutes had gathered into a wavering rank; I saw young
+Walter Butler haranguing his Rangers and Senecas; I saw Brant,
+calm, noble, stately, standing supported by two Caniengas while a
+third examined his wounded leg.</p>
+
+<p>The whole place was a tumult of swarming savages and white
+men; already the Seneca women, crowding among the men, were
+raising the death wail. The dancing girls huddled together in a
+frightened and half-naked group; the Andastes cowered apart; the
+servile Eries were staggering out of the corn fields laden with
+ripe ears; and the famished soldiers were shouting and cursing at
+them and tearing the corn from their arms to gnaw the raw and
+milky grains.</p>
+
+<p>How we were to withdraw and escape destruction I did not
+clearly see, for our path must cross the eastern belt of forest,
+and it was still swarming with fugitives arriving, limping,
+dragging themselves in from the disaster of the Chemung.</p>
+
+<p>Hopeless to dream of taking or slaying Amochol now; hopeless
+to think of warning Boyd or even of finding him. Somewhere in the
+North he had met with obstacles which delayed him. He must scout
+for himself, now, for the entire Tory army was between him and
+us.</p>
+
+<p>"There is but one way now," whispered the Mohican.</p>
+
+<p>"By Yndaia," I said.</p>
+
+<p>My Indians were of the same opinion.</p>
+
+<p>"I should have gone there anyway," said Lois, still all
+a-quiver, and shivering close to my shoulder. I put my arm around
+her; every muscle of her body was rigid, taut, yet trembling, as
+a smooth and finely turned pointer trembles with eagerness and
+powerful self-control.</p>
+
+<p>"Amochol has driven her thither," she whispered. "Shall we not
+be on our way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can you lead, Mayaro?" I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>The Mohican turned and crawled southward on his hands and
+knees, moving slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake let them hear no sound in this belt of bush,"
+I whispered to Lois.</p>
+
+<p>"I am calm, Euan. I am not afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"Then fallow the Sagamore."</p>
+
+<p>One by one we turned and crept away southward; and I was ever
+fearful that some gleam from the fire, catching our rifle-barrels
+or axe-heads, might betray us. But we gained the denser growth
+undiscovered, then rose to our feet in the open forest and
+hurried forward in file, crowding close to keep in touch.</p>
+
+<p>Once Lois turned and called back in a low, breathless
+voice;</p>
+
+<p>"I thank Tahoontowhee from my heart for his true eye and his
+avenging arrow."</p>
+
+<p>The young warrior laughed; but I knew he was the proudest
+youth in all the West that night.</p>
+
+<p>The great cat-owls were shrieking and yelping through the
+forest as we sped southward. My Indians, silent and morose, their
+vengeance unslaked and now indefinitely deferred, moved at a dog
+trot through the forest, led by the Sagamore, whose eyes saw as
+clearly in the dark as my own by day.</p>
+
+<p>And after a little while we noticed the stars above us, and
+felt ferns and grass under our feet, and came out into that same
+glade from whence runs the trail to Yndaia through the western
+hill cleft.</p>
+
+<p>"People ahead!" whispered the Sagamore. "Their Sorceress and
+six Eries!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you certain?" I breathed, loosening my hatchet.</p>
+
+<p>"Certain, Loskiel. Yonder they are halted within the ferns.
+They are at the stream, drinking."</p>
+
+<p>I caught Lois by the wrist.</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me&#151; hurry!" I said, as the Indians darted away
+and began to creep out and around the vague and moving group of
+shadows. And as we sped forward I whispered brokenly my
+instructions, conjuring her to obey.</p>
+
+<p>We were right among them before they dreamed of our coming;
+not a war-cry was uttered; there was no sound save the crashing
+blows of hatchets, the heavy, panting breathing of those locked
+in a death struggle, the deep groan and coughing as a knife
+slipped home.</p>
+
+<p>I flung a clawing Erie from me ere his blood drenched me, and
+he fell floundering, knifed through and through, and tearing a
+hole in my rifle-cape with his teeth as he fell. Two others lay
+under foot; my Oneidas were slaying another in the ferns, and the
+Sagamore's hatchet, swinging like lightning, dashed another into
+eternity.</p>
+
+<p>The last one ran, but stumbled, with three arrows in his burly
+neck and spine; and the Night Hawk's hatchet flew, severing the
+thread of life far him and hurling him on his face. Instantly the
+young Oneida leaped upon the dead man's shoulders, pulled back
+his heavy head, and tore the scalp off with a stifled cry of
+triumph.</p>
+
+<p>"The Black-Snake!" said the Sagamore at my side, breathing
+heavily from his bloody combat, and dashing the red drops from
+the scalp he swung. "Look yonder, Loskiel! Our little Rosy Pigeon
+has returned at last!"</p>
+
+<p>I had seen it already, but I turned to look. And I saw the
+White Sorceress and my sweetheart close locked in each other's
+arms&#151; so close and motionless that they seemed but a single
+snowy shape there under the lustre of the stars.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XX</h3>
+
+<h4>YNDAIA</h4>
+
+<p>At the mouth of the pass which led to the Vale Yndaia I lay
+with my Indians that night, two mounting guard, then one, then
+two more, and the sentinels changed every three hours throughout
+the night. But all were excited and all slept lightly.</p>
+
+<p>Within the Vale Yndaia, perhaps a hundred yards from the mouth
+of the pass, stood the lonely little house of bark in which
+Madame de Contrecoeur had lived alone for twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>And here, that night, Lois lay with her mother; and no living
+thing nearer the dim house than we who mounted guard&#151; except
+for the little birds asleep that Madame de Contrecoeur had tamed,
+and the small forest creatures which had learned to come
+fearlessly at this lonely woman's low-voiced call. And these
+things I learned not then, but afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Never had I seen such utter loneliness&#151; for it had been
+less a solitude, it seemed to me, had the little house not stood
+there under the pale lustre of the stars.</p>
+
+<p>On every side lofty hills enclosed the valley, heavily
+timbered to their crests; and through the intervale the rill ran,
+dashing out of the pass and away into that level, wooded strip to
+the fern-glade which lay midway between the height of land and
+Catharines-town; and there joined the large stream which flowed
+north. I could see in the darkness little of the secret and
+hidden valley called Yndaia, only the heights silhouetted against
+the stars, a vague foreground sheeted with mist, and the dark
+little house standing there all alone under the stars.</p>
+
+<p>All night long the great tiger-owls yelped and hallooed across
+the valley; all night the spectral whip-poor-will whispered its
+husky, frightened warning. And long after midnight a tiny bird
+awoke and sang monotonously for an hour or more.</p>
+
+<p>Awaiting an attack from Catharines-town at any moment, we
+dared not make a fire or even light a torch. Rotten trunks which
+had fallen across the stream we dragged out and piled up across
+the mouth of the pass to make a defence; but we could do no more
+than that; and, our efforts ended, my Indians sat in a circle
+cross-legged, quietly hooping and stretching their freshly taken
+scalps by the dim light of the stars, and humming their various
+airs of triumph in low, contented, and purring voices. All
+laboured under subdued excitement, the brief and almost silent
+slaughter in the ferns having thoroughly aroused them. But the
+tension showed only in moments of abrupt gaiety, as when Mayaro
+challenged them to pronounce his name, and they could not, there
+being no letter "M" in the Iroquois language&#151; neither "P"
+nor "B" either, for that matter&#151; so they failed at "Butler"
+too, and Philip Schuyler, which aroused all to nervous
+merriment.</p>
+
+<p>The Yellow Moth finished braiding his trophy first, went to
+the stream, and washed the blood from his weapons and his hands,
+polished up knife and hatchet, freshened his priming and covered
+it, and then, being a Christian, said his prayers on his knees,
+rolled over on his blanket, and instantly fell asleep.</p>
+
+<p>One by one the others followed his example, excepting the
+Sagamore, who yawning with repressed excitement, picked up his
+rifle, mounted the abattis, and squatted there, his chin on a
+log, motionless and intent as a hunting cat in long grass. I
+joined him; and there we sat unstirring, listening, peering ahead
+into the mist-shot darkness, until our three hours' vigil
+ended.</p>
+
+<p>Then we noiselessly summoned the Grey-Feather, and he crept up
+to the log defence, rifle in hand, to sit there alone until his
+three hours' duty was finished, when the Yellow Moth and
+Tahoontowhee should take his place.</p>
+
+<p>It was already after sunrise when I was awakened by the tinkle
+of a cow-bell. A broad, pinkish shaft of sunshine slanted through
+the pass into the hidden valley; and for the first time in my
+life I now beheld the Vale Yndaia in all the dewy loveliness of
+dawn. A milch cow fed along the brook, flank-deep in fern.
+Chickens wandered in its wake, snapping at gnats and tiny, unseen
+creatures under the leaves.</p>
+
+<p>Dainty shreds of fog rose along the stream, films of mist
+floated among sun-tipped ferns and bramble sprays. The little
+valley, cup-shaped and green, rang with the loud singing of
+birds. The pleasant noises of the brook filled my ears. All the
+western hills were now rosy where the rising sun struck their
+crests; north and south a purplish plum-bloom still tinted velvet
+slopes, which stretched away against a saffron sky untroubled by
+a cloud.</p>
+
+<p>But the pretty valley and its green grass and ferns and hills
+held my attention only at moments, for my eyes ever reverted to
+the low bark house, with its single chimney of clay, now stained
+orange by the sun.</p>
+
+<p>All the impatience and tenderness and not ignoble curiosity so
+long restrained assailed me now, as I gazed upon that solitary
+dwelling, where the unhappy mother of Lois de Contrecoeur had
+endured captivity for more than twenty years.</p>
+
+<p>Vines of the flowering scarlet bean ran up the bark sides of
+the house, and over the low doorway; and everywhere around grew
+wild flowers and thickets of laurel and rhododendron, as in a
+cultivated park. And I saw that she had bordered a walk of
+brook-pebbles with azaleas and marsh-honeysuckles, making a
+little path to the brook over which was a log bridge with hand
+rails.</p>
+
+<p>But laurel, azalea, and rhododendron bloomed no longer; the
+flowers that now blossomed in a riot of azure, purple, and gold
+on every side were the lovely wild asters and golden-rod; and no
+pretty garden set with formal beds and garnished artfully seemed
+to compare with this wild garden in the Vale Yndaia.</p>
+
+<p>As the sun warmed the ground, the sappy perfume of tree and
+fern and grass mounted, scenting the pure, cool air with warm and
+balm-like odours. Gauzy winged creatures awoke, flitted, or hung
+glittering to some frail stem. The birds' brief autumn music died
+away; only the dry chirring of a distant squirrel broke the
+silence, and the faint tinkle of the cow-bell.</p>
+
+<p>My Indians, now all awake, were either industriously painting
+their features or washing their wounds and scratches and filling
+them with balsam and bruised witch-hazel, or were eating the last
+of our parched corn and stringy shreds of leathery venison. All
+seemed as complacent as a party of cats licking their rumpled
+fur; and examining their bites, scratches, bruises, and knife
+wounds, I found no serious injury among them, and nothing to
+stiffen for very long the limbs of men in such a hardy
+condition.</p>
+
+<p>The youthful Night Hawk was particularly proud of an ugly
+knife-slash, with which the Black Snake had decorated his
+chest&#151; nay, I suspected him of introducing sumac juice to
+make it larger and more showy&#151; but said nothing, as these
+people knew well enough how to care for their bodies.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless they were full as curious as was I concerning Madame
+de Contrecoeur&#151; perhaps more so, because not one of them but
+believed her the Sorceress which unhappy circumstances had
+obliged her to pretend to be. Pagan or Christian, no Indian is
+ever rid of superstition.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, devoured by curiosity, not one of them betrayed it,
+forbearing, at least in my presence, even to mention the White
+Prophetess of the Senecas, though they voiced their
+disappointment freely enough concerning the escape of
+Amochol.</p>
+
+<p>So we ate our corn and dried meat, and drank at the pretty
+rill, and cleansed us of mud and blood, each after his own
+fashion&#151; discussing the scalping of the Eries the while, the
+righteous death of the Black-Snake, the rout of Butler's army,
+and how its unexpected arrival had saved Amochol. For none among
+us doubted that, another half hour at most, and we had heard the
+cracking signal of Boyd's rifles across the hideous and fiery
+space.</p>
+
+<p>We were not a whit alarmed concerning Boyd and his party.
+Reconnoitring Catharines-town from the north, they must have very
+quickly discovered the swarm of partly crippled hornets, so
+unexpectedly infesting the nest; and we felt sure that they had
+returned in safety to watch and keep in touch with the beaten
+army.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, beaten at Chemung, exhausted after a rapid and disorderly
+retreat, this same defeated Tory army was still formidable and
+dangerous. We had seen enough of them to understand that. Fewer
+men than these at Catharines-town had ambuscaded Braddock; fewer
+still had destroyed another British expedition; while in the
+north Abercrombie had been whipped by an enemy less than a
+quarter as strong as his own force.</p>
+
+<p>No, we veteran riflemen knew that this motley army of Butler
+and McDonald, if it had indeed lost a few rattles, had however
+parted with none of its poison fangs. Also, Amochol still lived.
+And it had been still another Montour of the wily and accursed
+Frontenac breed&#151; "Anasthose the Huron"&#151; who had
+encompassed the destruction of Braddock.</p>
+
+<p>That the night had passed without a sign of an enemy, and the
+dawn had heralded no yelling onset, we could account for either
+because no scouts from Catharines-town had as yet discovered the
+scalped bodies of the Eries in the glade, or because our own
+pursuing army was so close that no time could be taken by the
+Senecas to attack a narrow pass held by five resolute men.</p>
+
+<p>Now that the sun had risen I worried not at all over our
+future prospects, believing that we would hear from our advancing
+army by afternoon; and the Sagamore was of my opinion.</p>
+
+<p>And even while we were discussing these chances, leaning
+against our log abattis in the sunshine, far away across the
+sunlit flat-woods we saw a man come out among the ferns from the
+southward, and lie down. And then another man came creeping from
+the south, and another, and yet another, the sunlight running red
+along their rifle barrels.</p>
+
+<p>After them went both Oneidas, gliding swiftly out and speeding
+forward just within the encircling cover, taking every
+precaution, although we were almost certain that the distant
+scouts were ours.</p>
+
+<p>And they proved to be my own men&#151; a handful of
+Morgan's&#151; pushing far in advance to reconnoitre
+Catharines-town from the south, although our main army was
+marching by the western ridges, where Boyd had marked a path for
+them.</p>
+
+<p>A corporal in my corps, named Baily, came back with the
+Oneidas, climbed with them over the logs, sprang down inside, and
+saluted me coolly enough.</p>
+
+<p>His scout of four, he admitted, had made a bad job of the
+swamp trail&#151; and his muddy and disordered dress corroborated
+this. But the news he brought was interesting.</p>
+
+<p>He had not seen Boyd. The Battle of the Chemung had ended in a
+disorderly rout of Butler's army, partly because we had
+outflanked their works, partly because Butler's Indians could not
+be held to face our artillery fire, though Brant displayed great
+bravery in rallying them. We had lost few men and fewer officers;
+grain-fields, hay-stacks, and Indian towns were afire everywhere
+along our line of march.</p>
+
+<p>Detachments followed every water-course, to wipe out the
+lesser towns, gardens, orchards, and harvest fields on either
+flank, and gather up the last stray head of the enemy's cattle.
+The whole Iroquois Empire was now kindling into flames and the
+track our army left behind it was a blackened desolation, as
+horrible to those who wrought it as to the wretched and homeless
+fugitives who had once inhabited it.</p>
+
+<p>He added to me in a lower voice, glancing at my Indians with
+the ineradicable distrust of the average woodsman, that our
+advanced guard had discovered white captives in several of the
+Indian towns&#151; in one a young mother with a child at her
+breast. She, her husband, and five children had been taken at
+Wyoming. The Indians and Tories had murdered all save her and her
+baby. Her name was Mrs. Lester.</p>
+
+<p>In one town, he said, they found a pretty little white child,
+terribly emaciated, sitting on the grass and playing with a
+chicken. It could speak only the Iroquois language. Doubtless its
+mother had been murdered long since. So starved was the little
+thing that had our officers not restrained it the child might
+have killed itself by too much eating.</p>
+
+<p>Also, they found a white prisoner&#151; a man taken at
+Wyoming, one Luke Sweatland; and it was said in the army that
+another young white girl had been found in company with her
+little brother, both painted like Indians, and that still another
+white child was discovered, which Captain Machin had instantly
+adopted for his own.</p>
+
+<p>The Corporal further said that our army was proceeding slowly,
+much time being consumed in laying the axe to the plum, peach,
+and apple orchards; and that it was a sad sight to see the
+heavily fruited trees fall over, crushing the ripe fruit into the
+mud.</p>
+
+<p>He thought that the advanced guard of our army might be up by
+evening to burn Catharines-town, but was not certain. Then he
+asked permission to go back and rejoin the scout which he
+commanded; which permission I gave, though it was not necessary;
+and away he went, running like a young deer that has lagged from
+the herd&#151; a tall, fine, wholesome young fellow, and as
+sturdy and active as any I ever saw in rifle-dress and
+ruffles.</p>
+
+<p>My Indians lay down on their bellies, stretching themselves
+out in the sun across the logs, and, save for the subdued but
+fierce glimmer under their lazy lids, they seemed as pleasant and
+harmless as four tawny pumas a-sunning on the rocks.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I wandered restlessly along the brook, as far as
+the bridge, and, seating myself here, fished out writing
+materials and my journal from my pouch, and filled in the events
+of the preceding days as briefly and exactly as I knew how. Also
+I made a map of Catharines-town and of Yndaia from memory,
+resolving to correct it later when Mr. Lodge and his surveyors
+came up, if opportunity permitted.</p>
+
+<p>As I sat there musing and watching the chickens loitering
+around the dooryard, I chanced to remember the milch cow.</p>
+
+<p>Casting about for a receptacle, I discovered several earthen
+jars of Seneca make set in willow baskets and standing by the
+stream. These I washed in the icy water, then slinging two of
+them on my shoulder I went in quest of the cow.</p>
+
+<p>She proved tame enough and glad, apparently, to be relieved of
+her milk, I kneeling to accomplish the business, having had
+experience with the grass-guard of our army on more than one
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Lord! How sweet the fragrance of the milk to a man who had
+seen none in many days. And so I carried back my jars and set
+them by the door of the bark house, covering each with a flat
+stone. And as I turned away, I saw smoke coming from the chimney;
+and heard the shutters on the southern window being gently
+opened.</p>
+
+<p>Lord! What a sudden leap my heart gave as the door before me
+moved with the soft sliding of the great oak bolt, and was slowly
+opened wide to the morning sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment I thought it was Lois who stood there so white
+and still, looking at me with grey, unfathomable eyes; then I
+stepped forward uncertainly, bending in silence over the narrow,
+sun-tanned hand that lay inert under the respectful but trembling
+salute I offered.</p>
+
+<p>"Euan Loskiel," she murmured in the French tongue, laying her
+other hand over mine and looking me deep in the eyes. "Euan
+Loskiel, a soldier of the United States! May God ever mount guard
+beside you for all your goodness to my little daughter."</p>
+
+<p>Tears filled her eyes; her pale, smooth cheeks were wet.</p>
+
+<p>"Lois is still asleep," she said. "Come quietly with her
+mother and you shall see her where she sleeps."</p>
+
+<p>Cap in hand, coon-tail dragging, I entered the single room on
+silent, moccasined feet, set my rifle in a corner, and went over
+to the couch of tumbled fawn-skin and silky pelts.</p>
+
+<p>As I stood looking down at the sweetly flushed face, her
+mother lifted my brier-scarred hand and pressed her lips to it;
+and I, hot and crimson with happiness and embarrassment, found
+not a word to utter.</p>
+
+<p>"My little daughter's champion!" she murmured. "Brave, and
+pure of heart! Ah, Monsieur, chivalry indeed is of no nation! It
+is a broader nobility which knows neither race nor creed nor
+ancestry nor birth.... How the child adores you!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you, Madame. Has ever history preserved another such
+example of dauntless resolution and filial piety as Lois de
+Contrecoeur has shown us all?"</p>
+
+<p>Her mother's beautiful head lifted a little:</p>
+
+<p>"The blood of France runs in her veins, Monsieur." Then, for
+the first time, a pale smile touched her pallour. "Quand meme! No
+de Contrecoeur tires of endeavour while life endures....
+Twenty-two years, Monsieur. Look upon her!... And for one and
+twenty years I have forced myself to live in hope of this moment!
+Do you understand?" She made a vague gesture and shook her head.
+"Nobody can understand&#151; not even I, though I have lived the
+history of many ages."</p>
+
+<p>Still keeping my hand in hers, she stood there silent, looking
+down at her daughter. Then, silently, she knelt beside her on the
+soft fawnskin, drawing me gently to my knees beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"And you are to take her from me," she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, soldier! It must be. I give her to you in
+gratitude&#151; and tears.... My task is ended; yours at last
+begins. Out of my arms you shall take her as she promised. What
+has been said shall be done this day in the Vale Yndaia.... May
+God be with us all."</p>
+
+<p>"Madame&#151; when I take her&#151; one arm of mine must
+remain empty&#151; as half her heart would be&#151; if neither
+may hold you also to the end."</p>
+
+<p>She bent her head; her grey eyes closed, and I saw the tears
+steal out along the long, soft lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"Son, if you should come to love me&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame, I love you now."</p>
+
+<p>She covered her face with her slim hands; I drew it against my
+shoulder. A moment later Lois unclosed her eyes, looked up at us;
+then rose to her knees in her white shift and put both bare arms
+around her mother's neck. And, kneeling so, turned her head,
+offering her untouched lips to me. Thus, for the first time in
+our lives, we kissed each other.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>There was milk, ash-bread, corn, and fresh laid eggs for all
+our party when Lois went to the door and called, in a clear,
+sweet voice:</p>
+
+<p>* "Nai! Mayaro! Yon-kwa-ken-nison!"</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "Oh, Mayaro! We are all assembled!"]</p>
+
+<p>Never have I seen any Indian eat as did my four warriors&#151;
+the Yellow Moth cleaning his bark platter, where he sat on guard
+upon the logs at the pass, the others in a circle at our
+threshold.</p>
+
+<p>Had we a siege to endure in this place, there was a store of
+plenty here, not only in apple-pit and corn-pit, but in the good,
+dry cellar with which the house was provided.</p>
+
+<p>Truly, the Senecas had kept their Prophetess well provided;
+and now, before the snow of a not distant winter choked this
+pass, the place had been provisioned from the harvest against
+November's wants and stress.</p>
+
+<p>And it secretly amused me to note the ever latent fear born of
+respect which my Indians endeavoured not to betray when in the
+presence of Madame de Contrecoeur; nor could her gentle dignity
+and sweetness toward them completely reassure them. To them a
+sorceress was a sorceress, and must ever remain a fearsome and an
+awesome personage, even though it were plain that she was
+disposed toward them most agreeably.</p>
+
+<p>So they replied to her cautiously, briefly, but very
+respectfully, nor could her graciousness to the youthful Night
+Hawk for his unerring arrow, nor her quiet kindness toward the
+others, completely reassure them. They were not accustomed to
+converse, much less to take their breakfast, with a Sorceress of
+Amochol, and though this dread fact did nothing alter their
+appetites, it discouraged any freedom of conversation.</p>
+
+<p>Lois and her mother and I understood this; Lois and I dared
+not laugh or rally them; Madame de Contrecoeur, well versed, God
+knows, in Indian manners and customs, calmly and pleasantly
+accepted the situation; and I think perhaps quietly enjoyed
+it.</p>
+
+<p>But neither mother nor daughter could keep their eyes from
+each other for any length of time, nor did their soft hand-clasp
+loosen save for a moment now and then.</p>
+
+<p>Later, Lois came to me, laid both hands over mine, looked at
+me a moment in silence too eloquent to misunderstand, then drew
+her mother with her into the little house. And I went back on
+guard to join my awed red brethren.</p>
+
+<p>So the soft September day wore away with nothing untoward to
+alarm us, until late in the afternoon we saw smoke rising above
+the hills to the southwest. This meant that our devastating army
+was well on its way, and, as usual, laying waste the Indian towns
+and hamlets which its flanking riflemen discovered; and we all
+jumped up on our breastworks to see better.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour we watched the smoke staining the pure blue sky;
+saw where new clouds of smoke were rising, always a little
+further northward. At evening it rolled, glowing with sombre
+tints, in the red beams of the setting sun; then dusk came and we
+could see the reflection on it of great fires raging
+underneath.</p>
+
+<p>And where we were watching it came a far, dull sound which
+shook the ground, growing louder and nearer, increasing to a
+rushing, thundering gallop; and presently we heard our riflemen
+running through the flat-woods after the frightened herds of
+horses which were bred in Catharines-town for the British
+service, and which had now been discovered and frightened by our
+advance.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the Mohican and the Oneidas on guard, I went out with
+the Stockbridge, and soon came in touch with our light troops,
+stealing westward through the flat-woods to surround
+Catharines-town.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned to our breastworks, Lois and her mother were
+standing there, looking at the fiery smoke in the sky, listening
+to the noise of the unseen soldiery. But on my explaining the
+situation, they went back to the little house together, after
+bidding us all good night.</p>
+
+<p>So I set the first watch for the coming night, rolled myself
+in my blanket, and went to sleep with the lightest heart I had
+carried in my breast for many a day.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn I was awakened by the noise of horses and cattle and
+the shouting of the grass-guard, where they were rounding to the
+half-wild stock from Catharines-town, and our own hoofed
+creatures which had strayed in the flat-woods.</p>
+
+<p>A great cloud of smoke was belching up above the trees to the
+northward; and we knew that Catharines-town was on fire, and the
+last lurking enemy gone.</p>
+
+<p>Long before Lois was astir, I had made my way through our
+swarming soldiery to Catharines-town, where there was the usual
+orderly confusion of details pulling down houses or firing them,
+troops cutting the standing corn, hacking apple-trees, kindling
+the stacked hay into roaring columns of flame.</p>
+
+<p>Regiment after regiment paraded along the stream, discharged
+its muskets, filling the forests with crashing echoes and
+frightening our cattle into flight again; but they were firing
+only to clean out their pieces, for the last of our enemies had
+pulled foot before sunset, and the last howling Indian dog had
+whipped his tail between his legs and trotted after them.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly in the smoke I saw General Sullivan, mounted, and
+talking with Boyd; and I hastened to them and reported, standing
+at salute.</p>
+
+<p>"So that damned Red Sachem escaped you?" said the General,
+biting his lip and looking now at me, now at Boyd.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd said, glancing curiously at me:</p>
+
+<p>"When we came up we found the entire Tory army here. I must
+admit, sir, that we were an hour late, having been blocked by the
+passage of two hundred Hurons and Iroquois who crossed our trail,
+cutting us from the north."</p>
+
+<p>"What became of them?"</p>
+
+<p>"They joined Butler, Brant, and Hiokatoo at this place,
+General."</p>
+
+<p>Then the General asked for my report; and I gave it as exactly
+as I could, the General listening most attentively to my
+narrative, and Boyd deeply and sombrely interested.</p>
+
+<p>When I ended he said:</p>
+
+<p>"We have taken also a half-breed, one Madame Sacho. You say
+that Madame de Contrecoeur is at the Vale Yndaia with her
+daughter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Guarded by my Indians, General."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, sir. Today we send back ten wagons, our wounded,
+and four guns of the heavier artillery, all under proper escort.
+You will notify Madame de Contrecoeur that there will be a wagon
+for her and her daughter."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, General."</p>
+
+<p>He gathered his bridle, leaned from his saddle, and looked
+coldly at Boyd and me.</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen," he said, "I shall expect you to take Amochol,
+dead or alive, before this command marches into the Chinisee
+Castle. How you are to accomplish this business is your own
+affair. I leave you full liberty, except," turning to Boyd, "you,
+sir, are not to encumber yourself again with any such force as
+you now have with you. Twenty men are too many for a swift and
+secret affair. Four is the limit&#151; and four of Mr. Loskiel's
+Indians."</p>
+
+<p>He sat still, gnawing at his lip for a moment, then:</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry that, through no fault apparently of your own,
+this Sorcerer, Amochol, escaped. But, gentlemen, the service
+recognizes only success. I am always ready to listen to how
+nearly you failed, when you have succeeded; I have no interest in
+hearing how nearly you succeeded when you have failed. That is
+all, gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>We stood at salute while he wheeled, and, followed by his
+considerable staff, walked his fine horse away toward the train
+of artillery which stood near by, the gun-teams harnessed and
+saddled, the guns limbered up, drivers and cannoneers in their
+saddles and seats.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Boyd heavily, "shall we be about this matter of
+Amochol?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes.... Will you aid me in placing Madame de Contrecoeur and
+her daughter in the wagon assigned them?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded, and together we started back toward the Vale Yndaia
+in silence.</p>
+
+<p>After a long while he looked up at me and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I know her now."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"I recognize your pretty Lois de Contrecoeur. For weeks I have
+been troubled, thinking of her and how I should have known her
+face. And last night, lying north of Catharines-town, it came to
+me suddenly,"</p>
+
+<p>I was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"She is the ragged maid of the Westchester hills," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"She is the noblest maid that ever breathed in North America,"
+I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Loskiel.... And, that being true, you are the fittest
+match for her the world could offer."</p>
+
+<p>I looked up, surprised, and flushed; and saw how colourless
+and wasted his face had grown, and how in his eyes all light
+seemed quenched. Never have I gazed upon so hopeless and haunted
+a visage as he turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>"I walk the forests like a damned man," he said, "already
+conscious of the first hot breath of hell.... Well&#151; I had my
+chance, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"You have it still."</p>
+
+<p>But he said no more, walking beside me with downcast
+countenance and brooding eyes fixed on our long shadows that led
+us slowly west.</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXI</h3>
+
+<h4>CHINISEE CASTLE</h4>
+
+<p>For twelve days our army, marching west by north, tore its
+terrible way straight through the smoking vitals of the Iroquois
+Empire, leaving behind it nearly forty towns and villages and
+more than two hundred cabins on fire; thousands and thousands of
+bushels of grain burning, thousands of apple, peach, pear, and
+plum trees destroyed, thousands of acres of pumpkins, beans,
+peas, corn, potatoes, beets, turnips, carrots, watermelons,
+muskmelons, strawberry, black-berry, raspberry shrubs crushed and
+rotting in the trampled gardens under the hot September sun.</p>
+
+<p>In the Susquehanna and Chinisee Valleys, not a roof survived
+unburnt, not a fruit tree or an ear of corn remained standing,
+not a domestic animal, not a fowl, was left. And, save for the
+aged squaw we left at Chiquaha in a new hut of bark, with
+provisions sufficient for her needs, not one living soul now
+inhabited the charred ruins of the Long House behind us, except
+our fierce soldiery. And they, tramping doggedly forward,
+voluntarily and cheerfully placing themselves on half rations,
+were now terribly resolved to make an end for all time of the
+secret and fruitful Empire which had nourished so long the
+merciless marauders, red and white, who had made of our frontiers
+but one vast slaughter-house and bloody desolation.</p>
+
+<p>Town after town fell in ashes as our torches flared; Kendaia,
+Kanadesaga, Gothsunquin, Skoi-yase, Kanandaigua, Haniai, Kanasa;
+acre after acre was annihilated. So vast was one field of corn
+that it took two thousand men more than six hours to destroy it.
+And the end was not yet, nor our stern business with our enemies
+ended.</p>
+
+<p>As always on the march, the division of light troops led; the
+advance was piloted by my guides, reinforced by Boyd with four
+riflemen of Morgan's&#151; Tim Murphy, David Elerson, and Garrett
+Putnam, privates, and Michael Parker, sergeant.</p>
+
+<p>Close behind us, and pretty well ahead of the rifle battalion,
+under Major Parr, and the pioneers, followed Mr. Lodge, the
+surveyor, and his party&#151; Thomas Grant with the Jacob-staff,
+four chain-carriers, and Corporal Calhawn. Usually we remained in
+touch with them while they ran their lines through the
+wilderness, but sometimes we were stealing forward, far ahead and
+in touch with the retreating Tory army, patiently and
+persistently contriving plans to get at Amochol. But the painted
+hordes of Senecas enveloped the Sorcerer and his acolytes as with
+a living blanket; and, prowling outside their picket fires at
+night, not one ridged-crest did we see during those twelve days
+of swift pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd, during the last few days, had become very silent and
+morose; and his men and my Indians believed that he was brooding
+over his failure to take the Red Priest at Catharines-town. But
+my own heavy heart told me a different story; and the burden of
+depression which this young officer bore so silently seemed to
+weight me also with vague and sinister apprehensions.</p>
+
+<p>I remember, just before sunset, that our small scout of ten
+were halted by a burnt log bridge over a sluggish inlet to a
+lake. The miry trail to the Chinisee Castle led over it, swung
+westward along the lake, rising to a steep bluff which was gashed
+with a number of deep and rocky ravines.</p>
+
+<p>It was plain that the retreating Tory army had passed over
+this bridge, and that their rearguard had set it afire.</p>
+
+<p>I said to Boyd, pointing across the southern end of the
+lake:</p>
+
+<p>"From what I have read of Braddock's Field, yonder terrain
+most astonishingly resembles it. What an ambuscade could Butler
+lay for our army yonder, within shot of this crossing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Pray God he lays it," said Boyd between his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Yet, we could get at him better beyond those rocky gashes," I
+muttered, using my spyglass.</p>
+
+<p>"Butler is there," said the Mohican, calmly.</p>
+
+<p>Both Boyd and I searched the wooded bluffs in vain for any
+sign of life, but the Sagamore and the other Indians quietly
+maintained their opinion, because, they explained, though patches
+of wild rice grew along the shore, the wild ducks and geese had
+left their feeding coves and were lying half a mile out in open
+water. Also, the blue-jays had set up a screaming in the
+yellowing woods along the western shore, and the tall, blue
+herons had left their shoreward sentry posts, and now mounted
+guard far to the northward among the reeds, where solitary black
+ducks dropped in at intervals, quacking loudly.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd nodded; the Oneidas drew their hatchets and blazed the
+trees; and we all sat down in the woods to await the coming of
+our advanced guard.</p>
+
+<p>After a little while, our pioneers appeared, rifles slung,
+axes glittering on their shoulders, and immediately began to fell
+trees and rebuild the log bridge. Hard on their heels came my
+rifle battalion; and in the red sunshine we watched the setting
+of the string of outposts.</p>
+
+<p>Far back along the trail behind us we could hear the halted
+army making camp; flurries of cheery music from the light
+infantry bugle-horns, the distant rolling of drums, the rangers
+penetrating whistle, lashes of wagoners cracking, the melancholy
+bellow of the beef herd.</p>
+
+<p>Major Parr came and talked with us for a few minutes, and went
+away convinced that Butler's people lay watching us across the
+creek. Ensign Chambers came a-mincing through the woods,
+a-whisking the snuff from his nose with the only laced hanker in
+the army; and:</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" says he. "Do you really think we shall have a
+battle, Loskiel? How very interesting and enjoyable it will
+be."</p>
+
+<p>"Who drilled your pretty hide, Benjamin?" said I bluntly,
+noting that he wore his left arm in a splint.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!" says he. "'Twas a scratch from a half-ounce ball at
+the Chemung. Dear, dear, how very disappointing was that affair,
+Loskiel! Most annoying of them not to stand our charge!" And,
+"Dear, dear, dear," he murmured, mincing off again with all the
+air of a Wall Street beau ogling the pretty dames on Hanover
+Square.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is this damned Castle?" growled Boyd. "Chinisee,
+Chenussio, Genesee&#151; whatever it is called? The name keeps
+buzzing in my head&#151; nay, for the last three days I have
+dreamed of it and awakened to hear it sounding in my ears, as
+though beside me some one stooped and whispered it."</p>
+
+<p>I pulled out our small map, which we had long since learned to
+distrust, yet even our General had no better one.</p>
+
+<p>Here was marked the Chinisee Castle, near the confluence of
+Canaseraga Creek and the Chinisee River; and I showed the place
+to Boyd, who looked at it curiously.</p>
+
+<p>Mayaro, however, shook his crested head:</p>
+
+<p>"No, Loskiel," he said. "The Chinisee Castle stands now on the
+western shore. The Great Town should stand here!"&#151; placing
+his finger on an empty spot on the map. "And here, two miles
+above, is another town."</p>
+
+<p>"And you had better tell that to the General when he comes,"
+remarked Boyd. And to me he said: "If we are to take Amochol at
+all, it will be this night or at dawn at the Chinisee
+Castle."</p>
+
+<p>"I am also of that opinion," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall want twenty riflemen," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"If it can not be done with four, and my Indians, we need not
+attempt it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" he asked sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"The General has so ordered."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but if I am to catch Amochol I must do it in my own way.
+I know how to do it. And if I risk taking my twenty riflemen, and
+am successful, the General will not care how it was
+accomplished."</p>
+
+<p>I said nothing, because Boyd ranked me, but what he proposed
+made me very uneasy. More than once he had interpreted orders
+after his own fashion, and, being always successful in his
+enterprises, nothing was said to him in reproof.</p>
+
+<p>My Indians had made a fire, I desiring to let the enemy
+suppose that we suspected nothing of his ambuscade so close at
+hand; and around this we lay, munching our meagre meal of green
+corn roasted on the coals, and ripe apples to finish.</p>
+
+<p>As we ended, the sun set behind the western bluffs, and our
+evening gun boomed good-night in the forest south of us. And
+presently came, picking their way through the trail-mire, our
+General, handsomely horsed as usual, attended by Major Adam
+Hoops, of his staff, and several others.</p>
+
+<p>We instantly waited on him and told him what we knew and
+suspected; and I showed him my map and warned him of the
+discrepancy between its marked places and the report of the
+Mohican Sagamore.</p>
+
+<p>"Damnation!" he said. "Every map I have had lies in detail,
+misleading and delaying me when every hour empties our wagons of
+provisions. Were it not for your Indians, Mr. Loskiel, and that
+Sagamore in particular, we had missed half the game as it
+lies."</p>
+
+<p>He sat his saddle in silence for a while, looking at the
+unfinished log bridge and up at the bluffs opposite.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel confident that Butler is there," he said bluntly. "But
+what I wish to know is where this accursed Chinisee Castle
+stands. Boyd, take four men, move rapidly just before midnight,
+find out where this castle stands, and report to me at
+sunrise."</p>
+
+<p>Boyd saluted, hesitated, then asked permission to speak. And
+when the General accorded it, he explained his plan to take
+Amochol at the Chinisee Castle, and that this matter would
+neither delay nor interfere with a prompt execution of his
+present orders.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," nodded the General, "but take no more than four
+men, and Mr. Loskiel and his Indians with you; and report to me
+at sunrise."</p>
+
+<p>I heard him say this; Major Hoops heard him also. So I
+supposed that Boyd would obey these orders to the letter.</p>
+
+<p>When the mounted party had moved away, Boyd and I went back to
+the fire and lay down on our blankets. We were on the edge of the
+trees; it was still daylight; the pioneers were still at work;
+and my Indians were freshening their paint, rebraiding their
+scalp-locks, and shining up hatchet, rifle, and knife.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at those bloodhounds," muttered Boyd. "They did not hear
+what we were talking about, but they know by premonition."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not have any faith in premonitions," said I.</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have dreamed I was scalped, and my hair still grows."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not out of the woods yet," he said, sombrely.</p>
+
+<p>"That does not worry me."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor me. Yet, I do believe in premonition."</p>
+
+<p>"That is old wives' babble."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe, Loskiel. Yet, I know I shall not leave this wilderness
+alive."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord!" said I, attempting to jest. "You should set up as a
+rival to Amochol and tell us all our fortunes."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled&#151; and the effort distorted his pale, handsome
+face.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it will happen at Chinisee," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"What will happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"The end of the world for me, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not like you, Boyd, to speak in such a manner. Only
+lately have I ever heard from you a single note of such
+foreboding."</p>
+
+<p>"Only lately have I been dowered with the ominous
+clairvoyance. I am changed, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"Not in courage."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders that set
+ruffles and thrums a-dancing on his rifle-dress.</p>
+
+<p>We were silent for a while, watching the Indians at their
+polishing. Then he said in a low but pleasant voice:</p>
+
+<p>"How proud and happy must you be with your affianced. What a
+splendour of happiness lies before you both! An unblemished past,
+an innocent passion, a future stretching out unstained before
+you&#151; what more can God bestow on man and maid?... May bright
+angels guard you both, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>I made to thank him for the wish, but suddenly found I could
+not control my voice, so lay there in silence and with throat
+contracted, looking at this man whose marred young life lay all
+behind him, and whose future, even to me, lowered strangely and
+ominously veiled.</p>
+
+<p>And as we lay there, into our fire-circle came a dusty,
+mud-splashed, and naked runner, plucking from his light
+skin-pouch two letters, one for Boyd and one for me.</p>
+
+<p>I read mine by the flickering fire; it was dated from Tioga
+Point:</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>"Euan Loskiel, my honoured and affianced husband, and my
+lover, worshipped and adored, I send you by this runner my
+dearest affections, my duties, and my most sacred sentiments.</p>
+
+<p>"You must know that this day we have arrived at the Fort at
+Tioga Point without any accident or mischance of any description,
+and, indeed, not encountering one living creature between
+Catharines-town and this post.</p>
+
+<p>"My beloved mother desires her particular and tender
+remembrances to be conveyed to you, her honoured son-in-law to
+be, and further commands that I express to you, as befittingly as
+I know how, her deep and ever-living gratitude and thanks for
+your past conduct in regard to me, and your present and
+noble-minded generosity concerning the dispositions you have made
+for us to remain under the amiable protection of Mr. Hake in
+Albany.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear lad, what can I say for myself? You are so glorious, so
+wonderful&#151; and in you it does seem that all the virtues,
+graces, and accomplishments are so perfectly embodied, that at
+moments, thinking of you, I become afraid, wondering what it is
+in me that you can accept in exchange for the so perfect love you
+give me.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear that you may smile on perusing this epistle, deeming
+it, perhaps, a trifle flowery in expression&#151; but, Euan, I am
+so torn between the wild passion I entertain for you, and a
+desire to address you modestly and politely in terms of
+correspondence, as taught in the best schools, that I know not
+entirely how to conduct. I would not have you think me cold, or
+too stiffly laced in the formalities of polite usage, so that you
+might not divine my heart a-beating under the dress that covers
+me, be it rifle-frock or silken caushet. I would not have you
+consider me over-bold, light-minded, or insensible to the deep
+and sacred tie that already binds me to you evermore&#151; which
+even, I think, the other and tender tie which priest and church
+shall one day impose, could not make more perfect or more
+secure.</p>
+
+<p>"So I must strive to please you by writing with elegance
+befitting, yet permitting you to perceive the ardent heart of her
+who thinks of you through every blessed moment of the day.</p>
+
+<p>"I pray, as my dear mother prays, that God, all armoured, and
+with His bright sword drawn, stand sentinel on your right hand
+throughout the dangers and the trials of this most just and
+bloody war. For your return I pray and wait.</p>
+
+<p>"Your humble and dutiful and obedient and adoring wife to
+be,</p>
+
+<p class="center" align="center">"Lois de Contrecoeur.</p>
+
+<p>"Post scriptum: The memory of our kiss fades not from my lips.
+I will be content when circumstances permit us the liberty to
+repeat it."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>When I had read the letter again and again, I folded it and
+laid it in the bosom of my rifle-shirt. Boyd still brooded over
+his letter, the red firelight bathing his face to the
+temples.</p>
+
+<p>After a long while he raised his eyes, saw me looking at him,
+stared at me for a moment, then quietly extended the letter
+toward me.</p>
+
+<p>"You wish me to read it?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, read it, Loskiel, before I burn it," he said drearily.
+"I do not desire to have it discovered on my body after
+death."</p>
+
+<p>I took the single sheet of paper and read:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p> <br>
+"Lieutenant Thomas Boyd,<br>
+    "Rifle Corps,<br>
+        "Sir:<br>
+</p>
+
+<p>"For the last time, I venture to importune you in behalf of
+one for whose present despair you are entirely responsible.
+Pitying her unhappy condition, I have taken her as companion to
+me since we are arrived at Easton, and shall do what lies within
+my power to make her young life as endurable as may be.</p>
+
+<p>"You, sir, on your return from the present campaign, have it
+in your power to make the only reparation possible. I trust that
+your heart and your sense of honour will so incline you.</p>
+
+<p>"As for me, Mr. Boyd, I make no complaint, desire no sympathy,
+expect none. What I did was my fault alone. Knowing that I was
+falling in love with you, and at the same time aware what kind of
+man you had been and must still be, I permitted myself to drift
+into deeper waters, too weak of will to make an end, too
+miserable to put myself beyond the persuasion of your voice and
+manner. And perhaps I might never have found courage to give you
+up entirely had I not been startled into comprehension by what I
+learned concerning the poor child in whose behalf I now am
+writing.</p>
+
+<p>"That instantly sobered me, ending any slightest spark of hope
+that I might have in my secret heart still guarded. For, with my
+new and terrible knowledge, I understood that I must pass
+instantly and completely out of your life; and you out of mine.
+Only your duty remained&#151; not to me, but to this other and
+more unhappy one. And that path I pray that you will follow when
+a convenient opportunity arises.</p>
+
+<p>"I am, sir y' ob't, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p align="right" class="right">"Magdalene Helmer.</p>
+
+<p>"P. S. If you love me, Tom, do your full duty in the name of
+God!</p>
+
+<p align="center" class="center">"Lana."</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>I handed the letter back to him in silence. He stared at it,
+not seeing the written lines, I think, save as a blurr; and after
+a long while he leaned forward and laid it on the coals.</p>
+
+<p>"If I am not already foredoomed," he said to me, "what Lana
+bids me do that I shall do. It is best, is it not, Loskiel?"</p>
+
+<p>"A clergyman is fitter to reply to you than I."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not think it best that I marry Dolly Glenn?"</p>
+
+<p>"God knows. It is all too melancholy and too terrible for me
+to comprehend the right and wrong of it, or how a penitence is
+best made. Yet, as you ask me, it seems to me that what she will
+one day become should claim your duty and your future. The
+weakest ever has the strongest claim."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it-is true. I stand tonight so fettered to an unborn
+soul that nothing can unloose me.... I wish that I might
+live."</p>
+
+<p>"You will live! You <i>must</i> live!"</p>
+
+<p>"Aye, 'must' and 'will' are twins of different complexions,
+Loskiel.... Yet, if I live, I shall live decently and honestly
+hereafter in the sight of God and&#151; Lana Helmer."</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>We said nothing more. About ten o'clock Boyd rose and went
+away all alone. Half an hour later he came back, followed by some
+score and more of men, a dozen of our own battalion, half a dozen
+musket-men of the 4th Pennsylvania Regiment, three others, two
+Indians, Hanierri, the headquarters Oneida guide, and Yoiakim, a
+Stockbridge.</p>
+
+<p>"Volunteers," he said, looking sideways at me. "I know how to
+take Amochol; but I must take him in my own manner."</p>
+
+<p>I ventured to remind him of the General's instructions that we
+find the Chinisee Castle and report at sunrise.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn it, I know it," he retorted impatiently, "but I have my
+own plans; and the General will bear me out when I fling
+Amochol's scalp at his feet."</p>
+
+<p>The Grey-Feather drew me aside and said in a low, earnest
+voice:</p>
+
+<p>"We are too many to surprise Amochol. Before Wyoming, with
+only three others I went to Thenondiago, the Castle of the Three
+Clans&#151; The Bear, The Wolf, and The Turtle&#151; and there we
+took and slew Skull-Face, brother of Amochol, and wounded
+Telenemut, the husband of Catrine Montour. By Waiandaia we
+stretched the scalp of Skull-Face; at Thaowethon we painted it
+with Huron and Seneca tear-drops; at Yaowania we peeled three
+trees and wrote on each the story so that the Three Clans might
+read and howl their anguish. Thus should it be done tonight if we
+are to deal with Amochol!"</p>
+
+<p>Once more I ventured to protest to Boyd.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave it to me, Loskiel," he said pleasantly. And I could say
+no more.</p>
+
+<p>At eleven our party of twenty-nine set out, Hanierri, the
+Oneida, from headquarters, guiding us; and I could not understand
+why Boyd had chosen him, for I was certain he knew less about
+this region than did Mayaro, However, when I spoke to Boyd, he
+replied that the General had so ordered, and that Hanierri had
+full instructions concerning the route from the commander
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>As General Sullivan was often misinformed by his maps and his
+scouts, I was nothing reassured by Boyd's reply, and marched with
+my Indians, feeling in my heart afraid. And, without vaunting
+myself, nor meaning to claim any general immunity from fear, I
+can truly say that for the first time in my life I set forth upon
+an expedition with the most melancholy forebodings possible to a
+man of ordinary courage and self-respect.</p>
+
+<p>We followed the hard-travelled war-trail in single file; and
+Hanierri did not lose his way, but instead of taking, as he
+should have done, the unused path which led to the Chinisee
+Castle, he passed it and continued on.</p>
+
+<p>I protested most earnestly to Boyd; the Sagamore corroborated
+my opinion when summoned. But Hanierri remained obstinate,
+declaring that he had positive information that the Chinisee
+Castle lay in the direction we were taking.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd seemed strangely indifferent and dull, making apparently
+no effort to sift the matter further. So strange and apathetic
+had his manner become, so unlike himself was he, that I could
+make nothing of him, and stood in uneasy wonderment while the
+Mohican and the Oneida, Hanierri, were gravely disputing.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said, in his husky and altered voice, "let us have
+done with this difference in opinion. Let the Oneida guide
+us&#151; as we cannot have two guides' opinions. March!"</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness we crept past Butler's right flank, silently
+and undiscovered; nor could we discover any sign of the enemy,
+though now not one among us doubted that he lay hidden along the
+bluffs, waiting for our army to move at sunrise into the deadly
+trap that the nature of the place had so perfectly provided.</p>
+
+<p>All night long we moved on the hard and trodden trail; and
+toward dawn we reached a town. Reconnoitering the place, we found
+it utterly abandoned. If the Chinisee Castle lay beyond it, we
+could not determine, but Hanierri insisted that it was there. So
+Boyd sent back four men to Sullivan to report on what we had
+done; and we lay in the woods on the outskirts of the village, to
+wait for daylight.</p>
+
+<p>When dawn whitened the east, it became plain to us all that we
+had taken the wrong direction. The Chinisee Castle was not here.
+Nothing lay before us but a deserted village.</p>
+
+<p>I knew not what to make of Boyd, for the discovery of our
+mistake seemed to produce no impression on him. He stood at the
+edge of the woods, gazing vacantly across the little clearing
+where the Indian houses straggled on either side of the
+trail.</p>
+
+<p>"We have made a bad mistake," I said in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a bad one," he said listlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we not start on our return?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no hurry."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, but I have to remind you that you are to
+report at sunrise."</p>
+
+<p>"Aye&#151; if that were possible, Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>"Possible!" I repeated, blankly. "Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because," he said in a dull voice, "I shall never see another
+sunrise save this one that is coming presently. Let me have my
+fill of it unvexed by Generals and orders."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not well, Boyd," I said, troubled.</p>
+
+<p>"As well as I shall ever be&#151; but not as ill,
+Loskiel."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the Sagamore laid his hand on my shoulder and
+pointed. I saw nothing for a moment; then Boyd and Murphy sprang
+forward, rifles in hand, and Mayaro after them, and I after them,
+running into the village at top speed. For I had caught a glimpse
+of a most unusual sight; four Iroquois Indians on horseback,
+riding into the northern edge of the town. Never before, save on
+two or three occasions, had I ever seen an Iroquois mounted on a
+horse.</p>
+
+<p>We ran hard to get a shot at them, and beyond the second house
+came in full view of our enemies. Murphy fired immediately,
+knocking the leading Indian from his horse; I fired, breaking the
+arm of the next rider; both my Indians fired and missed; and the
+Iroquois were off at full speed. Boyd had not fired.</p>
+
+<p>We ran to where the dead man was lying, and the Mohican
+recognized him as an Erie named Sanadaya. Murphy coolly took his
+scalp, with an impudent wink at the Sagamore and a grin at Boyd
+and me.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile, our riflemen and Indians had rushed the town
+and were busy tearing open the doors of the houses and setting
+fire to them. In vain I urged Boyd to start back, pointing out
+that this was no place for us to linger in, and that our army
+would burn this village in due time.</p>
+
+<p>But he merely shrugged his shoulders and loitered about,
+watching his men at their destruction; and I stood by, a witness
+to his strange and inexplicable delay, a prey to the most
+poignant anxiety because the entire Tory army lay between us and
+our own army, and this smoke signal must draw upon us a very
+swarm of savages to our inevitable destruction.</p>
+
+<p>At last Boyd sounded the recall on his ranger's whistle, and
+ordered me to take my Indians and reconnoiter our back trail. And
+no sooner had I entered the woods than I saw an Indian standing
+about a hundred yards to the right of the trail, and looking up
+at the smoke which was blowing southward through the
+tree-tops.</p>
+
+<p>His scarlet cloak was thrown back; he was a magnificent
+warrior, in his brilliant paint, matching the flaming autumn
+leaves in colour. My Indians had not noticed him where he stood
+against a crimson and yellow maple bush. I laid my rifle level
+and fired. He staggered, stood a moment, turning his crested head
+with a bewildered air, then swayed, sank at the knee joints,
+dropped to them, and very slowly laid his stately length upon the
+moss, extending himself like one who prepared for slumber.</p>
+
+<p>We ran up to where he lay with his eyes closed; he was still
+breathing. A great pity for him seized me; and I seated myself on
+the moss beside him, staring into his pallid face.</p>
+
+<p>And as I sat beside him while he was dying, he opened his
+eyes, and looked at me. And I knew that he knew I had killed him.
+After a few moments he died.</p>
+
+<p>"Amochol!" I said under my breath. "God alone knows why I am
+sorry for this dead priest." And as I rose and stared about me, I
+caught sight of two pointed ears behind a bush; then two more
+pricked up sharply; then the head of a wolf popped up over a
+fallen log. But as I began to reload my rifle, there came a great
+scurrying and scattering in the thickets, and I heard the
+Andastes running off, leaving their dead master to me and to my
+people, who were now arriving.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know who took his scalp; but it was taken by some
+Indian or Ranger who came crowding around to look down upon this
+painted dead man in his scarlet cloak.</p>
+
+<p>"Amochol is dead," I said to Boyd.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me with lack-lustre eyes, nodding. We marched on
+along the trail by which we had arrived.</p>
+
+<p>For five miles we proceeded in silence, my Indians flanking
+the file of riflemen. Then Boyd gave the signal to halt, and sent
+forward the Sagamore, the Grey-Feather, and Tahoontowhee to
+inform the General that we would await the army in this
+place.</p>
+
+<p>The Indians, so coolly taken from my command, had gone ere I
+came up from the rear to find what Boyd had done.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you mad?" I exclaimed, losing my temper, "Do you propose
+to halt here at the very mouth of the hornet's nest?"</p>
+
+<p>He did not rebuke me for such gross lack of discipline and
+respect&#151; in fact, he seemed scarcely to heed at all what I
+said, but seated himself at the foot of a pine tree and lit his
+pipe. As I stood biting my lip and looking around at the woods
+encircling us, he beckoned two of his men, gave them some orders
+in a low voice, crossed one leg over the other, and continued to
+smoke the carved and painted Oneida pipe he carried in his
+shot-pouch.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the two riflemen shoulder their long weapons and go
+forward in obedience to his orders; and when again I approached
+him he said:</p>
+
+<p>"They will make plain to Sullivan what your Indians may garble
+in repeating&#151; that I mean to await the army in this place
+and save my party these useless miles of travelling. Do you
+object?"</p>
+
+<p>"Our men are not tired," I said, astonished, "and our advanced
+guard can not be very far away. Do you not think it more prudent
+for us to continue the movement toward our own people?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well&#151; if you like," he said indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>After a few minutes' inaction, he rose, sounded his whistle;
+the men got to their feet, fell in, and started, rifles a-trail.
+But we had proceeded scarcely a dozen rods into the big timber
+when we discovered our two riflemen, who had so recently left us,
+running back toward us and looking over their shoulders as they
+ran. When they saw us, they halted and shouted for us to hasten,
+as there were several Seneca Indians standing beside the trail
+ahead.</p>
+
+<p>In a flash of intuition it came to me that here was a cleared
+runway to some trap.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't leave the trail!" I said to Boyd. "Don't be drawn out
+of it now. For God's sake hold your men and don't give chase to
+those Indians."</p>
+
+<p>"Press on!" said Boyd curtly; and our little column trotted
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>Something crashed in a near thicket and went off like a deer.
+The men, greatly excited, strove to catch a glimpse of the
+running creature, but the bush was too dense.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a rifleman, who was leading our rapid advance, caught
+sight of the same Senecas who had alarmed him and his companion;
+and he started toward them with a savage shout, followed by a
+dozen others.</p>
+
+<p>Hanierri turned to Boyd and begged him earnestly not to permit
+any pursuit. But Boyd pushed him aside impatiently, and blew the
+view-halloo on his ranger's whistle; and in a moment we all were
+scattering in full pursuit of five lithe and agile Senecas, all
+in full war-paint, who appeared to be in a panic, for they ran
+through the thickets like terrified sheep, huddling and crowding
+on one another's heels.</p>
+
+<p>"Boyd!" I panted, catching up with him. "This whole business
+looks like a trap to me. Whistle your men back to the trail, for
+I am certain that these Senecas are drawing us toward their main
+body."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll catch one of them first," he said; and shouted to
+Murphy to fire and cripple the nearest. But the flying Senecas
+had now vanished into a heavily-wooded gully, and there was
+nothing for Murphy to fire at.</p>
+
+<p>I swung in my tracks, confronting Boyd.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you halt your people before it is too late?" I demanded.
+"Where are your proper senses? You behave like a man who has lost
+his mental balance!"</p>
+
+<p>He gave me a dazed look, where he had been within his rights
+had he cut me down with his hatchet.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say?" he stammered, passing his hand over his
+eyes as though something had obscured his sight.</p>
+
+<p>"I asked you to sound the recall. Those Indians we chase are
+leading us whither they will. What in God's name ails you, Boyd?
+Have you never before seen an ambush?"</p>
+
+<p>He stood motionless, as though stupefied, staring straight
+ahead of him. Then he said, hesitatingly, that he desired Tim
+Murphy to cripple one of the Senecas and fetch him in so that we
+might interrogate him.</p>
+
+<p>Such infant's babble astounded and sickened me, and I was
+about to retort when a shout from one of our men drew our
+attention to the gully below. And there were our terrified
+Indians peering out cunningly at us like so many foxes playing
+tag with an unbroken puppy pack.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, sir," said I in deepest anxiety, "the game is too plain
+for anybody but a fool to follow. Sound your recall!"</p>
+
+<p>He set his whistle to his lips, and as I stood there,
+thunderstruck and helpless, the shrill call rang out: "Forward!
+Hark-away!"</p>
+
+<p>Instantly our entire party leaped forward; the Indians
+vanished; and we ran on headlong, pell-mell, hellward into the
+trap prepared for our destruction.</p>
+
+<p>The explosion of a heavy rifle on our right was what first
+halted us, I think. One of the soldiers from the 4th Pennsylvania
+was down in the dead leaves kicking and scuffling about all over
+blood. Before he had rolled over twice, a ragged but loud volley
+on our left went through our disordered files, knocking over two
+more soldiers. The screaming of one poor fellow seemed to bring
+Boyd to his senses. He blew the recall, and our men fell back,
+and, carrying the dead and wounded, began to ascend the wooded
+knoll down which we had been running when so abruptly
+checked.</p>
+
+<p>There was no more firing for the moment; we reached the top of
+the knoll, laid our dead and wounded behind trees, loaded,
+freshened our priming, and stood awaiting orders.</p>
+
+<p>Then, all around us, completely encircling the foot of our
+knoll, woods, thickets, scattered bushes, seemed to be literally
+moving in the vague forest light.</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" exclaimed Elerson to Murphy. "The woods are crawling
+with savages!"</p>
+
+<p>A dreadful and utter silence fell among us; Boyd, pale as a
+corpse, motioned his men to take posts, forming a small circle
+with our dead and wounded in the centre.</p>
+
+<p>I saw Hanierri, the Oneida guide, fling aside his blanket,
+strip his painted body to the beaded clout, draw himself up to
+his full and superb height, muttering, his eyes fixed on the
+hundreds of dark shapes stealing quietly among the thickets below
+our little hill.</p>
+
+<p>The two Stockbridge Indians, the Yellow Moth and Yoiakim,
+pressed lightly against me on either side, like two great, noble
+dogs, afraid, yet trusting their master, and still dauntless in
+the threatening face of duty.</p>
+
+<p>Through the terrible stillness which had fallen upon us all, I
+could hear the Oneida guide muttering his death-song; and
+presently my two Christian Indians commenced in low voices to
+recite the prayers for the dying.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment, Murphy and Elerson began to fire, slowly and
+deliberately; and for a little while these two deadly and
+unerring rifles were the only pieces that spoke from our knoll.
+Then my distant target showed for a moment; I fired, reloaded,
+waited; fired again; and our little circle of doomed men began to
+cheer as a brilliantly painted warrior sprang from the thicket
+below, shouted defiance, and crumpled up as though smitten by
+lightning when Murphy's rifle roared out its fatal retort.</p>
+
+<p>Then, for almost every soul that stood there, the end of the
+world began; for a thousand men swarmed out of the thickets
+below, completely surrounding us; and like a hurricane shrilling
+through naked woods swept the death-halloo of five hundred
+Iroquois in their naked paint.</p>
+
+<p>On every side the knoll was black with them as they came
+leaping forward, hatchets glittering; while over their heads the
+leaden hail of Tory musketry pelted us from north and south and
+east and west.</p>
+
+<p>Down crashed Yoiakim at my side, his rifle exploding in
+mid-air as he fell dead and rolled over and over down the slope
+toward the masses of his enemies below.</p>
+
+<p>As a Seneca seized the rolling body, set his foot on the dead
+shoulders and jerked back the head to scalp him, the Yellow Moth
+leaped forward, launching his hatchet. It flew, sparkling, and
+struck the scalper full in the face. The next instant the Yellow
+Moth was among them, snarling, stabbing, raging, almost covered
+by Senecas who were wounding one another in their eagerness to
+slay him.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment it seemed to me that there was a chance in this
+melee for us to cut our way through, and I caught Boyd by the arm
+and pointed. A volley into our very backs staggered and almost
+stupefied us; through the swirling powder gloom, our men began to
+fall dead all around me. I saw Sergeant Hungerman drop; privates
+Harvey, Conrey, Jim McElroy, Jack Miller, Benny Curtin and poor
+Jack Putnam.</p>
+
+<p>Murphy, clubbing his rifle, was bawling to his comrade,
+Elerson:</p>
+
+<p>"To hell wid this, Davey! Av we don't pull foot we're a pair
+o' dead ducks!"</p>
+
+<p>"For God's sake, Boyd!" I shouted. "Break through there beside
+the Yellow Moth!"</p>
+
+<p>Boyd, wielding his clubbed rifle, cleared a circle amid the
+crowding savages; Sergeant Parker ran out into the yelling crush;
+the two gigantic riflemen, Murphy and Elerson, swinging their
+terrible weapons like flails, smashed their way forward; behind
+them, using knife, hatchet, and stock, I led out the last men
+living on that knoll&#151; Ned McDonald, Garrett Putnam, Jack
+Youse, and a French coureur-de-bois whose name I have never
+learned.</p>
+
+<p>All around us raged and yelled the maddened Seneca pack,
+slashing each other again and again in their crazed attempts to
+reach us. The Yellow Moth was stabbed through and through a
+hundred times, yet the ghastly corpse still kept its feet, so
+terrible was the crushing pressure on every side.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, tearing a path through the frenzied mob, I saw a mob
+of cursing, sweating, green-coated soldiers and rangers,
+struggling toward us&#151; saw one of Butler's rangers seize
+Sergeant Parker by the collar of his hunting shirt, bawling
+out:</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah! Hurrah! Prisoner taken from Morgan's corps!"</p>
+
+<p>Another, an officer of British regulars, I think, threw
+himself on Boyd, shouting:</p>
+
+<p>"By heaven! It's Boyd of Derry! Are you not Tom Boyd, of
+Derry, Pennsylvania?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you bloody-backed Tory!" retorted Boyd, struggling to
+knife him under his gorget. "And I'm Boyd of Morgan's, too!"</p>
+
+<p>I aimed a blow at the red-coated officer, but my rifle stock
+broke off across the skull of an Indian; and I began to beat a
+path toward Boyd with the steel barrel of my weapon, Murphy and
+Elerson raging forward beside me in such a very whirlwind of
+half-crazed fury that the Indians gave way and leaped aside,
+trying to shoot at us.</p>
+
+<p>Headlong through this momentary opening rushed Garrett Putnam,
+his rifle-dress torn from his naked body, his heavy knife
+dripping in the huge fist that clutched it. After him leaped Ned
+McDonald, the coureur-de-bois, and Jack Youse, letting drive
+right and left with their hatchets. And, as the painted crowd
+ahead recoiled and shrank aside, Murphy, Elerson, and I went
+through, smashing out the way with our heavy weapons.</p>
+
+<p>How we got through God only knows. I heard Murphy bellowing to
+Elerson:</p>
+
+<p>"We're out! We're out! Pull foot, Davey, or the dirty Scutts
+will take your hair!"</p>
+
+<p>A Pennsylvania soldier, running heavily down hill ahead of me,
+was shot, sprang high into the air in one agonized bound, like a
+stricken hare, and fell forward under my very feet, so that I
+leaped over him as I ran. The Canadian coureur-de-bois was hit,
+but the bullet stung him to a speed incredible, and he flew on,
+screaming with pain, his broken arm flapping.</p>
+
+<p>Behind me I dared not look, but I knew the Seneca warriors
+were after us at full speed. Bullets whined and whizzed beside
+us, striking the trees on every side. A long slope of open woods
+now slanted away below us.</p>
+
+<p>As I ran, far ahead of me, among the trees, I saw men moving,
+yet dared not change my course. Then, as I drew nearer, I
+recognized Mr. Lodge, our surveyor, and Thomas Grant with the
+Jacob-staff, the four chain-bearers with the chain, and Corporal
+Calhawn, all standing stock still and gazing up the slope toward
+us.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment Grant dropped his Jacob-staff, turned and ran;
+the chain-men flung away their implements, and Mr. Lodge and the
+entire party, being totally unarmed, turned and fled, we on their
+heels, and behind us a score of yelling Senecas, now driven to
+frenzy by the sight of so much terrified game in flight.</p>
+
+<p>I saw poor Calhawn fall; I saw Grant run into the swamp below,
+shouting for help. Mr. Lodge, closely chased by a young warrior,
+ran toward a distant sentinel, and so eager was the Seneca to
+slay him that he chased the fleeing surveyor past the sentinel,
+and was shot in the back by the amazed soldier.</p>
+
+<p>And now, all along the edge of the morass where our pickets
+were posted, the bang! bang! bang! of musketry began. Murphy and
+Elerson bounded into safety; Ned McDonald, Garrett Putnam, the
+coureur-de-bais, and Jack Youse went staggering and reeling into
+the swamp. I attempted to follow them, but three Senecas cut me
+out, and, with bursting heart, I sheered off and ran parallel
+with them, striving to reach our lines, the sentinels firing at
+my pursuers and running forward to intercept them. Yet, so intent
+were these Seneca bloodhounds on my destruction that they never
+swerved under the running fire of musketry; and I was forced out
+and driven into the woods again to the northwest of our
+lines.</p>
+
+<p>Farther and farther away sounded the musketry in my ears,
+until the pounding pulses deadened and finally obliterated the
+sound. I could no longer carry the shattered and bloody fragment
+of my rifle, and dropped it. Bullet-pouch, shot-pouch,
+powder-horn, water-bottle, hatchet I let fall, keeping only my
+knife, belt, and the thin, flat wallet which contained my letters
+from Lois and my journal. Even my cap I flung away, moving always
+forward on a dog-trot, and ever twisting my sweat-drenched head
+to look behind.</p>
+
+<p>Several times I caught distant glimpses of my pursuers, and
+saw that they walked sometimes, as though exhausted. Yet, I dared
+not bear to the South, not knowing how many of them had continued
+on westward to cut me off from a return; so I jogged on
+northward, my heart nigh broken with misery and foreboding,
+sickened to the very soul with the memory of our slaughtered men
+upon the knoll. For of some thirty-odd riflemen, Indians, line
+soldiers, and scouts that Boyd had led out the night before, only
+Elerson, Murphy, McDonald, Youse, the coureur-de-bois, and I
+remained alive or untaken. Boyd was a prisoner, together with
+Sergeant Parker; all the others were dead to a man, excepting
+possibly my three Indians, Mayaro, Grey-Feather, and
+Tahoontowhee, who Boyd had sent in to report us before we had
+sighted the Senecas, and who might possibly have escaped the
+ambuscade.</p>
+
+<p>As I plodded on, I dared not let my imagination dwell on Boyd
+and Parker, for a dreadful instinct told me that the dead men on
+the knoll were better off. Yet, I tried to remember that a
+red-coated officer had taken Boyd, and one of Sir John's soldiers
+had captured Michael Parker. But I could find no comfort, no hope
+in this thought, because Walter Butler was there, and Hiokatoo,
+and McDonald, and all that bloody band. The Senecas would surely
+demand the prisoners. There was not one soul to speak a word for
+them, unless Brant were near. That noble and humane warrior alone
+could save them from the Seneca stake. And I feared he was at the
+burnt bridge with his Mohawks, facing our army as he always faced
+it, dauntless, adroit, resourceful, and terrible.</p>
+
+<p>A little stony stream ran down beside the trackless course I
+travelled and I seized the chance of confusing the tireless men
+who tracked me, and took to the stones, springing from one step
+to the next, taking care not to wet my moccasins, dislodge moss
+or lichen, or in any manner mark the stones I trod on or break or
+disturb the branches and leaves above me.</p>
+
+<p>The stream ran almost north as did all the little
+water-courses hereabouts, and for a long while I followed it,
+until at last, to my great relief, it divided; and I followed the
+branch that ran northeast. Again this branch forked; I took the
+eastern course until, on the right bank, I saw long, naked beds
+of rock stretching into low crags and curving eastward.</p>
+
+<p>Over this rock no Seneca could hope to track a cautious and
+hunted man. I walked sometimes, sometimes trotted; and so jogged
+on, bearing ever to the east and south, meaning to cross the
+Chinisee River north of the confluence, and pass clear around the
+head of the lake.</p>
+
+<p>Here I made my mistake by assuming that, as our pioneers must
+still be working on the burnt bridge, the enemy that had merely
+enveloped our party by curling around us his right flank, would
+again swing back to their bluffs along the lake, and, though hope
+of ambuscade was over, dispute the passage of the stream and the
+morass with our own people.</p>
+
+<p>But as I came out among the trees along the river bank, to my
+astonishment and alarm I saw an Indian house, and smoke curling
+from the chimney. So taken aback was I that I ran south to a
+great oak tree and stood behind it, striving to collect my
+thoughts and make out my proper bearings. But off again scattered
+every idea I had in my head, and I looked about me in a very
+panic, for I heard close at hand the barking of Indian dogs and a
+vast murmur of voices; and, peering out again from behind my tree
+I could see other houses close to the strip of forest where I
+hid, and the narrow lane between them was crowded with
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Where I was, what this town might be, I could not surmise; nor
+did I perceive any way out of this wasp's nest where I was now
+landed, except to retrace my trail. And that I dared not do.</p>
+
+<p>There was now a great shouting in the village as though some
+person had just made a speech and his audience remained in two
+nods concerning its import.</p>
+
+<p>Truly, this seemed to be no place for me; the woods were very
+open&#151; a sugar bush in all the gorgeous glory of scarlet,
+yellow, and purple foliage, heavily fringed with thickets of
+bushes and young hardwood growth, which for the moment had hid
+the town from me, and no doubt concealed me from the people close
+at hand. To retreat through such a strip of woodland was
+impossible without discovery. Besides, somewhere on my back trail
+were enemies, though just where I could not know. For a moment's
+despair, it seemed to me that only the wings of a bird could save
+me now; then, as I involuntarily cast my gaze aloft, the thought
+to climb followed; and up I went into the branches, where the
+blaze of foliage concealed me; and lay close to a great limb
+looking down over the top of the thicket to the open river bank.
+And what I saw astounded me; the enemy's baggage wagons were
+fording the river; his cattle-drove had just been herded across,
+and the open space was already full of his gaunt cows and
+oxen.</p>
+
+<p>Rangers and Greens pricked them forward with their bayonets,
+forcing them out of the opening and driving them northwest
+through the outskirts of the village. The wagons, horses, and
+vehicles, in a dreadful plight, followed the herd-guard. After
+them marched Butler's rear-guard, rangers, Greens, renegades,
+Indians sullenly turning their heads to listen and to gaze as the
+uproar from the village increased and burst into a very frenzy of
+diabolical yelling.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, out through the narrow lane or street surged
+hundreds of Seneca warriors, all clustering and crowding around
+something in the centre of the mass; and as the throng, now
+lurching this way, now driving that way, spread out over the
+cleared land up to the edges of the very thicket which I
+overlooked, my blood froze in my veins.</p>
+
+<p>For in the centre of that mass of painted, capering demons,
+walked Boyd and Parker, their bloodless faces set and grim, their
+heads carried high.</p>
+
+<p>Into this confusion drove the baggage wagons; the herd-guards
+began to shout angrily and drive back the Indians; the wagons
+drove slowly through the lane, the drivers looking down curiously
+at Boyd and his pallid companion, but not insulting them.</p>
+
+<p>One by one the battered and rickety wagons jolted by; then
+came the bloody and dishevelled soldiery plodding with shouldered
+muskets through the lanes of excited warriors, scarcely letting
+their haggard eyes rest on the two prisoners who stood,
+unpinioned in the front rank.</p>
+
+<p>A mounted officer, leaning from his saddle, asked the Senecas
+what they meant to do with these prisoners; and the ferocious
+response seemed to shock him, for he drew bridle and stared at
+Boyd as though fascinated.</p>
+
+<p>So near to where I lay was Boyd standing that I could see the
+checked quiver of his lips as he bit them to control his nerves
+before he spoke. Then he said to the mounted officer, in a
+perfectly even and distinct voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Can you not secure for us, sir, the civilized treatment of
+prisoners of war?"</p>
+
+<p>"I dare not interfere," faltered the officer, staring around
+at the sea of devilish faces.</p>
+
+<p>"And you, a white man, return me such a cowardly answer?"</p>
+
+<p>Another motley company came marching up from the river, led by
+a superb Mohawk Indian in full war-paint and feathers; and,
+blocked by the mounted officer in front, halted.</p>
+
+<p>I saw Boyd's despairing glance sweep their files; then
+suddenly his eyes brightened.</p>
+
+<p>"Brant!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>And then I saw that the splendid Mohawk leader was the great
+Thayendanegea himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Boyd," he said calmly, "I am sorry for you. I would help you
+if I could. But," he added, with a bitter smile, "there are those
+in authority among us who are more savage than those you white
+men call savages. One of these&#151; <i>gentlemen</i>&#151; has
+overruled me, denying my more humane counsel.... I am sorry,
+Boyd."</p>
+
+<p>"Brant!" he said in a ringing voice. "Look at me
+attentively!"</p>
+
+<p>"I look upon you, Boyd."</p>
+
+<p>Then something extraordinary happened; I saw Boyd make a quick
+sign; saw poor Parker imitate him; realized vaguely that it was
+the Masonic signal of distress.</p>
+
+<p>Brant remained absolutely motionless for a full minute;
+suddenly he sprang forward, pushed away the Senecas who
+immediately surrounded the prisoners, shoving them aside right
+and left so fiercely that in a moment the whole throng was
+wavering and shrinking back.</p>
+
+<p>Then Brant, facing the astonished warriors, laid his hand on
+Boyd's head and then on Parker's.</p>
+
+<p>"Senecas!" he said in a cold and ringing voice. "These men are
+mine; Let no man dare interfere with these two prisoners. They
+belong to me. I now give them my promise of safety. I take them
+under my protection&#151; I, Thayendanegea! I do not ask them of
+you; I take them. I do not explain why. I do not permit you&#151;
+not one among you to&#151; to question me. What I have done is
+done. It is Joseph Brant who has spoken!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned calmly to Boyd, said something in a low voice,
+turned sharply on his heel, and marched forward at the head of
+his company of Mohawks and halfbreeds.</p>
+
+<p>Then I saw Hiokatoo come up and stand glaring at Boyd, showing
+his teeth at him like a baffled wolf; and Boyd laughed in his
+face and seated himself on a log beside the path, coolly and
+insolently turning his back on the Seneca warriors, and leisurely
+lighting his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>Parker came and seated himself beside him; and they conversed
+in voices so low that I could not hear what they said, but Boyd
+smiled at intervals, and Parker's bruised visage relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>The Senecas had fallen back in a sullen line, their ferocious
+eyes never shifting from the two prisoners. Hiokatoo set four
+warriors to guard them, then, passing slowly in front of Boyd,
+spat on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Dog of a Seneca!" said Boyd fiercely. "What you touch you
+defile, stinking wolverine that you are!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dog of a white man!" retorted Hiokatoo. "You are not yet in
+your own kennel! Remember that!"</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>you</i> are!" said Boyd. "The stench betrays the
+wolverine! Go tell your filthy cubs that my young men are
+counting the scalps of your Cat-People and your Andastes, and
+that the mangy lock of Amochol shall be thrown to our swine!"</p>
+
+<p>Struck entirely speechless by such rash effrontery and by his
+own fury, the dreaded Seneca war-chief groped for his hatchet
+with trembling hands; but a warning hiss from one of his own
+Mountain Snakes on guard brought him to his senses.</p>
+
+<p>Such an embodiment of devilish fury I had never seen on any
+human countenance; only could it be matched in the lightning
+snarl of a surprised lynx or in the deadly stare of a
+rattlesnake. He uttered no sound; after a moment the thin lips,
+which had receded, sheathed the teeth again; and he walked to a
+tree and stood leaning against it as another company of Sir
+John's Royal Greens marched up from the river bank and continued
+northwest, passing between the tree where I lay concealed, and
+the log where Boyd and Parker sat.</p>
+
+<p>McDonald, mounted, naked claymore in his hand, came by,
+leading a company of his renegades. He grinned at Boyd, and
+passed his basket-hilt around his throat with a significant
+gesture, then grinned again.</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet, you Scotch loon!" said Boyd gently. "I'll live to
+pepper your kilted tatterdemalions so they'll beg for the mercies
+of Glencoe!"</p>
+
+<p>After that, for a long while only stragglers came limping
+by&#151; lank, bloody, starved creatures, who never even turned
+their sick eyes on the people they passed among.</p>
+
+<p>Then, after nearly half an hour, a full battalion of Johnson's
+Greens forded the river, and behind them came Butler's
+Rangers.</p>
+
+<p>Old John Butler, squatting his saddle like a weather-beaten
+toad, rode by with scarcely a glance at the prisoners; and Greens
+and Rangers passed on through the village and out of sight to the
+northwest.</p>
+
+<p>I had thought the defile was ended, when, looking back, I saw
+some Indians crossing the ford, carrying over a white officer. At
+first I supposed he was wounded, but soon saw that he had not
+desired to wet his boots.</p>
+
+<p>What had become of his horse I could only guess, for he wore
+spurs and sword, and the sombre uniform of the Rangers.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as he came up I saw that he was Walter Butler.</p>
+
+<p>As he approached, his dark eyes were fixed on the prisoners;
+and when he came opposite to them he halted.</p>
+
+<p>Boyd returned his insolent stare very coolly, continuing to
+smoke his pipe. Slowly the golden-brown eyes of Butler
+contracted, and into his pale, handsome, but sinister face crept
+a slight colour.</p>
+
+<p>"So you are Boyd!" he said menacingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am Boyd. What next?"</p>
+
+<p>"What next?" repeated Walter Butler. "Well, really I don't
+know, my impudent friend, but I strongly suspect the Seneca stake
+will come next."</p>
+
+<p>Boyd laughed: "We gave Brant a sign that you also should
+recognize. We are now under his protection."</p>
+
+<p>"What sign?" demanded Butler, his eyes becoming yellow and
+fixed. And, as Boyd carelessly repeated the rapid and mystical
+appeal, "Oh!" he said coolly. "So that is what you count on, is
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally."</p>
+
+<p>"With me also?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are a Mason."</p>
+
+<p>"Also," snarled Butler, "I am an officer in his British
+Majesty's service. Now, answer the questions I put to you. How
+many cannon did your Yankee General send back to Tioga after
+Catharines-town was burnt, and how many has he with him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose that I am going to answer your questions?"
+said Boyd, amused.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you will, Come, sir; what artillery is he bringing
+north with him?"</p>
+
+<p>And as Boyd merely looked at him with contempt, he stepped
+nearer, bent suddenly, and jerked Boyd to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"You Yankee dog!" he said; "Stand up when your betters
+stand!"</p>
+
+<p>Boyd reddened to his temples.</p>
+
+<p>"Murderer!" he said. "Does a gentleman stand in the presence
+of the Cherry Valley butcher?" And he seated himself again on his
+log.</p>
+
+<p>Butler's visage became deathly, and for a full minute he stood
+there in silence. Suddenly he turned, nodded to Hiokatoo, pointed
+at Boyd, then at Parker. Both prisoners rose as a yell of
+ferocious joy split the air from the Senecas. Then, wheeling on
+Boyd:</p>
+
+<p>"Will you answer my questions?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you refuse to answer the military questions put to you by
+an officer?"</p>
+
+<p>"No prisoner of war is compelled to do that!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken; I compel you to answer on pain of
+death!"</p>
+
+<p>"I refuse."</p>
+
+<p>Both men were deadly pale. Parker also had risen and was now
+standing beside Boyd.</p>
+
+<p>"I claim the civilized treatment due to an officer," said Boyd
+quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Refused unless you answer!"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not answer. I am under Brant's protection!"</p>
+
+<p>"Brant!" exclaimed Butler, his pallid visage contorted. "What
+do I care for Brant? Who is Brant to offer you immunity? By God,
+sir, I tell you that you shall answer my questions&#151; any I
+think fit to ask you&#151; every one of them&#151; or I turn you
+over to my Senecas!"</p>
+
+<p>"You dare not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Answer me, or you shall soon learn what I dare and dare not
+do!"</p>
+
+<p>Boyd, pale as a sheet, said slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"I do believe you capable of every infamy, Mr. Butler. I do
+believe, now, that the murderer of little children will sacrifice
+me to these Senecas if I do not answer his dishonorable
+questions. And so, believing this, and always holding your person
+in the utmost loathing and contempt, I refuse to reveal to you
+one single item concerning the army in which I have the honour
+and privilege to serve."</p>
+
+<p>"Take him!" said Butler to the crowding Senecas.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>I have never been able to bring myself to write down how my
+comrade died. Many have written something of his death, judging
+the manner of it from the condition in which his poor body was
+discovered the next day by our advance. Yet, even these have
+shrunk from writing any but the most general details, because the
+horror of the truth is indescribable, and not even the most
+callous mind could endure it all.</p>
+
+<p>God knows how I myself survived the swimming horror of that
+hellish scene&#151; for the stake was hewn and planted full
+within my view.... And it took him many hours to die&#151; all
+the long September afternoon.... And they never left him for one
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>No, I can not write it, nor could I even tell my comrades when
+they came up next day, how in detail died Thomas Boyd, lieutenant
+in my regiment of rifles. Only from what was left of him could
+they draw their horrible and unthinkable conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know whether I have more or less of courage than the
+usual man and soldier, but this I do know, that had I possessed a
+rifle where I lay concealed, long before they wrenched the first
+groan from his tortured body I would have fired at my comrade's
+heart and trusted to my Maker and my legs.</p>
+
+<p>No torture that I ever heard of or could ever have
+conceived&#151; no punishment, no agony, no Calvary ever has
+matched the hellish hideousness of the endless execution of this
+young man.... He was only twenty-two years old; only a lieutenant
+among the thousands who served their common motherland. No man
+who ever lived has died more bravely; none, perhaps, as horribly
+and as slowly. And it seemed as though in that powerful,
+symmetrical, magnificent body, even after it became scarcely
+recognizable as human, that the spark of life could not be
+extinguished even though it were cut into a million shreds and
+scattered to the winds like the fair body of Osiris.</p>
+
+<p>And this is all I care to say how it was that my comrade died,
+save that he endured bravely; and that while consciousness
+remained, not one secret would he reveal; not one plea for mercy
+escaped his lips.</p>
+
+<p>Parker died more swiftly and mercifully.</p>
+
+<p>It was after sunset when the Senecas left the place, but the
+sky above was still rosy. And as they slowly marched past the
+corpses of the two men whom they had slain, every Seneca drew his
+hatchet and shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"Salute! O Roya-neh!" fiercely honoring the dead bodies of the
+bravest men who had ever died in the Long House.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>On the following afternoon I ventured from my concealment, and
+was striving to dig a grave for my two comrades, using my knife
+to do it, when the riflemen of our advance discovered me across
+the river.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later I looked up, my eyes blinded by tears, as the
+arm of the Sagamore was flung round my shoulders, and the hands
+of the Grey-Feather and Tahoontowhee timidly sought mine.</p>
+
+<p>"Brother!" they said gently.</p>
+
+<p>*"Tekasenthos, O Sagamore!!' I whispered, dropping my head on
+his broad shoulder. "Issi tye-y-ad-akeron, akwah
+de-ya-kon-akor-on-don!"</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "I weep, O Sagamore! Yonder are lying
+bodies, yea, and of chiefs!"]</p>
+
+<h3>CHAPTER XXII</h3>
+
+<h4>MES ADIEUX</h4>
+
+<p>For my acquaintances in and outside of the army, and for my
+friends and relatives, this narrative has been written; and if in
+these pages I have seemed to present myself, my thoughts, and
+behaviour as matters of undue importance, it is not done so
+purposely or willingly, but because I knew no better method of
+making from my daily journal the story of the times and of the
+events witnessed by me, and of which I was a small and modest
+part.</p>
+
+<p>It is very true that no two people, even when standing
+shoulder to shoulder, ever see the same episode in the same
+manner, or draw similar conclusions concerning any event so
+witnessed. Yet, except from hearsay, how is an individual to
+describe his times except in the light of personal experience and
+of the emotions of the moment so derived?</p>
+
+<p>In active events, self looms large, even in the crisis of
+supreme self-sacrifice. In the passive part, which even the most
+active among us play for the greater portion of our lives, self
+is merged in the detached and impersonal interest which we take
+in what passes before our eyes. Yet must we describe these things
+only as they are designed and coloured by our proper eyes, and
+therefore, with no greater hope of accuracy than to approximate
+to the general and composite truth.</p>
+
+<p>Of any intentional injustice to our enemies, their country,
+and their red allies, I do not hesitate to acquit myself; yet,
+because I have related the history of this campaign as seen
+through the eyes of a soldier of the United States, so I would
+not deny that these same and daily episodes, as seen by a British
+soldier, might wear forms and colours very different, and yet be
+as near to the truth as any observations of my own.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, without diffidence or hesitation&#151; because I
+have explained myself&#151; and prejudiced by an unalterable
+belief in the cause which I have had the honour and happiness to
+serve, it is proper that I bring my narrative of these three
+months to a conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>With these same three months the days of my youth also ended.
+No stripling could pass through those scenes and emerge still
+immature. The test was too terrible; the tragedy too profound;
+the very setting of the tremendous scene&#151; all its monstrous
+and gigantic accessories&#151; left an impression ineradicable
+upon the soul. Adolescence matured to manhood in those days of
+iron; youthful ignorance became stern experience, sobering with
+its enduring leaven the serious years to come.</p>
+
+<p> </p>
+
+<p>I remember every separate event after the tragedy of
+Chenundana, where they found me dazed with grief and privation,
+digging with my broken hunting knife a grave for my dead
+companions.</p>
+
+<p>The horror of their taking off passed from my shocked brain as
+the exigencies of the perilous moments increased, demanding of me
+constant and untiring effort, and piling upon my shoulders
+responsibilities that left no room for morbid brooding or even
+for the momentary inaction of grief.</p>
+
+<p>From Tioga, Colonel Shreve sent forward to us a wagon train of
+provisions, even wines and delicacies for our sick and wounded;
+but even with this slight aid our men remained on half rations;
+and for all our voluntary sacrifice we could not hope now to
+reach Niagara and deliver the final blow to that squirming den of
+serpents.</p>
+
+<p>True, Amochol was dead; but Walter Butler lived. And there was
+now no hope of reaching him. Bag and baggage, horse, foot, and
+Indians, he had gone clear out of sight and sound into a vast and
+trackless wilderness which we might not hope to penetrate
+because, even on half rations, we had now scarcely enough flour
+left to take us back to the frontiers of civilization.</p>
+
+<p>Of our artillery we had only a light piece or two left, and
+the cohorn; of cattle we had scarcely any; of wagons and horses
+very few, having killed and eaten the more worn-out animals at
+Horseheads. Only the regimental wagons contained any flour; half
+our officers were without mounts; ammunition was failing us; and
+between us and our frontiers lay the ashes of the Dark Empire and
+hundreds of miles of a wilderness so dreary and so difficult that
+we often wondered whether it was possible for human endurance to
+undergo the endless marches of a safe return.</p>
+
+<p>But our task was ended; and when we set our faces toward home,
+every man in our ragged, muddy, brier-torn columns knew in his
+heart that the power of the Iroquois Empire was broken forever.
+Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, might still threaten and even strike
+like crippled snakes; but the Long House lay in ashes, and the
+heart of every Indian in it was burnt out.</p>
+
+<p>Swinging out our wings east and west as we set our homeward
+course, burning and destroying all that we had hitherto spared,
+purposely or by accident, we started south; and from the
+fifteenth of September until the thirtieth the only living human
+being we encountered was the aged squaw we had left at
+Catharines.</p>
+
+<p>Never had I seen such a desolation of utter destruction, for
+amid the endless ocean of trees every oasis was a blackened
+waste, every town but a heap of sodden ashes, every garden a mass
+of decay, rotting under the autumn sun.</p>
+
+<p>On the 30th of September, we marched into Tioga Fort, Colonel
+Shreve's cannon thundering their welcome, and Colonel Proctor's
+artillery band playing a most stirring air. But Lord! What a
+ragged, half-starved army it was! Though we cared nothing for
+that, so glad were we to see our flag flying and the batteaux
+lying in the river. And the music of the artillery filled me with
+solemn thoughts, for I thought of Lois and of Lana; and of Boyd,
+where he lay in his solitary grave under the frosty stars.</p>
+
+<p>On the third of October, the army was in marching order once
+more; Colonel Shreve blew up the Tioga military works; the
+invalids, women and children, and some of the regiments went by
+batteaux; but we marched for Wyoming, passing through it on the
+tenth, and arriving at Easton on the fifteenth.</p>
+
+<p>And I remember that, starved as we were, dusty, bloody with
+briers, and half naked, regiment after regiment halted, sent back
+for their wagons, combed out and tied their hair, and used the
+last precious cupfulls of flour to powder their polls, so that
+their heads, at least might make a military appearance as they
+marched through the stone-built town of Easton.</p>
+
+<p>And so, with sprigs of green to cock their hats, well floured
+hair, and scarce a pair of breeches to a company, our rascals
+footed it proudly into Easton town, fifes squealing, drums
+rattling, and all the church bells and the artillery of the place
+clanging and booming out a welcome to the sorriest-clad army that
+ever entered a town since Falstaff hesitated to lead his naked
+rogues through Coventry.</p>
+
+<p>Here the thanksgiving service was held; and Lord, how we did
+eat afterward! But for the rest or repose which any among us
+might have been innocent enough to suppose the army had earned,
+none was meted out. Nenny! For instead, marching orders awaited
+us, and sufficient clothing to cool our blushes; and off we
+marched to join His Excellency's army in the Highlands; for what
+with the new Spanish alliance and the arrival of the French
+fleet, matters were now stewing and trouble a-brewing for Sir
+Henry. They told us that His Excellency required pepper for the
+dose, therefore had he sent for us to mix us into the red-hot
+draught that Sir Henry and my Lord Cornwallis must presently
+prepare to swallow.</p>
+
+<p>I had not had a letter or any word from Lois at Fort Tioga. At
+Easton there was a letter which, she wrote, might not reach me;
+but in it she said that they had taken lodgings in Albany near to
+the house of Lana Helmer; that Mr. Hake had been more than kind;
+that she and her dear mother awaited news of our army with
+tenderest anxiety, but that up to the moment of writing no news
+was to be had, not even any rumours.</p>
+
+<p>Her letter told me little more, save that her mother and Mr.
+Hake had conferred concerning the estate of her late father; and
+that Mr. Hake was making preparations to substantiate her
+mother's claim to the small property of the family in
+France&#151; a house, a tiny hamlet, and some vineyards, called
+by the family name of Contrecoeur, which meant her mother
+<i>was</i> her father's wedded wife.</p>
+
+<p>"Also," she wrote, "my mother has told me that there are in
+the house some books and pictures and pretty joyeaux which were
+beloved by my father, and which he gave to her when she came to
+Contrecoeur, a bride. Also that her dot was still untouched,
+which, with her legal interest in my father's property, would
+suffice to properly endow me, and still leave sufficient to
+maintain her.</p>
+
+<p>"So you see, Euan, that the half naked little gypsy of
+Poundridge camp comes not entirely shameless to her husband after
+all. Oh, my own soldier, hasten&#151; hasten! Every day I hear
+drums in Albany streets and run out to see; every evening I sit
+with my mother on the stoop and watch the river redden in the
+sunset. Over the sandy plains of pines comes blowing the wind of
+the Western wilderness. I feel its breath on my cheek, faintly
+frosty, and wonder if the same wind had also touched your dear
+face ere it blew east to me."</p>
+
+<p>Often I read this letter on the march to the Hudson; ever
+wondering at the history of this sweet mistress of my affections,
+marvelling at its mystery, its wonders, and eternally amazed at
+this young girl's courage, her loyalty and chaste devotion.</p>
+
+<p>I remember one day when we were halted at a cavalry camp, not
+far from the Hudson, conversing with three soldiers&#151; Van
+Campen, Perry, and Paul Sanborn, they being the three men who
+first discovered poor Boyd's body; and then noticed me a-digging
+in the earth with bleeding fingers and a broken blade.</p>
+
+<p>And they knew the history of Lois, and how she had dressed her
+in rifle-dress, and how she had come to French Catharines. And
+they told me that in the cavalry camp there was talk of a young
+English girl, not yet sixteen, who had clipped her hair, tied it
+in a queue, powdered it, donned jack-boots, belt, and helmet, and
+come across the seas enlisted in a regiment of British Horse,
+with the vague idea of seeking her lover who had gone to America
+with his regiment.</p>
+
+<p>Further, they told me that, until taken by our men in a
+skirmish, her own comrades had not suspected her sex; that she
+was a slim, boyish, pretty thing; that His Excellency had caused
+inquiry to be made; and that it had been discovered that her
+lover was serving in Sir John's regiment of Royal Greens.</p>
+
+<p>This was a true story, it seemed; and that very morning His
+Excellency had sent her North to Haldimand with a flag, offering
+her every courtesy and civility and recommendation within his
+power.</p>
+
+<p>Which pretty history left me very thoughtful, revealing as it
+did to me that my own heart's mistress was not the solitary and
+bright exception in a sex which, like other men, I had deemed
+inferior in every virile and mental virtue, and only spiritually
+superior to my own. And I remembered the proud position of social
+and political equality enjoyed by the women of the Long House;
+and vaguely thought it was possible that in this matter the
+Iroquois Confederacy was even more advanced in civilization than
+the white nations, who regarded its inhabitants as debased and
+brutal savages.</p>
+
+<p>In three months I had seen an Empire crash to the ground;
+already in the prophetic and visionary eyes of our ragged
+soldiery, a mightier empire was beginning to crumble under the
+blasts from the blackened muzzles of our muskets. Soon kings
+would live only in the tales of yesterday, and the unending
+thunder of artillery would die away, and the clouds would break
+above the smoky field, revealing as our very own all we had
+battled for so long&#151; the right to live our lives in freedom,
+self-respect, and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>And I wondered whether generations not yet born would pay to
+us the noble tribute which the sons of the Long House so often
+and reverently offered to the dead who had made for them their
+League of Peace&#151; alas! now shattered for all time.</p>
+
+<p>And in my ears the deep responses seemed to sound, solemnly
+and low, as the uncorrupted priesthood chanted at Thendara:</p>
+
+<blockquote>"Continue to listen,<br>
+Thou who wert ruler,<br>
+  <i>Ayonhwahtha!</i><br>
+Continue to listen,<br>
+Thou who wert ruler,<br>
+  <i>Shatekariwate!</i><br>
+<p><br>
+This was the roll of you,<br>
+You who have laboured,<br>
+You who completed<br>
+The Great League!<br>
+</p>
+
+<p><br>
+Continue to listen,<br>
+Thou who wert ruler,<br>
+  <i>Sharenhaowane!</i><br>
+Continue to listen,<br>
+Thou who wert ruler&#151; "<br>
+</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>And the line of their noble hymn, the "Karenna": "I come again
+to greet and thank the women!"</p>
+
+<p>Lord! A great and noble civilization died when the first
+cancerous contact of the lesser scratched its living Eastern
+Gate.</p>
+
+<p>* "Hiya-thondek! Kahiaton. Kadi-kadon."</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "Listen! It is written. Therefore, I
+speak."]</p>
+
+<p>My commission as lieutenant in the 6th company of Morgan's
+Rifles afforded me only mixed emotions, but became pleasurable
+when I understood that staff duty as interpreter and chief of
+Indian guides permitted me to attach to my person not only
+Mayaro, the Mohican Sagamore, but also my Oneidas, Grey-Feather
+and Tahoontowhee.</p>
+
+<p>Mounted service the two Oneidas abhorred, preferring to trot
+along on either side of me; but the Sagamore, being a Siwanois,
+was a horseman, and truly he presented a superb figure as the
+handsome General and his staff led the New York brigade into the
+city of Albany, our battered old drums thundering, our fifes
+awaking the echoes in the old Dutch city, and our pretty faded
+colors floating in the primrose light of early evening.</p>
+
+<p>Right and left I glanced as we rode up the hilly street; and
+suddenly saw Lois! And so craned my head and twisted my neck and
+fidgeted that the General, who was sometimes humorous, and who
+was perfectly acquainted with my history, said to me that I had
+his permission to ride standing on my head if I liked, but for
+the sake of military decency he preferred that I dismount at once
+and make my manners otherwise to my affianced wife.</p>
+
+<p>Which I lost no time in doing, not noticing that my Indians
+were following me, and drew bridle at the side-path and
+dismounted.</p>
+
+<p>But where, in the purple evening light, Lois had been standing
+on her stoop, now there was nobody, though the front door was
+open wide. So I ran across the street between the passing ranks
+of Gansevoort's infantry, sprang up the steps, and entered the
+dusky house. Through the twilight of the polished hallway she
+came forward, caught me around the neck with a low cry, clung to
+me closer as I kissed her, holding to me in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, the racketting drums of a passing regiment filled the
+house with crashing echoes. When the noise had died away again,
+and the drums of the next regiment were still distant, she
+loosened her arms, whispering my name, and framing my face with
+her slim hands.</p>
+
+<p>Then, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of three
+tall and shadowy figures hovering in the doorway. Lois saw them,
+too, and stretched out one hand. One after another my three
+Indians came to her, bent their stately crests in silence, took
+her small hand, and laid it on their hearts.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I bid them to dine with us tomorrow?" she
+whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Bid them."</p>
+
+<p>So she asked them a trifle shyly, and they thanked her
+gravely, turned one by one to take a silent leave of me, then
+went noiselessly out into the early dusk.</p>
+
+<p>"Euan, my dear mother is awaiting you in our best room."</p>
+
+<p>"I will instantly pay my duties and&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lana is there also."</p>
+
+<p>"Does she know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. God help her and the young thing she has taken to her
+heart. The news came by courier a week ago."</p>
+
+<p>"How he died? Does she know?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Euan! Yes, we all know now!... I have scarce slept since
+I heard, thinking of you.... When you have paid your respects to
+my mother and to Lana, come quietly away with me again. Lana has
+been weeping&#151; what with the distant music of the approaching
+regiments, and the memory of him who will come no
+more&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p>"I understand."</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her face to mine, laying her hands upon my
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Dost thou truly love me, Lois?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>* "Sat-kah-tos," she murmured.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "Thou seest."]</p>
+
+<p>* "Se-non-wes?" I insisted.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "Dost thou love?"]</p>
+
+<p>* "Ke-non-wes, O Loskiel." Her arms tightened around my neck,
+"Ai-hai! Ae-saya-tyen-endon!
+Ae-sah-hah-i-yen-en-hon&#151;&#151;"</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">[* "I love thee, O Loskiel... Ah, thou
+mightest have been destroyed! If thou hadst perished by the
+wayside&#151;&#151;"]</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, dearest&#151; dearest maid. 'Twixt God and Tharon,
+nothing can harm us now."</p>
+
+<p>And I heard the faint murmur of her lips on mine:</p>
+
+<p>"Etho, ke-non-wes. Nothing can harm us now."</p>
+
+<p class="center" align="center">THE END</p>
+
+
+<pre>
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE HIDDEN CHILDREN ***
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