path: root/70077-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 70077 ***








[Illustration: Front end paper--left portion]


[Illustration: Front end paper--right portion]




  BEYOND THE SUNSET


  BY

  ARTHUR D. HOWDEN SMITH

  AUTHOR OF "THE DOOM TRAIL"


  NEW YORK
  BRENTANO'S
  PUBLISHERS




  COPYRIGHT, 1923
  BY BRENTANO'S

  COPYRIGHT, 1923
  BY THE RIDGEWAY COMPANY

  First Printing . . . January, 1923.
  Second   "     . . . February, 1923


  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




  CONTENTS


  CHAPTER

  I  I Am Saved from Myself
  II  The Wilderness Trail
  III  The Shawnee Scalp-Hunters
  IV  A Meeting in the Wilderness
  V  The Father of Waters
  VI  We Cross the Great River
  VII  The Country of the Dakota
  VIII  The Fight for the Herd
  IX  The Horse Stealers
  X  The Wolf-Brothers
  XI  The Mountain That Was God
  XII  The Altar of Tamanoas
  XIII  We Turn Back
  XIV  The Squat Bowmen
  XV  Kachina
  XVI  In Homolobi
  XVII  The Web of Destiny
  XVIII  Tawannears' Search Is Ended
  XIX  Peter's Boulder
  XX  The Spotted Stallion
  XXI  The Stampede
  XXII  Our Trade with the Tonkawas
  XXIII  My Orenda Saves Us
  XXIV  A Prophet in Spite of Himself
  XXV  Homeward
  XXVI  The End of the Trail




BEYOND THE SUNSET



CHAPTER I

I AM SAVED FROM MYSELF

There is none like your wanderer to settle himself coseywise by a
warm hearth.  An outcast and adventurer from boyhood, exiled from
England for adherence to the Pretender, my estates forfeited,
dependent for bread upon the earnings of my sword in a foreign
service, Fate tossed me across the broad Atlantic to this New World
of ours--and in one short year I had found Marjory and fortune!

I became straightway as sedate as any Dutch burgher betwixt Port
George and the stockade of the Outward.  Camp-bred and
forest-schooled, I yet discovered zest in the problems of merchantry
and exulted in the petty tasks of the householder.  I was a model of
husbandry.  But Fate was not satisfied with its work.  Two years of
joy I had; then came the fever that the Portuguese snow brought north
from the Main to scourge New York.  In a week my joy was turned to
ashes.  She, who had braved the perils of the wilderness with me,
wilted and died.

But there is justice in Fate.  Give it time, and 'twill rebuild what
it has marred, provided always that we who are its toys keep heads up
and courage undaunted--easier deeds to write of than to perform, God
knows.  And truly, the day Fate stepped forward to redress the
balance found me with head bowed and spirit breaking, treading
bitterly the narrow groove of duties I lacked the will to escape.

I sat at my desk in the counting-room, fumbling through a file of
papers.  There was a breath of Spring in the air, and outside in the
trees of Pearl Street the bluebirds and robins bickered together, and
the people who passed the door were no less irresponsibly gay.  In
all New York, it seemed, none save I lacked cause for pleasure.  John
Allen, the young Dorset bondman whose liberty I had purchased when I
hired him for clerk, whistled between his teeth as he labored his
quill across the ledgers--when he was not glancing askance at me.
Upstairs I heard the crooning of Scots Elspeth, and the strident
plaint of my son objecting to her ministrations.

Why should that baby voice be potent only to evoke for me the bitter
memories of my loss?  I frowned as I sanded the last sheet of a
letter to my London correspondents.

"An early Spring after an easy Winter," remarked Allen tentatively.
"That should mean a rare flood of furs from the far savages, Master
Ormerod."

I growled an assent.  I knew the boy meant well.  He was ever trying
to draw me out of myself.

Upstairs a door opened, and a yelp of infant glee rang in my ears.  I
leaped to my feet and ran into the hall.

"Elspeth!" I roared.

Her plump features and decent gray locks appeared at the upper
landing.

"Eh, sir!" she answered.  "I can hear ye fine."

"And I can hear naught but mouthing of silly rhymes and puling
babble," I snapped savagely.

"And gey prrroud ye micht well be of that same," she retorted.  "It's
what ma douce lamb that's gone wad be tellin' ye, if----"

'Twas hopeless to argue with her, and cursing, I crossed the lower
hall to the room I devoted to my private affairs and slammed the door
after me.  But even as I sank into the chair beside the cold hearth,
I knew that I might not find escape from that sweet ghost that
haunted me, so real, so vital--yet so remote.  Wherever I went in
that house she followed me.  It was as if she sat now in the opposite
chair, a bit of embroidery in her lap, her brown eyes dwelling fondly
on my face.

I rose and walked to the window, turning my back on the picture which
persisted in shaping itself upon the hearth-rug.  Westward across the
houseroofs that stretched to Hudson's River the sun was slowly
sinking in one of those magnificent displays of coloring that only
the New World can show.  It meant nothing to me.  I turned
impatiently, and retraced my steps.

A myriad ghosts swarmed before my eyes, ghosts of London, of Paris,
of the wilderness, of many other places, kings, queens, great lords,
priests, soldiers, merchants, heroes and cowards, honest men and
scoundrels, Indians in war paint, courtiers in five-pound
ruffles--but in front of them all stood the one ghost I could never
avoid, lips always parted as if for a kiss, brown eyes glowing with
love.

I shuddered.

The door opened behind me.

"Master Ormerod!"  'Twas Allen.  "I knocked, but you did not hear.
There are gentry to see you, sir."

"I'm in no mood to see people," I answered fiercely.

"But these----"

"Send them away.  I'll not be annoyed with them."

The door was thrown open again with a crash.

"How now, Ormerod," bellowed a choleric voice.  "Is this the way to
treat my dignity, let alone my friendship?  Must you keep me cooling
my heels on your doorstep the while you consider the order of my
admittance?  Look to yourself, lad, or I'll have you shackled in the
dungeons of Fort George.  Ay, and there's another hath reason for
distemper with you.  Whilst I have walked so far from the Bowling
Green, he is new-arrived from the Iroquois country, and mainly that
he may deliver you a belt, if what I hear be true."

I jumped to my feet, shocked out of my evil mood, and chagrined by
the discourtesy I had put upon the greatest man in our province, ay,
the governor himself, Master Burnet, to whom we all owe more than we
shall ever be able to repay for the diligent statecraft with which he
nursed our community to increased wealth and prosperity.  I know
there are those who cry out against him, more especially since he was
transferred to Massachusetts to wrestle with the dour Puritan folk
and fell foul of their sanctimonious ways and contentious habits; but
I account such no more than fools.  He had a stern eye for the king's
prerogatives, I grant you, and a jealous opinion of his own
authority.  But on questions of policy he was right ten times where
his antagonists were right once.

He was a stout personage, ruddy of countenance and with strongly
carved features, blunt, dogmatic, yet quaintly logical, a staunch
friend and a fearless foe.  He stood now in the doorway, feet planted
wide, and drove home his words with thuds of his cane.

"Your Excellency!" I gasped.  "I was at fault.  I pray you----"

"Tush!"

He waved his hand in a gesture of derision, but a kindly gleam showed
in his prominent eyes.

"Say no more, lad.  I know what is wrong with you.  'Tis that brings
me here--and other friends, too."

He stepped aside, and I exclaimed with surprise as my eyes discerned
the two figures that slipped noiselessly out of the hall shadows.

"Tawannears!  Peter!"

The first was an Indian, whose lithe body was naked above the tanned
deerskin thigh-leggins and gaka, or breechcloth.  On his chest was
painted a wolf's head in yellow, white and black pigments.  Tomahawk
and knife hung in sheaths against either thigh.  A single
eagle's-feather was thrust into his scalp-lock.  His bronzed face,
with its high-arched nose, broad forehead and square jaw, was lit by
a grim smile.

"Kwa, Otetiani,"* he said, giving me the Indian name that the Keepers
of the Faith had bestowed in placing me upon the roll of the Wolf
Clan of the Senecas.


* "Hail.  Always-ready."


And he lifted his right hand arm-high in the splendid Iroquois
gesture of salutation.  I answered as befitted one who was not only
my Clan brother and friend, but the war chief of the Great League,
and as such, Warden of the Western Door of the Long House.

After him entered a mountain of a man, whose vast bulk was absurdly
over-emphasized by the loose shirt and trousers of buckskin he wore
and the coonskin cap that crowned his lank yellow locks.  Others
might be deceived by the rolls of fat, the huge paunch, the stupid
simplicity of the broad, flat face, with insignificant features
dabbed here and there, the little mild blue eyes that blinked behind
ramparts of loose flesh, but I knew Peter Corlaer for the strongest,
craftiest forest-runner of the frontier.  Beneath his layers of
blubber were muscles of forged steel and capacities for endurance
that had never been plumbed.

"Zounds, man, but I'm glad to see you," I cried, trusting my fingers
to his bear's grip.

"_Ja_," he answered vacantly in a tiny squeaky voice that issued
incongruously from his immense frame.

I saw Allen staring at him in amazement, and I could not restrain a
laugh--I who had not smiled in six months.

"I shall be merry now, John," I said.  "They are old friends I had
not expected to see so soon."

The governor clapped his hand on the clerk's shoulder.

"Ay, my lad, y'are safe to leave your master with us," he said in his
kindly fashion.  "Y'are a good youth.  We have room for your like in
New York.  Here what ye have been matters not.  'Tis what ye are that
counts.  But leave us now, for we have much to discuss."

I turned again to Tawannears, as Allen closed the door behind him.

"What brings you, brother?  You are welcome--that I need not say.
But you two are the last I should have looked to see walk in here out
of Pearl Street.  Tell me all!  How are my brethren of the Long
House?  Have any challenged the Warders of the Door?  What news from
beyond the Lakes?  Are the French----?"

"God-a-mercy!" protested Master Burnet.  "Accept reason, Ormerod.  A
question at a time, and in due order, if it pleases you.  And may a
guest sit in your house?"

I laughed again--as I doubt not he intended--and waved to all three
of them.

"Prithee, content yourselves," I bade.  "Y'are not such strangers as
to require an invitation."

The governor let himself down into my armchair.  Tawannears, his
white teeth exposed in a pleasant grin--for, like all Indians, he had
a keen sense of humor--sank upon the bearskin rug, and after a
moment's hesitation, Corlaer imitated him.

"My brother will not take it amiss if Corlaer and Tawannears slight
his chairs?" inquired the Indian in his cadenced, musical English
that took on something of the sonorous rhythm of his own tongue.  "We
forest people are not used to setting our haunches at right angles to
our feet.  I learned much from the missionaries when I went to school
with them as a boy, Gaengwarago,* but I never became accustomed to
the white man's chairs.  Hawenneyu, the Great Spirit, meant the earth
to sit on, as well as to walk on.  It is the only chair I know."


* "Great Swift Arrow"--Indian name for Governor of New York.


"But Corlaer, it seems, has been to school to your people to better
advantage than you were with us," retorted the governor.

"The white man learns more readily than the Indian," affirmed the
Seneca.  "That is the reason why he will some day push the Indian
from his path."

"From his path?" I repeated, interested as always in the thoughts of
this learned savage, who combined in his own mind to an amazing
degree the philosophy of the civilized white man and the mental
reactions of his untutored people.

"Yes, brother," he answered.  "The time will come when the white man
will push the Indian out of all this country."

"But where will your people go?" I asked.

"Who knows?  Only Hawenneyu can tell.  Perhaps he will care for them
in some new land, out there, beyond the sunset."

And Tawannears waved his hand toward the kindling glory that overhung
the west.

The governor leaned forward in his chair.

"Ay, that was what I had in my mind," he declared.  "What lies there
beyond the sunset?  You know something of it, Tawannears, but you do
not know all.  'Tis knowledge of that I crave.  In a manner of
speaking 'tis that brings us together here."

He was silent for a moment, and we all watched him, resting his chin
upon the clasped hands that supported his cane, his eyes glued upon
the Western sky.

"Tell your story, Tawannears," he said abruptly.  "That is the
simplest way to expound an involved situation.  And do you heed him,
Ormerod.  There is more than a whim of mine in this.  It may be your
own future well-being is at stake."

I fixed my eyes upon the Indian's face.

"Yes, tell your story," I urged.

He bowed his head in assent.

"I will tell, brother.  Tawannears speaks also for Corlaer.  Is it
not so, Peter?"

The big Dutchman's mouth opened to emit a shrill "_Ja_."

"First, my brother, Ormerod, whom we of the Hodenosaunee* call
Otetiani," the Indian resumed, "I will strive to answer the questions
that you asked.  I bring you greetings from your foster-father, my
uncle, the Royaneh** Donehogaweh.  He bids me say to you that his
heart longs for his white son.  He keeps a place always prepared for
you in his lodge.  He took counsel with me before I left the Long
House, and advised me to seek you out.  All is well with my people.
The Western Door is secure.  No enemies have challenged it.  But
Tawannears has been idle, and so his thoughts have turned to the
hunger in his heart, that my brother will remember was there in other
days."


* People of the Long House.

** Hereditary chief, erroneously called sachem.


He rose to his feet, like all Indian orators, unable to find comfort
in delivery whilst seated.  Arms folded across his naked chest, his
eagle's-feather well-nigh touching the ceiling, he towered above us,
an incarnate spirit of the Wilderness.

"My brother has not forgotten that once Tawannears loved a maid of
his people, daughter of your foster-father, who was called Gahano,
and was stolen from him by a French dog, and who died that Tawannears
might live.

"My brother knows that there is an old tale of my people that the
Lost Souls of the dead go to the Land of the Lost Souls which is
ruled by Ataentsic* and her grandson Jousekeha, which is beyond
Dayedadogowar, the Great Home Of The Winds, beyond Haniskaonogeh, the
Dwelling Place of The Evil-minded, ay, beyond the setting sun.


* She Whose Body Is Ancient.


"My brother knows it is said that once a warrior of my people,
placing his trust in Hawenneyu and the Honochenokeh,* traveled
westward after the Setting Sun, and daring all things, came at last
to the Land of the Lost Souls, where he found a maiden whom he had
loved dancing with other Lost Souls before Ataentsic.  And Jouskeha,
taking pity on his love, gave him a hollowed pumpkin, and they placed
the Lost Soul of the maiden in the pumpkin, and the warrior carried
it back to the Long House, and his people made a feast and they
raised up the soul of the maiden from the pumpkin shell.


* Subordinate Good Spirits.


"My brother remembers that two Winters since Tawannears and Corlaer
left the Long House to search for the Land of Lost Souls, but there
was trouble between the Hodenosaunee and the Shawnee, and whilst
Tawannears and Corlaer were in the country of the Dakota, across the
great river Mississippi, they were called back by a message from the
Hoyarnagowar.*  Six young warriors of ten lost their lives that the
message might be delivered.  Tawannears returned.  Since then he has
discharged the duties of his people.  Now he is free again."


* The Council of the Royanehs, governing body of the Iroquois.


He took a step toward me, his face blazing with the keen intelligence
that was his outstanding characteristic.

"Oh, my brother, so much I have said of Tawannears.  I speak next of
you.  Word came to Deonundagaa* in the first moon of the Winter that
the flower that had twined around your heart had withered and died.
Oh, my brother, great was our grief; but in grief words are as
nothing.  I thought.  I knew your loss because I, too, had suffered
it.  It said to myself: 'Otetiani is a man.  He cannot weep.  He has
withstood the torture-stake.  But he will suffer greatly in his
mind--even as I have suffered.  What will aid him?"


* Chief Village of the Senecas and site of the Western Door.


"And then, oh, my brother, I saw what should be done.  I summoned
Corlaer, and I said to him: 'We will go to New York and find our
brother Ormerod and take him with us to hunt again for the Land of
Lost Souls.  A strange trail is best for the man whose mind is
burdened with sad thoughts.  If we find the Land of Lost Souls,
perhaps the souls of the white people will be there, and he may
recover her whom he has lost.  If we find nothing, still he will have
the journey, strange trails, new countries--and the pain in his heart
will be dulled.'

"So, my brother, Corlaer and Tawannears came to New York, and lest my
thought should be a wrong one--for Tawannears, after all, is an
Indian and cannot know always what is best for a white man--we went
first to Gaengwarago, who is wise in the ways of all people, and
spoke with him.  And now it is time for him to deliver his judgment.

"_Na-ho._"*


* "I have finished."


"But, Tawannears," I cried, as he dropped gracefully to the floor,
"you forget that I am a Christian!  My religion tells me nothing of a
land whence the dead may be recovered.  Think, brother, you were
schooled in the natural sciences by the missionaries.  How can you
credit this--this myth.  'Tis true I have heard you tell it before,
and I forebore to question because I would not add to your sorrow.
But now I may not pass it by in silence.  Forgive me, brother, if my
words hurt you.  I strive to speak with a straight tongue, as
brothers should."

He lifted tranquil eyes to mine from his seat on the bearskin.

"My brother does not hurt Tawannears," he said.  "A straight tongue
cannot hurt.  Brothers often disagree.  It is true that the
missionaries taught me as you say.  It is true that I have read the
Bible.  The missionaries are good men.  The Bible is a good Book.
There is wisdom in it.  But the men who wrote it did not even know
that the Indians existed.  They had never heard of this country.
How, then, brother, could they know what the Great Spirit devised for
the Indian?  No, Ormerod, I think that the Great Spirit who made the
world, who put the salt water in the ocean, which men use only for
travel, and fresh water in the rivers, where men go to drink, may
well have created a different after-world for the Indian than for the
white man."

"Nay," I insisted, overwrought by this mingling of superstition and
rare friendship coming on the heels of my mental anguish.  "The soul
that leaves the body is bodiless.  It cannot be touched or seen.
Remember, Tawannears, the Great Spirit sent His Son to dwell awhile
with the white men, to give His life for the saving of mankind.  Yet
He said naught of this belief of yours."

Tawannears smiled scornfully.

"That is why I reject your religion, brother.  It cannot be complete
if it does not include the Indian, for the Indian has a soul as has
the white man.  But I say again: I promise nothing.  I shall seek.
Hawenneyu, and Tharon the Sky-holder, will decide if it is best for
me to find--as for you, also.  Life, brother, is a search.  Religion
is a struggle.  I seek for what I love.  I struggle for truth and
justice.  And I believe that the Great Spirit thinks of the Indian as
often as he does of the white man."

Master Burnet tapped his cane on the floor.

"You waste time, Ormerod," he said testily.  "My father was a bishop,
and I have had enough of religion in my life to know that Godly
debates are endless.  Let be, prithee!  For myself, I care not
whether Tawannears be right or wrong.  Yet the longer I live, the
less sure I am of what is and is not.  This continent is so
incredibly gigantic that it may contain wonders our work-a-day minds
have never dreamed on.  A Land of Lost Souls!  Well, why not?  There
were miracles in Judea.  Why not in this wonderland?  But hist!
Bishop Gilbert, my father, hath just turned in his grave.  I will ha'
done.  I am no casuist or Scots catechist, forever probing the
chances of salvation.  Nay, nay!  I have heard many creeds in my
time, but I have yet to hear one that surpasses Tawannears'."

I chuckled, despite myself.

"Already you succumb to the lure you deride," I pointed out.

He grinned back at me.

"True, I give thanks for the warning.  Let us forget it."

His manner grew serious.

"For you, Ormerod, the consideration is not what Tawannears believes.
You know him for a tried friend.  That should suffice.  His offer to
you is designed to lift you from this routine, in which, dear lad--to
be brutally explicit for the once--you are unable to subdue the
pricking memories of that fair Mistress Marjory whom we all loved.  I
urge you, scorn it not.  I have watched over you of late with
misgivings.  Y'are unsound in your mind, lad, and that's the truth on
it.

"Do not mistake me.  I am no fault-finder.  Your life has been a hard
one.  You have had over-much of trial.  Your loss is doubly bitter to
you therefor.  But that is the reason why you must drink some sharp
purge of experience to cleanse your brain of the canker that gnaws
now at your sanity.  Tawannears points the way."

I looked at him, bewildered.  From him to the Seneca, sitting
cross-legged like a brazen statue, only his eyes burning with vivid
emotion in his mask of a face.  And from Tawannears to Corlaer, no
less impassive, his little eyes almost wholly concealed behind their
ramparts of flesh.

"But such a journey will require much time!" I protested.

"A year," assented Tawannears.  "Perhaps more.  Who can say?"

"_Ja_," endorsed Corlaer when I turned to him.

"'Tis impossible," I said.  "There is my business."

A shriek of laughter came from upstairs.  I guessed that Elspeth,
knowing I was with guests, had relaxed all repression for the nonce.

"And the child," I added.

"Your reasons are not valid," replied the governor.  "For your
business, John Allen can well conduct it, and I will give him such
supervision as he requires.  The child is better in Elspeth's hands
than any other's.  You will mean nothing to him this next year at
least.  And Mistress Bnrnet shall keep an eye upon him."

"But there is great danger upon such a journey," I declared
shamelessly.

"Why, that is so," admitted Master Burnet.  "We may not dodge it.
But you had better die, Ormerod, than linger on in the moods you have
known this six-month past.  You have enough fortune for the rearing
of your son and his start in life.  Write your will and leave his
guardianship to me.  You may make your mind easy on that score."

"You seem uncommonly anxious for me to go," I observed a trifle
disagreeably.

"I am," he answered promptly.  "I will go so far as to urge you in my
official capacity, lad.  I am not satisfied with affairs.  We
checkmate the French at one point, or in a certain direction, and
they start an intrigue elsewhere.  'Tis an adventurous people, with a
genius for military endeavor, that puts us to shame.  And to the
southward the Spaniards are rearing a power that can be toppled over
only by their own fecklessness.  We English are hemmed in along the
seaboard behind the Allegheny Mountains.  We are as cramped as fleas
at the end of a dog's tail."

"We have not yet begun to colonize adequately this province alone," I
exclaimed.

"True, but we are only the vanguard of the armies of home-makers of
the future.  Remember that.  The time will come when our people will
be striving to burst their bounds and move on onto the dim recesses
of the Wilderness Country.  What is that country?  What is there
beyond it?  Beyond the Sunset, as Tawannears said.  That is what I
need to know, what England must know."

He poked at me with his cane.

"Look you, Ormerod, there are three questions to be answered.  First,
to what extent are the French established on the Mississippi?  I know
they have built lately a post they call Vincennes on the River
Ouabache,* but I have not been able to learn if they have progressed
permanently below that.


* Wabash.


"Second, how far have the Spaniards extended their influence beyond
the Mississippi?  Concerning this we know practically nothing.

"Third, what is the power of the far Indian races beyond the Great
River, and what is their disposition toward us?  Something in answer
to this question Tawannears has told me, but I must know more."

"You have taken me by surprise," I temporized, turning in my mind
recollections of bygone venturings, the soft clutch of moccasins on
the feet, the pervading wood-smell of the forest, the feathered
whispering of arrow flights, the thrill of the war-whoop, exultation
in a close shot.

Master Burnet pressed his advantage.

"Surely, I have taken you by surprise," he persisted.  "But the fact
is, dear lad, I have striven all Winter for a diversion to lift you
out of yourself and this house which is overfull of memories for your
present good.  Tawannears fetched me what I was unable to conceive.
But I would have you consider that it offers more than an opportunity
to escape discomfort and ill-health.  No Englishman hath traversed
the lands across the Mississippi.  French soldiers and Jesuits have
seen somewhat of it, but never an Englishman.  The man who sees it
first, and brings home a true account, will deserve well of his
people.  He will have rendered a service to generations yet unborn."

I peered for the last time at the armchair that stood empty by the
hearth.  As always, the slim wraith that sat there raised
black-coifed head in a mute gesture of affection.  It seemed to me
that she nodded in approval.  The brown eyes welled with sudden tears.

"I'll go," I said.

Tawannears regained his feet with the agility of a catamount.

"_Yo-hay!_"* he boomed.


* "I have heard," _i.e.,_ approved.


"_Goodt_," pronounced Corlaer solemnly.

"'Tis well," endorsed the governor.  "You'll not regret it, Ormerod.
There's much to do.  Let's to it."




CHAPTER II

THE WILDERNESS TRAIL

The sun was already well above the horizon, but the light that stole
through door and smoke-hole struggled unsuccessfully with the gloom
of the Council House.  From my seat of honor opposite the doorway I
could make out only a few of the silent figures of Royanehs and
chieftains sitting in concentric circles around the pit in which
burned the tribal Council Fire of the Senecas.  But as I watched, the
direct rays of the sun crept over the earthen threshold, and
Donehogaweh, sitting at my left, extended his sinewy arm and dropped
a handful of tobacco leaves upon the smoldering coals in the
fire-pit.  A single column of smoke, hazily blue, rose straight in
the air, and the acrid odor of the tobacco permeated the room.

"Oh, Hawenneyo," intoned the Guardian of the Western Door, "and you,
Tharon, the Sky-holder, and Heno, Master of the Thunder, and Gaoh,
Lord of the Winds, you too, oh, Three Sisters of the Deohako, Our
Supporters, and the Honochenokeh, Aids of the Great Spirit and
Ministers of his Mercy, heed our prayer!  Open your ears to the words
we send you by the smoke which rises from our Council Fire!"

He cast aside his skin robe of ceremony, and stood erect in his
place, naked except for breechclout and moccasins, his gaunt body as
straight as a youth's, his voice ringing with the virility that
defies age.  He folded his arms upon his chest.  His face was raised
to the smoke-hole in the roof.

"We are sending forth upon a journey three of our young men.  They
have far to go.  It may be that they will trespass upon forbidden
ground.  We beseech that you will deal gently with them.  If they may
go no further, turn their steps aside, and lead them elsewhere.  They
are not foolishly curious.  They seek to redress a wrong and to learn
what is in store for their people.  That is all.

"We show them to you, now, before the people."

He signaled me to rise, and I swung food-bags in place and stood
beside him, leaning on my musket.

"This is Otetiani, my white son.  He is a brave warrior, Oh,
Hawenneyu.  His mind is clouded by a great sorrow.  Take it from him,
and let him return to live out his life in comfort."

Corlaer rose.

"This is Corlaer, my white brother.  He is a big man, oh, Hawenneyu,
and he has a big belly.  But if his strength is great, he can subdue
his hunger.  He is a good friend and a terrible enemy."

Tawannears rose.

"This is Tawannears, born of the Clan of the Wolf, Warden of the
Door.  He is the son of my sister.  In him flows all that is left of
my blood.  He goes to fill an empty place in his heart.  If it be
wise, oh, Hawenneyu, grant him what he seeks.

"_Na-ho!_"

And from the circles of indistinct figures came a muttered chorus--

"_Yo-hay!_"

Donehogaweh turned to us as we stood by the fire-pit whence the smoke
had ceased to rise.

"You are going upon a long journey," he said gravely.  "Perhaps many
enemies will assail you.  Perhaps you will know great danger.
Perhaps you will be faced by death.  But I charge you, do not show
fear.  If you return with the scalps of all who oppose you, we will
be proud of you.  We will dance for you the Wasaseh, the War Dance.
If you do not return at all, we will remember you, and the women
shall teach the children to honor your memories.  But do not return
to us unless you can boast of all that you have done, and be ashamed
of nothing.

"_Na-ho!_"

He caught up his skin-robe and draped it around his shoulders as he
led us from the Council House, the assemblage of Royanehs and chiefs
crowding after us through the narrow door.  In the flat, hard-beaten
Dancing Place outside, the center of the wide-spreading Seneca
village of Deonundagaa, stood hundreds of warriors, women, and
leaping, scrambling children.  They stretched from the door to the
gaondote, or war-post, its charred, splintered stump rising in the
center of the open space, around which were ranked the ganasotes, or
Long Houses, in which the people dwelt, and from which they took
their name.

Most of them were only idly curious, friendly, but with no personal
interest.  But many who knew us pressed forward for a last, informal
word before we left.  Guanaea, wife of Donehogaweh--I dislike the
debased word squaw, which is inept for a people like the Iroquois,
who rate their women far higher than we do--snatched at my hand, her
kindly, capable glance examining my equipment.  The deerskin garments
I wore had been fashioned by her.  She had prepared the provender of
jerked meat and mixed charred corn and maple-sugar which filled my
food-bags.  She had contrived my barken box of coarse salt.  And she
had done as much for Tawannears and Corlaer, too.

"Good-by, Otetiani, my white son," she said, with tears in her eyes.
"May Hawenneyu have you in his keeping!  I have no son of my body to
tell me brave tales of what he has done, and you know that you are
doubly dear to me.  You must do as Tawannears and Corlaer when the
snow flies and rub yourself with bear's grease.  It is good at all
times, and you should learn to like it.  And do not bathe so often.
Hanegoategeh, the Evil Spirit, is always on the watch to send ills to
those who rub their skins.  But here!"

She took a small pouch of deerskin from her breast and hung it around
my neck by a strip of rawhide.

"That will protect you against all evils!  Keep it always on you."

"What is it?" I asked, slipping it inside my leather shirt.

"A most powerful Orenda," she whispered mysteriously.  "I had it made
by Hineogetah, the Medicine Man.  It is proof against spirits and
bullets.  It will turn a scalping-knife and resist a tomahawk."

"But what is it?" I persisted.

She looked around to make sure that nobody was within hearing
distance.  Donehogaweh was holding a final discussion with
Tawannears, and the interest of the crowd was concentrated upon them.

"The fang of a bull rattlesnake," she said, ticking the items off on
her fingers.  "That is the spirit to resist evil.  The eye-tooth of a
wolf that was slain by Sonosowa of the Turtle Clan, for, of course,
no Wolf could slay a wolf, in act of making his kill.  That is the
spirit to resist courage.  A coal from the Ever-burning Fire at
Onondago.  That is the spirit to resist disease.  It is the most
powerful Orenda that Hineogetah has ever made, and I pray that it
will keep you safe, for I think you will need it, Otetiani, a white
man venturing into the Land of Lost Souls, where the wrath of Tharon
may fall at any moment."

"But what of Corlaer?" I asked, amused as well as touched by this
essentially feminine point of view.

"Oh, he is different!" she said.

I would have said more to her, but Tawannears turned from his uncle
and slung his furled buckskin shirt across his naked shoulders.

"Come, brother," he called to me.  "We must go."

I stooped quickly and kissed Guanaea on her wrinkled cheek.  She drew
back, startled, and raised her hand to the spot my lips had touched.

"What is that, Otetiani?" she asked, bewildered.

"It is the way a white son salutes his mother," I answered.

"Do it again," she commanded.

I did, to the stern amusement of Donehogaweh and his attendant
Royanehs.

"I like it," she said.  "It is a good son who gives his mother such
pleasure.  Surely, Hawenneyu will send you back to me."

"If his Orenda is strong and his valor great, he will return,"
declared Donehogaweh.  "But there has been enough of leavetaking.  A
warrior's strength should not be sapped by sorrow before he takes the
war-trail.  Good-by, Otetiani, my son.  Good-by, Corlaer, my brother.
Good-by, Tawannears, son of my sister.  We await your return with
honor."

He raised his right arm in the gesture of farewell.  A thicket of
arms sprang up in the Dancing Place and we acknowledged the salute in
kind.  Then, without a word, Tawannears turned his back and walked
southward through the village.  I walked after him, and Corlaer came
behind me.  Not a voice was raised to shout after us.  Not a call
came from the surrounding houses.  I looked back once--as no Indian
would have done--and saw the assemblage standing immobile,
Donehogaweh, with his robe wrapped around him, his eyes fastened upon
us, his face emotionless.  Even Guanaea stood now like a statue.
Then we came to the forest wall, and Deonundagaa became a thing of
roof-tops, occasionally glimpsed through the thickening screen of
greenery.

The trail was the usual Indian footway, a stamped-out slot, a groove
just wide enough for a man to pass, worn in the floor and hacked
through the body of the wilderness.  We traversed it in silence,
each, I suppose, immersed in his thoughts.  For the most part, I
fixed my eyes upon the sliding muscles of Tawannears' back, rippling
so smoothly under his oiled skin, his effortless stride carrying him
ahead at a steady dog-trot.  Behind me I could hear the grunting of
Corlaer and the crackle of branches his broad shoulders pushed
against--and by that I knew that we were in absolutely safe country,
for the big Dutchman could be as quiet and as agile with his
mountainous bulk as Tawannears, himself.

My mind turned to the day, three weeks past, that these two had
reëntered my life, after years of separation, and lifted me at once
by the clean ardor of their personalities out of the miasma of
sickening thoughts in which grief had immersed me.

Much had happened since then.  Hasty adjustments of my business;
last-minute conferences with the governor and several merchants,
members of his Council, who had generously volunteered to take over
the conduct of my affairs; drilling of John Allen in various niceties
of the situation; the voyage up Hudson's River by sloop to Albany,
huddled under the protection of Fort Orange below the mouth of the
Mohawk, our main outpost on the frontier; a fortnight on the Great
Trail of the Long House; flitting meetings with old friends; the
aroma of the forest; longer and longer hours of sleep; Deonundagaa
and--this.

I tossed back my head and inhaled the scent of the wild grapevine
that twisted around a giant oak, and my eyes took joy from the
mottling of the sunlight drifting through foliage a hundred feet
overhead and the scuttling of a rabbit across the trail.  We passed a
beaver-pond, and I drew a lesson in steadfast courage from the
tireless endurance of these small creatures, forever building and
never dismayed by the most arduous undertaking.

Three weeks!  And already I saw myself in prospect of a whole man
again.  I straightened with the thought, and took pride in my instant
ability to adjust myself to the Indian's trail pace.  Tawannears gave
me a quick smile over his shoulder.

"My brother's heart is glad," he said.  "I can tell by the lightness
of his step."

"Truly, I feel as I had never thought to feel again," I returned.
"Who would choose to live in a town if he might roam the forest at
will?  And the day is passing fair."

"_Oof!_" grunted Corlaer behind me.  "It grows hot."

We made thirty miles that day, and camped with some Seneca hunters
who shared their fresh venison with us.  In the morning we continued
on our way, still heading south for the headwaters of the Alleghany
River.

"For the route we take," said Tawannears, in discussing the journey,
"the word of my brother Otetiani shall be law.  He has a mission to
perform for Gaengwarago.  But if you will listen to me you will
strike south to the Alleghany, and follow that into the Ohio, which,
in turn, flows into the Great River that my people call the Father of
Waters.  This way, brother, we shall fetch a wide compass around the
French post at Detroit, and come near enough Vincennes for you to
look at it if you wish.  But it will be better for you if the French
do not see you or hear of your mission."

"That is true," I admitted.  "But for your plan we must have a canoe."

"I can find one," he answered readily.  "I cached it on the Alleghany
the last time I returned from an embassy to the Creeks."

We settled our route according to Tawannears' advice.  Traveling by
water, as he also pointed out, meant on the whole a much better rate
of progress than land travel, and likewise made it unnecessary for us
to traverse so many tribal ranges.  Tawannears, as a war chief of the
Iroquois, was fairly certain of respectful treatment at the hands of
any well-known tribe north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi.
But many of these Indians had fallen under the influence of the
French, and it was questionable what attitude they might adopt if
they discovered who I was.  It was safest for all concerned to pass
as swiftly and quietly as possible through the country this side of
the Mississippi.  We have nothing to gain by lingering, and perhaps
everything to lose.

The second day we had no beaten trail to aid us, and a cold rain
pelted from the east.  The country was seamed with shallow ravines
and gulleys, and at intervals we came to dense belts of undergrowth,
spurred with thorns and bound together by vines and creepers.
Sometimes we circled these patches.  Sometimes we hacked a path with
our war-hatchets.  We were exhausted when night fell, and welcomed
the shelter offered us by a party of wandering Mohicans; but in the
morning we took up the trail, despite the recurring rain.  Slippery
rocks and ankle-deep mud delayed us.  The coarse grass of the
occasional swales was treacherous underfoot.  But we kept on.  And I
was amazed to discover that the weather had no effect upon my
spirits.  I enjoyed the independence of it, the sopping foliage, the
persistent drip-drip of the rain, the fatigue that strained every
muscle.  More than all I enjoyed our third camp beneath a bark
lean-to hastily contrived.  The roof leaked; our fire lasted barely
long enough to cook the wild turkey our Mohican hosts had given us;
and I was soaked to the skin.  Yet I slept through the night to
awaken alert and refreshed in the bright dawning of a new day.

In the forenoon Tawannears made his landfall on a tiny creek that fed
the headwaters of the Alleghany.  We reached the main stream in
mid-afternoon, and with one curt glance around, he walked straight to
a grass-covered indentation in the bank.

"Here is the canoe, brothers," he said casually.

"_Nein_," Corlaer, without moving from where he stood, his little
eyes fixed on the hiding-place.

Tawannears drew back from the edge of the inlet, a startled look on
his usually blank face.

"Here I left it, well-concealed," he insisted.

"Smoke, down-rifer," remarked the Dutchman.

Tawannears and I shifted our gaze.  The Seneca's eyes reflected a
momentary expression of chagrin that he should not have been the
first to mark this sign.

"We will go to it," he announced briefly.  "This land is tributary to
the Long House.  We shall see who is bold enough to take the canoe of
a chief of the Long House from the threshold of the Western Door."

Of course, he was speaking figuratively, for we were a long three
days' tramping from Deonundagaa; but it was a striking manifestation
of the proud arrogance of the Iroquois that Tawannears, an Indian to
his backbone, insisted upon walking directly into that encampment,
without going to the preliminaries of scouting the strange community.

A half-grown boy sighted us through the trees while we were still
some distance away, and his shrill cries gave the alarm.  As we
stepped from the edge of the forest, a dozen men grouped in front of
the four bark shelters that stood just back from the bank.  In the
offing I perceived half as many women and some children.  They were a
dark, stumpy people, with low-browed, brutish faces.

Tawannears frowned and pointed to a canoe drawn up on the bank.

"Andastes," he spat contemptuously.  "They are dogs and thieves who
have no right here.  The Hoyarnagowar has bidden them range in the
Susquehanna Valley."

Musket in the hollow of his arm, he marched into the center of the
dour group, every member of which clutched a fusil, trade musket or
strung bow.

"Andastes," he said, "you have taken my canoe."

"We have only our own canoe," answered a thick-limbed warrior, who
was out-thrust from the dingy throng.

"I say it is mine," returned Tawannears with haughty emphasis.

"You are welcome to camp here if you wish; we will give you food,"
said the Andaste evasively.

Tawannears' eyes sparked fire.

"Dog of an Andaste!" he barked.  "Who are you to speak as a master to
the Hodenosaunee?  You crawl when the word comes to you from
Onondaga!  You eat dirt if a warrior of the Long House commands it!
You are the fathers of all lice!"

The Andastes scowled and bunched closer together, with a tentative
poising of weapons.  Tawannears drew his tomahawk and held it aloft.

"I am Tawannears, Warden of the Western Door," he said slowly.  "I am
fresh come from Deonundagaa.  Say which it is to be, Andastes, peace
or war?"

They shrank away from him.  All save two or three disappeared into
the lodges or the forest.  But they had no thought of violence.  The
heart was taken out of them.  Tawannears was more than Tawannears.
He was the embodiment of that dread power which these inferior
savages knew could carry annihilation in any direction and almost to
any distance north, south and west.  He stood there, ax upraised, the
spirit of the Long House, which even the white men feared.

The Andaste chief lowered his eyes.

"We do not want war," he answered.  "Take the canoe.  We found it.
We did not know----"

"You know that you have no rights here," Tawannears cut him off.
"This is the hunting ground of the Long House.  Here, too, may come
Mohicans, Eries and the People of the Cat.*  But Andastes belong in
the Susquehanna valley.  Get back there.  If I find you here when I
pass this way again, I will carry fire and tomahawk against you and
all your people."


* Jegosasa, sometimes called Neuter Nation.


He turned on his heel, and with a gesture to us, stalked down to the
shore and pushed the canoe into the water.

"Let us go on, brothers," he urged.  "Here the air is unclean."

He took the bow paddle, and I crouched amidships.  Corlaer, gentle as
a girl for all his bulk, slipped gingerly into the stern.  Their
blades bit into the shallow water, and under the impulse of those
slow, easy strokes, the light craft fairly danced downstream, gaining
speed as it caught the drift of the current.  We rounded a curve, and
the Andaste encampment disappeared from view.

"Will they obey you?" I asked Tawannears.

He laughed shortly.

"They will be gone before the sun rises again, brother Otetiani.
They know well that they have no right there, but the place is out of
the way and far from the Door, and they thought they would be safe.
They are a nation of women.  We do not even let them fight for us."

Paddling was very different work from wood-ranging, and we made ten
miles before darkness compelled us to land on a miniature island and
pitch camp in the lee of a big rock.  We had a small fire so arranged
that its glow could not be seen from either shore, and beside it we
slept under the stars.  With the dawn we were up and afloat once
more, munching the burnt corn and maple-sugar from our food-sacks.

This day I observed that Tawannears seemed to redouble his vigilance.
From his position in the bow he studied the shore-line constantly,
and in the afternoon he halted an hour before daylight failed, to
take advantage of an opportunity to camp upon another island.

"Why so careful?" I grumbled.  "Do you think these Andastes may be
tracking us, after all!"

He shook his head, smiling.

"No, brother, but we are entering a country where the Long House is
feared, but where its word is no longer law.  Anywhere here we may
meet bands of young warriors of a score of tribes who have taken
advantage of the Spring hunting to look for their first scalps.  They
would see in us only three victims for killing."

But despite--or it may be because of--our vigilance, we saw no trace
of other men, save once when making a portage around some rapids.  As
we were in the act of relaunching our canoe three other craft, each
containing three red warriors, rounded the next bend downstream.  We
waited for them, arms ready.  But they made the sign of peaceful
intent as they approached, and we held our fire.  They were
Cherokees, fine, tall men, very much like the Iroquois, and they told
us frankly that they were an embassy carrying belts to Detroit They
said their people were having trouble with the colonists in the
Carolinas and they desired to take steps to establish an alliance
with the French.

"The French are no different from the English, brothers," replied
Tawannears.  "They are both Asseroni.*  They are both white.  We are
red.  There are white men who understand the Indian.  Two are my
brothers here.  But they have few among their race who agree with
them.  You go upon a hopeless errand.  The French will make you
promises.  They will give you arms, and use you when it suits their
ends, and when they have no use for you they will let you go to the
stake."


* Ax-makers.


The Cherokees, squatting in a half-circle on the shore facing us and
the beached canoes, exchanged uneasy glances.

"Then what does our brother of the Hodenosaunee advise?" asked the
oldest chief.  "What policy do his people pursue to uphold
themselves?  They are directly between French and English.  If there
is no help from one or the other, what is the Indian to do?"

"The Hodenosaunee maintain their place by strength," replied
Tawannears.  "They have made their help worthwhile to the English.
But the time will come, brothers, when the English will no longer
need us, when the white man's firewater has debauched our young men,
when so many white men have come over the Great Water that they will
outnumber the Indian.  Then the Indian must go."

"Where?" demanded the Cherokee.

Tawannears waved his arm down-stream.

"Brothers," he said, "I journey to find what lies betwixt this and
the sunset--and beyond.  It may be that Hawenneyu has set aside a
country for the red man that the white man cannot take."

"If the red man gives ground forever, then surely the white man will
drive him out," declared the Cherokee.

"True," agreed Tawannears.  "And if the red men united together, the
white man could never drive them out.  Your brothers, the Tuscaroras,
came north in my father's time, driven from their homes by the same
white men who now harass you.  We of the Hodenosaunee took them into
our League, and now they are safe.  The walls of the Long House
protect them.  Perhaps the Hoyarnagowar would decree a lengthening of
the walls if the Cherokees desired to enter the League."

"Yes, as younger brothers to sit outside the Fire Circle, without
casting votes in the Council of Royanehs," returned the Cherokee with
passionate emphasis.  "That is what happened to the Tuscaroras.  They
are dependents of the Hodenosaunee.  We Cherokees are a great people.
Shall we lose ourselves in the fabric of the Long House?"

Tawannears emptied the ashes from his pipe and rose.

"My brother has pointed the reason why the red man cannot stand
against the white man," he said quietly.  "Outside of the Long House
the powerful tribes will not hold together.  The Hodenosaunee can
conquer people like the Eries or the Mohicans, but we see no interest
in conquering the Cherokees--and if we did not conquer you, you would
not join with us."

"Because we might not join you as equals!" the Cherokee retorted
hotly.

"There is no question of equality or inequality," asserted
Tawannears.  "But the Founders of the Great League created only so
many Royanehs, and we who follow in their footsteps may not correct
their work.  Go to Onondaga with your belts, and Tododaho, the
greatest of our Royanehs, who warms his mind by the Everlasting Fire,
will make your hearts strong with wise talk.  Let him tell you,
better than I can, how to unite for strength."

The Cherokee rose with a stern light of resentment in his face.

"We go to Detroit," he said.  "Better be allies of the Frenchman, and
play one race of white man against the other, than be slaves of the
Hodenosaunee."

Tawannears did not answer him and was silent until we had paddled an
hour or more.

"What did you think of our talk, brother Otetiani?" he asked
suddenly, peering over his shoulder at me.

"I thought that you were right," I answered.

"I am so sure I am right that I can see the whole future of the red
man," he cried.  "He will perish because he cannot break down his
tribal barriers."

"Der Frenchman, too," spoke up Corlaer behind me.

I turned in mingled amusement and surprise.  It was seldom he used
more than monosyllables.

"_Ja_," he continued, "der Englishman, he takes in all, Dutch, Swede,
Cherman, Frenchman.  But der Frenchman, he is der Frenchman.  Der
Englishman he comes on top.  He-mixes.  _Ja_."




CHAPTER III

THE SHAWNEE SCALP-HUNTER

Day after day we descended the broadening river.  Once a floating
snag ripped our bottom out, and we swam to shore, pushing the sodden
craft ahead of us.  Tawannears cut bark strips, melted pitch I
collected from the pine trees, and salvaged the sinews of a deer he
shot with the bow and arrow he carried for hunting game.  With these
he mended the hole and made it water-tight, and after two days' delay
we continued our journey, thankful to have escaped attack whilst we
tarried in this situation, for our spare powder had been wetted.

Treacherous channels and difficult portages hindered us further, but
each day saw some advance to our credit, and at last we came to the
place which Tawannears called the Meeting of the Waters.  We were
swept by a rapid current around the shoulder of a point just before
sunset, and there opened before us two other watery prospects.  At
our left another stream, the Monongahela, poured in from the south to
join its flow with the Allegheny, and the two united to form the
great Ohio.

'Twas a matchless situation.  North, south and west ran the three
rivers, roads already laid to tap the resources of the wilderness.
At their confluence was the ideal site for the erection of a fortress
to command their courses and dominate the wilderness for miles
around.  Indeed, I remember long years afterward--I think it was in
the year '60--young Colonel Washington of Virginia, when he was in
New York in attendance on General Amherst, told me 'twas here the
great French General Montcalm settled to build Fort Duquesne, which
was one of the causes of the last struggle for the wilderness land.
I remember, too, he said in his grave, simple way, that it should yet
be the site of a prosperous town.

We camped that night on the point, the murmur of the waters in Spring
freshet loud in our ears, and in the morning we allowed our canoe to
be carried into the brawling current of the Ohio.  So swift flowed
this mighty stream that we had no necessity to use our paddles, save
to guide the canoe from rocks and maintain it in the safest channel.
We traveled as far that day as we often had in two days on the
Allegheny's more tortuous reaches.  But there came days when we must
be at pains to avoid hidden dangers; when the waters foamed with
rocks and submerged bars, and immense trees were hurled along like
battering-rams to sink the over-confident.  Sometimes we were fain to
avoid over-dangerous bits, and stumbled along the shore-line in
shallow water, the canoe on our shoulders.

I marveled that we saw so little human life.  Occasionally a canoe
would dart into the bank at sight of our approach, its occupant
seeking shelter in the undergrowth.  Twice an attempt was made by
other canoes to overhaul us, but I was able now to lend my arms to
assist Tawannears and Peter, and we left the pursuers far behind.
Again, where the Scioto falls into the Ohio from the north, we
encountered a party of Miamis bound south on an impartial hunt for
scalps and buffalo robes.  They knew Tawannears, and treated us with
all respect.  But for the most part the river flowed undisturbed on
its majestic way to mingle with the Father of Waters.

For days and days we saw no other men.  Not even a spiral of smoke
rose from the dark forests that marched unbroken down to the shelving
banks or the bluffs and hills that elsewhere rimmed the channel.

Then, without warning, came the attack.

The stream had narrowed between low banks, and a riffle of rocks on
the north side compelled us to follow the southern margin.

A shot boomed from the southern bank, and I heard it whistle by my
head.  Other shots echoed it.  We all looked around.  Puffs of smoke
were blowing from the underbrush.  The shrill howl of the warwhoop
soared in quavering accents above the babble of the river.  Painted
men, feathers raking from their half-shaven heads, broke cover and
ran along after us, firing and yelling.  Two long canoes shoved off
from the bank, and churned the water with four paddles apiece.  In
the bow of each knelt a savage whose one object was to shoot us down.
Bullets phutted through the frail bark sides of the canoe and
splashed the water all around us.

"Shawnees!" exclaimed Tawannears.  "For your lives, brothers!"

We drove our paddles into the water, but our handicap was that we
could not veer more than just so far toward the northern bank until
we had passed the string of rocks that barred it.  We were still some
distance above the termination of the obstruction when a jagged slug
of lead tore into the canoe between Tawannears and me, glanced from a
hickory thwart, and sliced a long, curving slit in the side below the
water-line; I dropped my paddle, and clutched the lips of the cut
with both hands, one outside and one inside the canoe, striving to
hold them together as best I could.  The water trickled in, of
course, and as the canoe sank under its growing weight it became
increasingly difficult to control the leak; but at least we were able
to make some progress.

"Good, brother!" panted Tawannears, seeing what I was doing.  "A few
feet more!"

The Shawnees howled with satisfaction as they perceived our plight.
Their canoes shot after us at twice our speed, and some of the
warriors on the southern bank plunged into the river where it was
narrowest, and swam for the rock-ledge, whence they could wade to the
northern bank.  But Tawannears and Corlaer kept us afloat until we
were almost past the rock-ledge.  'Twas I saw the wavelet that would
swamp us, and I shouted a warning to the others.  We held
powder-horns and rifles aloft and sprang for the nearest rocks.

I went head under and barely saved my powder from a second wetting.
Tawannears and Peter found footing at once, and the huge Dutchman
helped me up beside them.  Then we stumbled through the water as fast
as the hazardous rocks permitted, zigzagging and stooping low to
disconcert the enemies who fired on us from the opposite bank and the
two canoes, which drove on downstream to seek a favorable
landing-place.  The Shawnees who had undertaken to swim the river
were already ashore several hundred yards upstream and running
towards us along the bank, and it was at them that we fired as soon
as we had gained the first trees of the forest.

We were panting from our efforts, but Tawannears hit a man in the
leg.  Corlaer drilled his target through the chest.  I missed.  But
our firing had the effect of confusing the pursuit.  Instead of
charging in the open, they dived into the forest in an attempt to
work down on us from behind.  But we sensed their purpose, and
tarried only long enough to reload.  With Tawannears in the lead, we
set off northward, making no attempt to conceal our trail, for we had
no time for niceties.  The whoops of the swimmers could be heard on
our right rear, and answering calls came from the warriors who had
debarked from the canoes on our left.  Through the tree-trunks we
could see some ten or a dozen more taking to the water from the south
bank.

Fortunately, the forest hereabouts was a wondrous primeval growth of
tall-stemmed, widely-spaced trunks.  There was little underbrush, and
the ground was carpeted with a deep, springy layer of vegetable
mould, the easiest footing for a runner.  The light was sifted high
overhead by the interlacing boughs, and it was impossible to see
distinctly at any distance.  The odds seemed reasonably in our favor,
despite the continuous whooping at our heels, and I was amazed when
Tawannears came to an abrupt halt after we had run a scant half-hour.

"They will be scattered," he said in explanation to my look of
inquiry.  "We will teach them that they are not dealing with young
deer-hunters like themselves.  Do you run on a score of strides,
Otetiani, and Corlaer as many more.  I will fire when I see a target,
and flee.  Then you will each fire in turn, and run.  That way the
two in the rear will have had time to reload.  Come, brothers, we
will scotch these young men who think our scalps as easy to take as a
deer's antlers."

Corlaer grunted approval, and we two held to our course.  I halted
behind a great oak from which I could barely discern the figure of
Tawannears lurking behind an uprooted elm.  Five minutes passed.  The
yelping of our enemies had died away.  Young hounds they might be,
but it was in their blood to save breath once they had their noses on
a green trail.  Suddenly, I saw a stab of flame in the gloom, and
Tawannears darted toward me, musket in hand.  The crash of his shot
was followed by a yelp of agony, and once more the silence of the
forest reëchoed the eerie war-whoop.

"Watch carefully, brother," the Seneca muttered as he loped past.

I lifted my musket and waited, eyes darting right and left, striving
to pierce the depths of the shadow-world that was unflecked by a
single ray of sunlight.  I stared so long that my eye muscles
wearied, and the lids blinked.  I closed them for a moment's rest,
and when I reopened them the first thing I was conscious of seeing
was a shadow darker than the shadows, that flitted between two
tree-trunks on my left.  He was so close that I thought I must have
been deceived, but whilst I watched he showed again, and I made out
the slanting feather above his crouching form.  I aimed a good foot
below the feather, and pulled trigger.  The Shawnee leaped high in
air, with a throttled cry, and pitched forward on his face.  I ran.

"Goodt," murmured Corlaer, huddled behind a boulder that showed
moss-covered amongst the timber.

I sped on, and halted only when Tawannears' low voice reached my ears.

"Reload," he said briefly.  "We must run again when Corlaer comes.
The dogs are swifter than I thought.  Hear them!"

He inclined his ear to the left rear, and I heard distinctly the
interchange of signal-yells, once even a distant crashing of
branches.  The Shawnees were working around in an attempt to head us
off.  I was relieved when Corlaer'a musket boomed, and the Dutchman's
huge body bounded into view.  He ran as lightly as he did everything
else.  The man was a swift runner who could keep up with him.

"Now, speed, brothers," said Tawannears.  "The next effort tells."

We ran as I had seldom run before, not fast and slow, but faster and
ever faster, with every ounce of strength and wind.  The yelps of the
Shawnees died away behind us again, and I think we had distanced them
when we emerged from the forest gloom into a belt of sunshine several
miles wide.  One of those awful wind-storms, to which the New World
is exposed, had come this way, and wreaked its curious spite by
striking down everything in its immediate front.  As clean as a
knife-blade it had hewed its path, leaving miles of prostrate timber
where formerly had been a lordly forest.  And across this natural
abattis we must make our way in the open!

There was nothing else for it, and we plunged in, climbing in and out
of the wreckage, seldom able to go faster than a walk.  We were a
scant musket-shot from the forest edge when the Shawnees appeared and
howled their glee.  They could not gain on us, but they were
uncomfortably close as we entered the standing timber on the far side
of the dead-fall; and we knew that we could not run much farther.  My
eyes were starting from my head as we dipped into a shallow glade
that was threaded by a deep and narrow stream.  Boulders dotted its
course.  Ten yards away an immense tulip-tree overhung it.

I flung myself down for a quick drink, thinking to hurry on.  But on
regaining my feet I saw Tawannears in close debate with Corlaer.  The
Dutchman nodded his head, and dropped into the water, which was up to
his middle.  I made to follow him, but Tawannears motioned me to hold
my position, peering the while at our back-trail, alert for a sign of
our enemies.  I stared from him to Corlaer in growing amazement.  The
Dutchman clambered up the opposite bank and tramped heavily to a
series of stones and small boulders.  He planted his wet, muddy
moccasins on the first stones, then carefully walked backward in his
own footsteps into the river and recrossed to our side.

"Come," said Tawannears, and he dropped into the river-bed besides
Corlaer.

Perforce, I followed suit, wondering what mad scheme they were up to.

The Seneca led us downstream into the shadow of the tulip-tree.  Here
the creek overran a flat stone, which came just to water-level.
Tawannears stepped onto it, handed his musket to me, caught hold of a
low tree-branch and in a trice had swung himself onto the limb.  I
reached him our three guns, and whilst he worked back toward the
trunk, holding them under one arm, I scrambled up beside him.
Corlaer came after me, his weight bearing the limb down almost to the
water's surface, so that for an instant I thought it must break.  But
the resilient wood upheld him, and we all three gained the crotch of
the fifteen-foot bole.  There was ample room, and the thick leafage
gave us cover as we settled ourselves to see what the Shawnees would
make of the lure we had set for them.

Nothing happened for so long that I wondered whether they had seen
through the ruse, and were plotting to catch us in our lair.  But
presently a feathered head was advanced from the low-growing foliage
of the bank and studied the footprints Corlaer had trampled on the
farther bank.  A fierce painted face was turned toward us
momentarily.  Then the lean body, clad only in breachclout and
moccasins, slipped into the water without a ripple and waded across.
The Shawnee crept up the bank until he came to the prints of the
Dutchman's wet feet on the stones.  At that he turned, with a quick
gesture of command, and a string of savage figures dodged after him.
We counted thirty-one, most of them armed with muskets.  They
disappeared into the woods on the opposite bank at a fast dog-trot.

Tawannears dropped from the tulip-tree without a word.

"Where now?" I asked.

He smiled.  Never let anyone tell you the Indian has no sense of
humor.

"Why, we need a new canoe, brother; and the Shawnees have left two
waiting for us on the river-shore."

Behind us Corlaer gave vent to a squeak of laughter.

"_Ja_, we put der choke on dem deer-hunters!  Haw!"

We retraced our steps as rapidly as we had come, and because we now
knew the way, we were able to cross the area of fallen timber in half
the time we had taken formerly.  But we were still within musket-shot
of the forest-edge when the war-whoop resounded behind us, and a
dozen Shawnees broke from cover.

"They are good warriors," approved Tawannears.  "When they failed to
pick up our trail again beyond the boulders they turned back."

"Shall we wait to welcome them?" I suggested.

"No, brother.  We have nothing to gain by killing them.  We need a
canoe, not scalps."

So we ran on toward the river, although how Tawannears so unerringly
picked his way I cannot say.  'Twas not so much that he knew the
direction of the river.  I could have done as much.  But rather that
he knew by instinct the shortest, most direct route to follow.  We
burst from the forest's edge a half-musket shot from where the canoes
of the Shawnees were beached.  Two men who had been left on guard
over them, one the warrior Tawannears had shot in the leg in our
first brush, rose to welcome us, at first, no doubt, thinking us to
be their friends.  But when they saw who we were they raised their
bows and loosed a brace of arrows at us.  Corlaer shot the wounded
man offhand, and Tawannears bounded in to close quarters and brained
the other with his tomahawk.

"_Ha-yah-yak-eeeee-eeee-eee-ee-e!_"

The scalp-yell of the Iroquois rolled from shore to shore with the
dreadful, shrill vehemence of the catamount's bawl.  A defiant answer
came from our Shawnee pursuers not so far behind us.  Tawannears
stuffed his victim's scalp into his waist-belt, and flailed the
bottom out of one of the canoes with his bloody tomahawk, then shoved
the ruined craft out into the stream to sink.

"Ready, brothers," he called, pushing the undamaged canoe afloat.
"We must be beyond musket-shot when the Shawnees reach here.  Ha,
their hearts will be very sad.  There will be sorrow in their lodges.
But they have learned that a band of deer-hunters cannot overcome
three warriors who are wily in the chase."

We bent to the paddles, and drove the clumsy craft--'twas much
heavier than the one we had lost--out into the current, where we
might have the benefit of the river's drift.  And, fortunately, we
were a long shot distant when the first Shawnees reached the bank.
Several of their bullets splashed close to us, but they soon
abandoned the waste of powder, and we could hear the ululating howls
by which they sought to recall their absent warriors and announce our
escape.

Nightfall found us many miles downstream, but Tawannears would not
suffer us to halt.  Wet to the bone with sweat and river-water, we
paddled on with weary arms that ached, eyes straining into the
darkness to ward against rock or floating tree-branch.  Near midnight
the moon rose, and we could see the channel distinctly; but this was
another reason for haste, and we did not rest until the gray dawn
light revealed a sandy, brush-covered islet in midstream.  Here we
beached the canoe, hauled it out of sight, and lay down beside it to
sleep like dead men under the warmth of the sun.




CHAPTER IV

A MEETING IN THE WILDERNESS

Summer blew up from the South and wrapped the Wilderness Country in a
misty languor.  Our arms lagged at the paddling.  We were prone to
idling back against the thwarts and watching the vast flocks of birds
that flew northward, and especially the incalculable myriads of the
pigeons, flights of such monstrous proportions that they darkened the
sky.  Ay, they shut out the light of the sun, for an hour at a time,
the whirring of their wings and their sharp cries like the faint
echoes of fairy drums and fifes.

The forest trees hung heavy with foliage, vividly green, and the
occasional meadows and savannahs were gemmed with wild-flowers, white
and red and yellow and blue and pink and purple.  The scent of the
growing things was borne to us by the gusty breeze that puffed and
died and puffed again, heavy as the humid air, uncertain,
indeterminate.  At intervals storm-clouds tore down upon us, black,
towering galleons of wrath; there would be thunder in the heavens;
lightning-bolts streaked earthward to devastate the forest monarchs;
and the rain would spill upon us like the torrents of the Thunder
Waters at Jagara.*


* Niagara.


For two weeks we traversed this paradise without evidence of other
men.  Alone we surveyed the area of a kingdom.  All France, I say,
might have been rooted up and transplanted to this neglected
wonderland to which her King laid inconsequential claim.  Here were
timber, ready for the axe; splendid grazing grounds where only the
deer wandered; endless fields of rich black loam, awaiting the
husbandman.  And the very savages seemed to have abandoned it.  If
any watched us pass, they contrived to remain unseen.  From horizon
to horizon there was not a curl of smoke to show a human habitation.

But there were others besides ourselves on the bosom of the Ohio, as
we soon discovered.  We had slipped by the mouth of the Ouabache in
the night, thinking thus to elude the observation of a possible
picket thrown out from the French post of Vincennes, although, to say
truth, we saw no trace of such an outpost.  After a few hours' sleep
we were paddling on, encouraged by Tawannears' assertion that two or
three days more should bring us to the Mississippi, which we regard
as the barrier of that ulterior Wilderness where our real search
began, when we rounded one of the river's frequent bends to face at
short range a fleet of canoes that thronged the stream from shore to
shore.

Hard luck could not have dealt us a shrewder stroke.  In my first
glance I spied the trappings of the French Marine Infantry, the
regular troops of the Canadian garrisons, the glitter of an officer's
gorget, and worst of all, the flutter of the black robe of a priest.
Interspersed with these were habitants in buckskin and painted
Ouabaches, Miamis and Potawatomis to man the paddles.  There were
fifteen or twenty canoes, varying from slender craft smaller than
ours to larger ones that accommodated six or eight men.

We all three backed water instinctively as we appreciated the
situation, but Tawannears redipped his paddle and drove forward again
almost without a check.

"It is useless to flee, brothers," he murmured.  "We must stand firm."

There were several shouts from the fleet ahead, and two of the
smaller craft sped out from their irregular formation.  Tawannears
ceased paddling for an instant and raised his right arm, palm out, in
the signal for peace.  A French officer, in laced coat and cocked
hat, in one of the large canoes answered him in kind, and the Indians
who occupied the two small canoes sheered off as soon as they
descried the wolf's head on his chest.  No ordinary wood-ranging
savages cared to encounter a chief of the Long House in peace time,
even with the backing of French troops.  They knew their betters, had
learned to know them through many a bloody foray.

The French flotilla drifted idly, awaiting us as we paddled slowly
between the leading canoes toward the one in which was seated the
officer who had acknowledged Tawannears' greeting.

"Who is he?" I asked, when we came close enough to identify his
corpulent form and massive face.

"Charles Le Moyne."

"The Chevalier de Longueuil?" I exclaimed.

"Yes, brother."

I stared at the man with increased interest.  He was one of the four
greatest men in Canada, the eldest son and heir of that Baron de
Longueuil who was Lieutenant Governor.  He ranked next after the
Governor-General, himself, the Intendant and his father.  'Twas no
slight mission had brought him so far from home.

I was about to speak again when I noticed a certain tense rigidity in
the muscles that lay in beautiful coils and ridges along Tawannears'
spine.  Simultaneously came a gasp from Corlaer, behind me in the
stern of the canoe.

"'Black Robe!'"

I craned my neck to peer over the Seneca's head.  Ay, 'twas so.
Behind Le Moyne, sitting as motionless as an image upon the hard,
narrow thwart, his death's-head of a face turned full upon us was the
famous Jesuit, Père Hyacinthe.  His gnarled tortured fingers were
telling the beads of the rosary that lay across his bony knees.  His
black soutane fell in straight, severe lines to his sandaled feet.  I
knew, though I could not see, the terrible scars that the
torture-stake had left upon his body for once in the past he had
shown them to me.  I knew, too, the man's indomitable hatred of all
things English, his overweening ambition, fortified by iron will and
intense religious conviction, to win the whole Continent for Louis of
France and the Church of Rome.

Of all those who labored with tireless devotion to substitute Latin
civilization for Anglo-Saxon in the New World, there was none whose
aims were more ardently or unselfishly served.  Up and down the
Wilderness Country he went, always toiling, reckless of hunger, of
thirst, of cold, of physical peril.  And the savages, with their
instinct for the appropriate, had named him Black Robe.  By it he was
known to many thousands who had never seen him.

A strange man!  A man whose mentality had been a little warped by
suffering and hardship and over-much concentration upon ecstatic
devotion.  Fasting and contemplation, loneliness and
self-flagellation, abnegation of all things physical, fire torment
and knife torment--these had left their mark upon him.  If he did
harm, he also did good.  He was of those fearless ones who carried
the Christian faith to recesses of the Wilderness which will not be
known to others until our sons' sons push the frontier a thousand
leagues nearer to the sunset.  He believed that he had no occasion to
bother unduly for food, because God would feed him at need, and
certes 'tis true he never died of starvation.  A strange man!  One to
be judged without thought to creed or politics.

His face betrayed no emotion as our canoe drew alongside Le Moyne's,
and a Marine corporal clutched the gunwale, but his eyes blazed with
fanatical intelligence in the deep recesses of their bony sockets.
He leaned forward and tapped Le Moyne's shoulder.

"Anti-Christ is come among us," he announced in sepulchral tones.
"Here are sons of the English harlot."

Le Moyne frowned slightly.  He was a plain soldier-statesman, and no
doubt he found it sometimes difficult to accept the priest's high
ways.  Yet it speaks for Black Robe's influence that he dared not
show resentment.

"What mean you, my father?" he asked curtly.

The Jesuit pointed an accusing finger at us.

"Do you not know them, my son?"

"Ay, Tawannears I know.  'Tis the Warden of the Western Door of the
Long House.  And Corlaer, too, I know.  But not the other."

"'Tis Henry Ormerod, of the Council of the Governor of New York, one
of the wiliest minions of the English.  He is a renegade from the
service of his rightful sovereign King James, and through him hath
held commission from the Regent Orleans."

Of our party I was the only one who could understand this
conversation, for Tawannears and Corlaer had no French.  It came
glibly enough to my tongue, however, after five years service under
the Duke of Berwick on the frontiers of the Low Countries and Italy
and in Spain.  I struck back, therefore, without waiting to consult
my comrades.

"'Tis true, Chevalier," I said, "that my name is Ormerod and Governor
Burnet hath honored me with membership of his Council.  True, too,
that in my youth I was mistaken enough to espouse the cause of the
exiled Stuarts, and thus passed some time in France.  But that is a
page long turned.  Whilst I served James I was faithful, and I left
him because I came to know that he would never be more than a puppet
to serve the ends of a foreign court.  Since then I have striven to
serve my country as you serve yours.  Is there dishonor and hostility
in that?"

Le Moyne started to answer me, but Black Robe took the words from his
mouth.

"Never heed the Englishman," exclaimed the priest.  "He is a servant
of evil, a foresworn heretic, an enemy of France."

"There is peace betwixt France and England," I answered boldly.
"What talk is this of enemies?"

The priest tossed his arms aloft.

"They talk of peace, peace," he cried.  "And there is no peace!  Can
there ever be peace betwixt anti-Christ and God?  Nay, my son.  But
ask the Englishman what he does, journeying secretly through the
territories of France hundreds of leagues from English soil.  Why
does he travel with the Iroquois chief who is known as the principal
friend of the English?  Why do we see with him Corlaer, who is the
emissary of the English in seducing the savages from trading at our
posts?  What is his mission here?  Has he a passport from Quebec?"

Le Moyne nodded his head.

"There you are correct, father.  Monsieur Ormerod, these questions I
must have you answer.  Where is your passport?"

"I have none," I returned.  "Nor do I admit I should have one.  I
have not traveled territory under the control of France.  Since we
left Deonundagaa more than a month ago we have not seen a single
Frenchman or a sign of French occupation.  More, it is not my purpose
to enter French territory.  I am bound to the farther Wilderness
Country, beyond the Great River."

"That, too, is French territory," proclaimed Black Robe.  "All this
region God hath set aside for the sons of France.  No Englishman hath
put foot beyond the Great River."

"For that reason, I propose to," I said.  "Surely, there is no harm
in seeking to know what it is like."

Le Moyne squared his jaw.

"I am not so certain of that, Monsieur Ormerod.  But 'tis useless to
debate the point here.  I fear I must ask you to accompany us to our
camping place.  There we will discuss your case more fully, and
endeavor to arrive at a composition of our differences.  At the
worst, I must send you back to New York under escort.  No harm shall
be done you."

There was nothing else for it.  Our plight was hopeless.  We were
three against near an hundred Frenchmen and Indians, and resistance
was as unthinkable as flight.

So much I reasoned for myself, and Tawannears and Corlaer agreed with
me when I repeated the substance of the conversation as we fell into
line behind the French commander's canoe, and wearily retraced our
course.  We were too disheartened to say much, for we reckoned it
probable we should have to do over again what we had already
accomplished, and that would mean losing the Summer--and very likely,
having to wait over the next Winter.  Ahead, I could see Black Robe
leaning forward now and then to speak to Le Moyne.  A bad omen!

At dusk the flotilla drew inshore to the northern bank a few miles
below the mouth of the Ouabache, and we beached our canoe with the
others.  A file of the regular infantry busied themselves to help us
collect wood, and although they did not touch our arms they made us
feel that we were prisoners.  I tried to draw out the corporal, but
gleaned little for my pains.  Yes, they had left Le Detroit whilst
the snow was still on the ground.  They had been to the mouth of the
Great River or very near it, to the French post at New Orleans, where
the Sieur de Bienville, the Chevalier de Longueuil's brother, was
stationed.  Now, they were returning by way of Vincennes, Le Detroit,
Jagara and Fort Cadaraqui* to Montreal.


* Afterward Fort Frontenac.


It had been a trip of inspection, I gathered typical of the nervous
energy of the French Government, not content, as were the rulers of
the English colonies, to rest satisfied with a strip of seacoast or
the valley of a tidal river, but forever reaching out for new lands
to develop and acquire and hold in fee as a heritage for the
future--a trip of thousands of leagues by river and forest, under all
extremes of heat and cold.  And if the humble corporal knew nothing
of such high policies, nonetheless I was sure that one of Le Moyne's
objects must have been the selection of suitable points for a chain
of trading stations and military posts along the line of the Ohio and
the Mississippi to link up the New Orleans settlement with Canada,
and so bar England once for all from the untapped resources of the
Far West beyond the Great River.

Somewhat of these reflections I communicated to my comrades as we ate
our evening meal, and we were still discussing the significance of
our chance encounter when an ensign came to summon us to Le Moyne.
The French Commander was sitting by a fire in a deep glade that ran
back from the river's brink toward the forest.  Black Robe was
standing beside him when we arrived, hot eyes shining uncannily in
the glare of the leaping flames, distorted fingers twitching his
rosary beads.

"Be seated," said Le Moyne briefly.  And then falteringly, in the
Seneca dialect: "Tawannears, and you, Corlaer, pardon me if I speak
in French to your friend.  My tongue has not the knack of the
Iroquois speech."

Tawannears bowed with the gracious assent of a prince.  Corlaer
squeaked "_Ja._"

Le Moyne turned to me, his manner hostile, his accent crisp.

"I have been hearing bad things about you, Monsieur Ormerod.  The
reverend father tells me you are a secret envoy of the English, a
spy, in other words, one they send abroad to sow trouble betwixt us
and the savages.  He charges that you are the favorite emissary of
Monsieur Burnet and that it is largely due to you the Six Nations
have latterly turned against us."

"But, Chevalier----"

"I will have no buts, Monsieur Ormerod.  It is beyond reason that I
should permit such a person as you to travel undisturbed in French
territory."

"But is it French territory?" I demanded.

"If the Peace of Utrecht means aught."

"I have heard it said that no two minds were alike on that point," I
commented dryly.

He laughed.

"There you are right," he agreed.  "Yet it is beside the point.  You
are a trouble-maker, Monsieur.  I must expel you.  Wherever I found
you I should expel you."

"Are the French at war with the English?" I asked hotly.

"Not that I have heard.  You are later from civilization than I,
Monsieur."

"Then why----"

He brushed the objection aside.

"We deal with realities, Monsieur Ormerod.  'Tis not a question of
war but of peace--for France.  As I have said, you are a
trouble-maker.  If I let you wander free, the next time I came this
way you might have all the tribes by the ears, united by alliances
with the English Crown.  Heed me now when I say that France came
first into this country, and France shall stay first here."

"But I say I have no interest in this country.  I----"

Black Robe bent forward sternly.

"Do not relent, my son," he said to Le Moyne.  "The man is
dangerous--his companions, too."

"You have heard my decision, father," answered the officer.

I regarded the priest curiously.

"Why do you dislike me?" I asked.  "We are on opposite sides, 'tis
true, but I have always fought you fair--and once I saved your life."

This was no less than truth, for on a certain occasion, which has
nothing to do with this story, the Iroquois would cheerfully have
burned Père Hyacinthe but for my strenuous objection.  He was in no
ways grateful at the time, I am bound to admit, and he did not
exhibit gratitude now, as he towered over the camp-fire.

"Poor worm that squirms itself into the path of destiny!" he said
harshly.  "There is no question of fair fighting or foul fighting
betwixt us, nor of gratitude or ingratitude.  You serve Anti-Christ.
I serve the Heavenly Father.  At no place do we touch.  We have no
interests in common.  If you did well, doubt not Holy Peter has
recorded the deed for you in his record book.  But who are you to
prate of good deeds when your soul is steeped in the darkness of
heresy, and your eyes are clouded by English lies?  Think, rather, on
your sins, and it may be you will see light before it is too late."

He turned to Le Moyne.

"My son, I am leaving you now.  There is a village of the Ouabaches
some miles hence where I have preached the Word.  I visit them and
will rejoin you at Vincennes."

He turned on his heel and strode off.

"Hold, father," called the officer.  "Will you not rest and eat?  An
escort, surely----"

The answer came from the shadows.

"I do not need an escort when I go upon my Father's business.  I have
rested all day and I have broken my fast."

"_Peste!_" ejaculated Le Moyne.  "'Tis an uncomfortably holy person,
Monsieur Ormerod."

"Do I not know it!" I retorted.  "This is not the first time, either."

The Frenchman chuckled.

"So I gathered.  But come, now, tell me truthfully what is your
object; 'twill do you no good to deceive.  My hands are bound, as you
must know.  This wood-ranging is a tedious business, and I have heard
naught of politics since I left New Orleans.  What bee is buzzing in
Burnet's hat?"

I gave him a desperate look.  He was a man of good countenance,
kindly in reason, iron-willed, pugnacious, intelligent.  So I read
him.  He lounged by the fire obviously bored.  There were no others
close by save Tawannears and Corlaer, and they were smoking and
exchanging small-talk on their own account.

"The truth?" I said.  "You shall have it--although 'tis not a story
for general telling.  You, Chevalier, I can see, are a gentleman."

He bowed courteously.

"And for that reason," I went on, "I give you my confidence.  'Tis
true, of course, that in my travels I am keeping my eyes open for
information useful to my people.  If, for instance, you sent me back
to New York I should have to tell at once of meeting this expedition
and the deductions I had drawn from it."

"Hah!" said Le Moyne.  "I don't know that I shall!  I hadn't thought
of that."

"Then I should not like to be in your dilemma," I replied.  "After
all, as Père Hyacinthe told you, I am a member of the Provincial
Council.  You can't very well incarcerate me without trial in time of
peace."

"Get on with your story, Monsieur," he adjured impatiently.

"I am hoping," I pursued, "to learn much of value.  No Englishman
that I know of hath traversed the Wilderness Country across the
Mississippi.  I would learn to what extent our people and the French
are known to its tribes, and what is their disposition to the
English, as also, the value of the land and its geographic condition."

"My faith, Monsieur, but you are frank!" protested the Frenchman.

"I am trying to be," I said.  "But you may believe me or not,
Chevalier.  I should not be here for that reason alone, nor would my
comrades yonder."

And I described to him as simply as possible the combination of
circumstances which had brought Tawannears, Corlaer and myself upon
this venture.  'Twas not a story easily to be compressed, and again
and again he drove me off the main trail into byways, for bits of it
had come to him in the past--as, for instance, the matter of Gahano's
death and the grief of Tawannears--so it was very late when I
finished.  My comrades were asleep, and over the brow of the shallow
glen I could see the groups of sleepers around the dying fires.  By
the shore where the canoes were beached and at intervals along the
edge of the encampment stood the sentinels.  Except ourselves, they
were the only souls awake.

I looked at them because my eyes were wet.  In repeating my story I
had resurrected painful memories that the recent weeks had buried.
The old wound had reopened.  I did not like to think of the house in
Pearl Street.  At that moment I thought I never wanted to enter it
again.  I loathed the idea of returning to New York.  And I did not
want the Frenchman to see my grief.

I was brought back to the present by a crash of sparks as he withdrew
a heavy log from the fire, and the flames flared lower.

"Monsieur Ormerod," he said abruptly, "you were good enough to call
me a gentleman."

I met his eyes fully--and scarcely dared to believe what I read there.

"I am also," he continued, "a soldier of France.  I trust I place my
country's interests above my personal vanity, above friendship, above
all.  But I should not be a Frenchman if I did not recognize courage
and the love which spans the worlds.  I have learned a lesson from
you and your comrades to-night, Monsieur.  I thank you for it.  You
have made me a better Frenchman, a better soldier, a better
Christian."

He made a wry face at this last word.

"Although I shall have trouble convincing Père Hyacinthe on that
count," he admitted.

"You mean, Chevalier?" I queried breathlessly.

"I mean, Monsieur Ormerod, that I am unable to see how an adventure
such as yours can do anything save good.  It is an inspiration for
brave men of all races.  Has it not made me a better Frenchman to
hear of it?  That sleeping savage there, he is a better Frenchman
than I, even so, he, who doubtless hates my race."

He rose.

"But I am not a sufficiently better Frenchman to dare to seem to
flout Père Hyacinthe.  Oh no!  Therefore, Monsieur Ormerod, I am
going for a walk to inspect the sentries.  I shall draw their
attention to something by the shore of the river over to the left.
In the meantime, the fire dies.  This glen leads into the forest.
Your friends are here.  I see you have your arms with you.  Monsieur,
I have the honor to tell you it has been a pleasure to meet you.
_Adieu!_"

He was gone whilst I was still mumbling my thanks, I heard his hearty
voice blustering at the nearest sentries, a running chain of comment
along the outskirts of the camp; and I was recalled to my senses.  A
hand over the mouth of each, and my comrades awoke.  Another minute,
and crouched double, we were stealing up the glen into the welcome
depths of the forest.  Five minutes later, and our feet were spurning
the leaf-mold as we ran between the trunks, left arms outstretched
before our faces to ward off hanging boughs or vines.




CHAPTER V

THE FATHER OF WATERS

We heard no whooping of aroused savages, as must have attended
discovery of our escape; but we dared not trust unduly in Le Moyne's
generosity, and we ran throughout the night, steering in a
northwesterly direction by the stars, in order to avoid the Ouabache
villages and the French post at Vincennes.  We came to a halt only
when the sunrise showed us to be approaching the verge of the forest
country.  Beyond the thinning tree trunks a perspective of rolling
savannahs stretched to the horizon's rim.  Not a single tree broke
the monotonous outline, and the tall grass rippled under a gentle
breeze like the green billows of the ocean.

"We have gone far enough, brothers," said Tawannears.  "Out there a
man is visible for miles.  Let us rest now and make sure we are not
followed."

We swung by a pendant grape-vine into the center of a thorny patch of
wild berry-bushes, chopped out a space to recline in, arranged the
bushes we had demolished in the fashion of a roof so as to preserve
the contour of the patch, and abandoned ourselves to sleep.  It was
noon when we awakened again.  Indeed, Tawannears swung himself out of
our hidey-hole as I opened my eyes.  He was gone for half an hour and
returned to announce that he had been unable to find any trace of
pursuit along our trail.

"That means we are safe," I exclaimed jubilantly.  "To-night we can
steal back to the river and take a canoe from one of the Ouabache
villages."

"My brother's wits are clouded," returned Tawannears.  "Our enemies
will be watching for us to do that very thing."

"_Ja_," agreed Peter, yawning awake.  "Andt if we got away they would
follow us."

"True talk," said the Seneca.  "They would follow us and they would
catch us.  That way we should lose our scalps."

"Then what can we do?" I demanded.

He pointed to the expanse of the savannahs--or prairies, as the
French call them--which we could just see over the tree-tops.

"From here to the Father of Waters, brother, most of the country is
like that.  Corlaer and Tawannears know, because when we made this
journey before, we came all the way by land from the Door of the Long
House.  The open country begins even farther to the east as you go
north toward the Lakes.  Over such country we can travel almost as
rapidly as in the canoe, and also, brother, we can travel in a
straight line.  The Ohio twists like a snake and it bears away to the
south, so that after it carried us to the Great River we should have
to paddle north again against the current, for it is my purpose to
make for the country of the Dakota, above the other great river, the
Missouri, which pours into the Father of Waters on its west side.
Corlaer and Tawannears dwelt a while with the Dakota, before the
message came summoning us to return to the Long House, and it is my
thought that they might help us farther upon this journey, where
other peoples would seek to plunder us or take our scalps."

"You are right, as always, brother," I said.  "If Peter agrees, let
us start."

Peter heaved himself ponderously to his feet, seized his musket and
stood ready for Tawannears to lead the way.

"_Ja_," he squeaked placidly.  "Now we get some buffalo-hump."

"What?" I asked, as Tawannears started down the hillock.

"He means the wild cattle of the plains, brother," explained the
Seneca.  "You have seen their skins in the lodges of my people, and
once, the forefathers tell us through the Keeper of the Wampum, the
buffalo ranged up to the Doors of the Long House; but now they are
seldom seen east of the Ouabache.  Their meat is sweet and tender at
this time of the year, especially the hump of a young cow.  It will
be a welcome change after jerked deerflesh."

"_Ja_," affirmed Corlaer, licking his lips.

And I was amused to notice the display of vigilance with which he
surveyed the country around us as we left the protection of the
forest for the open sweep of the savannahs.  To be sure, the fat
Dutchman was never as dull as he allowed himself to seem, and he had
developed the faculties of seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling to a
pitch as acute as the savages' which is the highest praise I can
offer.  But he usually employed his ability without ostentation.
Now, he was as palpably interested in his surroundings as I was, and
his growing disappointment, as the afternoon waned and we had no
sight of a living creature, was comical.  Indeed, he was much put out
when I rallied him upon it, and his silence when we halted at evening
was gloomily expressive.

Our camp that night was beside a tiny rill of water that tickled
along a fold in the rolling waves of earth.  There was no underbrush
available, let alone trees, and the long prairie grass that grew
waist-high was too green to burn readily, so we had no fire.  But we
did not feel the want of it, for the heat was terrible on the
unshaded savannahs.  All day the sun had been beating down upon the
earth, and all day the earth had been drinking in the heat--to exude
it through the night like a dry sweat.

Peter and I came to envy Tawannears his nakedness, and in the morning
we stripped off our leathern shirts and rolled them in bundles to
sling from the thongs of our food-pouches, suffering the Seneca to
coat us with bear's-grease which he carried in a horn-box, a
precaution which diminished notably the ardency of the sun's rays.
Without its aid my unweathered shoulders must have been broiled pink,
whereas under the layer of grease they baked gradually until in days
to come they turned a warm brown not unlike the dusky bronze hue of
Tawannears himself.

We had not pushed far this morning when we came upon a broad swath of
trampled grass leading from south to north.  Hoof-marks showed in the
pulverized earth, and Peter's little eyes glistened.

"Buffalo!" he shrilled, excited as a boy.  "Oof, now we get some nice
hump for supper."

Eyes fixed on the horizon, he set off northward at a jog-trot, and
Tawannears and I followed him, really as anxious as he to vary the
monotony of our diet.  Most of our burnt corn and maple-sugar was
gone, and we had had scarcely anything but jerked deer-flesh for
three days.

"How does he know the buffalo went north?" I questioned.  "The trail
leads in both directions."

"They always travel north at this season," rejoined Tawannears.  "In
the fall of the year they will turn south again.  Yes, Peter is
right.  This grass was trampled only yesterday.  They must be near
us."

A yelp came from the Dutchman at that moment, and his enormous body
crouched forward.

"See!" he cried.

We joined him on the summit of a slight rise.  Several miles across
the grassy sea moved a desultory procession of brown objects,
hundreds of them.

"A large herd," I commented.

Peter gave me a scornful look, and Tawannears laughed.

"Beyond the Father of Waters, brother," said the Seneca, "you will
see the buffalo in such myriads as the wild pigeons that flew over
the Ohio.  The thundering of their hoofs will shake the ground.  They
will cover the prairie for two days' fast marching."

Peter plucked a blade of grass and tossed it in the air.  There was
very little wind but what there was wafted it over our heads.

"_Goodt!_" he grunted.  "Dey are upwindt."

"Will Corlaer stalk the buffalo without assistance?" inquired
Tawannears with his customary courtesy.

"One shot is enough," returned Peter, and he lumbered away through
the grass, his body huddled over until he was wholly concealed.

I started to sit down to watch the Dutchman's exploit, but
Tawannears, with a light of mischief in his eyes, prodded me off to
the right, and broke into a run as soon as we had placed one of the
deceptive swells of the prairie between us and our comrade.

"What ploy is this?" I panted.

"We will surprise Peter," he answered, laughing.  "He thinks to stalk
the buffalo, Otetiani, and instead we will make the buffalo stalk
him."

We fetched a wide semicircle northeastward, and came up on the flank
of the herd.  But before we approached closely Tawannears halted, and
we picked bunches of grass which he arranged on our heads, so that at
even a short distance we were indistinguishable from our grassy
background.  Then we continued, working slowly around the flank of
the herd until we were in its rear.  Corlaer was nowhere to be seen.

"Now, brother!" said Tawannears.

He cast off his head-dress, and advanced openly upon the animals.  I
imitated him, and an old bull gave a bellow of warning.  A medley of
noises answered the alarm, mooing of cows and bleating of frightened
calves and over all the bellowing of other bulls.  The herd milled
around and gave ground before us.  Tawannears waved his arms, and it
broke into a run.

"They will go over Peter!" I exclaimed.

"No," answered Tawannears.  "If it were a large herd, perhaps.  But
we have only made it easier for Peter, who said he needed no help.
He will shoot into the herd when it approaches him, and the buffalo
will split right and left on either side of him."

The herd topped the first swell to the south, and a shot boomed
suddenly.

"Watch!" said Tawannears.

The frenzied mass of huge, shaggy creatures divided as if a giant
sword had sliced down from the blazing sky overhead.  I ran up the
slope behind them and reached its brow in time to see the halves
reunite a quarter of a mile farther on.  Directly beneath me lay the
body of a fat cow, and Peter already was at work upon it with his
knife.  Tawannears raised the war-whoop, but Peter carved stolidly on.

"_Ja_," he remarked when we joined him, "you think you put der choke
on Peter, eh?  Well, you don't.  I look back once andt I don't see
you.  Andt den der herd begins to mofe, andt it stampedes.  'Ho,' I
said to myself.  'Funny tricks!  _Ja_, funny tricks.'  But I shoot me
der best cow in der lot, yust der same.  We hafe some nice hump for
supper.  _Ja_."

Fortunately for Peter's appetite, we were able to camp that night in
a grove of dwarf trees that bordered a small river, and the broiled
buffalo hump was all that he had anticipated.  We seized the
opportunity afforded by a plentiful supply of firewood to jerk the
balance of the choice cuts, about four stone in weight, which
detained us in the grove all of the next day.  Of course, we could
not make a thorough job of it, but it sufficed to preserve the meat
untainted in that searing heat for three or four days longer, and at
the end of that time we had worked into a different kind of country
where game was more plentiful.

Here lush meadows alternated with dense patches of low timber and
swamps and bottomlands, these latter backwaters of the river, which
were forest-covered, yet never completely drained.  The increasing
natural difficulties slowed our pace, and we were three days in
traversing this broken country; but Tawannears encouraged us with the
assurance that it indicated our nearness to the Great River, which
always in the Spring inundated the lands along its course, sometimes
for many miles.

This country was neither pleasant nor healthful by contrast with the
cool forests and open savannahs we had known, and we were pestered
unmercifully by a plague of gnats.  But on the other hand we were
never at a loss for fresh meat.  We knocked over squirrels with
sticks and dragged the wild turkeys from their roosts at night.
There was a kind of partridge, too, that plumped up under our feet, a
stupid bird easily to be slain with the tomahawk.  And one time a
black bear barred our path and stood growling at us.  We let him go,
for we needed no meat and we must husband our powder.

The third day we waded knee-deep through a flooded forest-tract and
came without warning upon the margin of a wide, brown stream.  I
hailed it for the Mississippi, at last; but Tawannears asserted it to
be the Illinois, a tributary, which flowed down from the vicinity of
the Lake of the Michigans and entered the Mississippi opposite to and
a short distance above the Missouri.  This knowledge was valuable,
inasmuch as it told us approximately where we were, and we turned
back to nominally dry ground and headed southwest, following the
general trend of the Illinois.  But our progress was slower than
ever, for the luxuriance of the undergrowth in those moist lowlands
baffles description.  Briars tore our skin; creepers tripped us;
bushes grew so thickly that we had to hack our way step by step,
taking turns at trail-breaking.

The next day we won to higher ground, a ridge from which we caught
occasional glimpses of the Illinois; and in mid-afternoon we stumbled
unawares upon a trail that led from the northeast and straddled the
saddle of the ridge.

"Back!" hissed Tawannears, as we smashed carelessly through the
brushwood into the grooved slot.

Ostensibly, the trail was deserted.  A lightning glance revealed it a
vacant, green-walled tunnel.  But appearances meant nothing in the
Wilderness, and we slid behind a fallen trunk, straining our ears for
sounds of other men.  Bees buzzed over us in the soft yellow light.
We heard water running somewhere.  Birds sang in the tree-tops.  That
was all.  Minute by minute, we waited for the purr of an arrow, the
crash of a shot, the yell of the war-whoop.  But nothing happened,
and at last Tawannears motioned for us to crawl after him to a
position offering ready access to the choked lands on the river side
of the ridge.  There he left us, to scout the neighborhood alone.  An
hour passed, as Peter and I knelt back to back in the underbrush, our
eyes roaming the woods on every side.  Another hour, and I became
restless.  Evening was darkening when the hoot of an owl announced
Tawannears' approach.  He crawled into our lair, and dropped a worn
moccasin in Peter's lap.

"Chippewa," he murmured.

Peter nodded confirmation, slowly turning the footgear in his pudgy
hands.

"A war-party," continued Tawannears.  "They were going across the
Father of Waters.  Their footprints all point toward the river."

"Der trail is fresh?" queried Corlaer.

"I found the ashes of a fire two days old," returned the Seneca.  "It
is my counsel that we lie here until morning.  I think the Chippewas
are planning to cross the Great River to hunt for Dakota scalps and
buffalo robes.  The Dakota are my brothers.  They are brave warriors,
but they have no muskets.  The Chippewas are allies of the French.
They have muskets, and it is easier for them to steal furs from the
Dakota than to hunt the wild creatures themselves.  Let us give them
time to cross the river.  Afterward we will follow them and carry a
warning to the Dakota."

Morning brought rain, and we were afoot with the light, avoiding the
trail itself, slinking by preference through the woods parallel with
it.  It was a weary day of physical discomfort and cautious progress,
but we had our reward.  In the late afternoon we splashed out of a
backwater to emerge upon a shelving bluff, grassy and well-timbered.
From its western edge we stared at a vast yellow sea, its farther
shore dim under driving sheets of rain.

"The Father of Waters," said Tawannears.

I gasped.  Miles wide the yellow waters rolled as far as the eye
could see.  Sullen, threatening, overpowering in its surge and
breadth, the river pulsed along with a majestic rhythm almost like a
living thing.

"But how shall we cross it?" I stammered.

Tawannears waved a hand toward the saplings that crowded the bluff.

"We have our hatchets.  We must build a raft."

We chose for our camp the site the Chippewas had occupied, a recess
under the bluff that had been dug by the Spring freshets when the
water was higher even than now, and the débris of their raft-building
told my comrades that they had not numbered more than twenty or
thirty, an ordinary raiding party of young warriors.  It was too late
to begin work then on the raft, but in the morning, with sunshine to
hearten us, we fell to with our hatchets and chopped down a score or
two of sturdy young trees, dragged them to a point just above
water-level, and left them there, whilst we invaded the backwaters to
collect grape-vines and other creepers, which we carried back to the
bluff by the armload.

These were Tawannears' materials, and under his direction we formed
them into a remarkably buoyant raft.  His theory was to take a number
of saplings and bind them one to another.  On these transversely he
placed a second layer, which were first bound together and then
staunchly fastened to the bottom layer.  Two additional layers were
superimposed upon these, with the result that he had a high-riding,
practically water-tight conveyance, ample to float the three of us.
The one difficulty we foresaw was in forcing our way across the
current, and we met this as well as we could by whittling crude
paddles and poles for pushing in shallow water.  We were vastly proud
of our achievement when we wiped the sweat from our eyes after two
days of labor and admired the raft as it rode to a withe cable
hitched to a convenient stump.

"She floats as grandly as a frigate," I exclaimed.

"And no snag can sink Her," added Tawannears.  "The Father of Waters
is conscious of his might.  He is jealous of those who would travel
him.  He has knives hidden in his bosom to wreck the unwary, but
we----"

"Hark!" interrupted Corlaer, hand upraised.

From inland came the crashing noise made by a heavy body moving
carelessly through the undergrowth, the mutter of a voice
unrestrained.  We snatched up our rifles and ran to cover.  It was
useless to think of flight on the raft.  An enemy could riddle us as
we strove to force its unwieldy bulk out into the stream.  No, our
only chance was to stand to it, conscious that we had our backs to
the river and therefore could not be surrounded.  Perhaps night would
furnish an opportunity for us to escape by dropping down with the
current--if we were not overwhelmed by numbers before that.  Only a
strong force, unafraid, would crash towards us in that reckless way.
It was like white men, not Indians.  The thought sent a shiver down
my spine.  I rolled over beside Tawannears.

"Is it the French, brother?" I asked.

"We shall soon see," he answered grimly.  "Someone is walking there
between the trees--to your right."




CHAPTER VI

WE CROSS THE GREAT RIVER

A dark object showed in the sun-flecked greenery of the woods.
Tawannears thrust forward his musket, and sighted along the barrel.

"He is alone," murmured Peter.

"Then there will be none to tell his story," remarked Tawannears
grimly.  "But Corlaer must not be too sure.  He may be the bait to a
trap."

The strange figure strode into an opening bathed in the warm
sunlight, and I had a brief vision of a fluttering black habit and a
white blob of a face.

"It is Black Robe!" I cried softly.

Tawannears cuddled his gun to his cheek.

"Hawenneyu has delivered him into our hands," he commented.  "If I
miss, Corlaer must shoot before he can run."

"_Ja_," grunted Peter.

"No, no," I exclaimed, "There must be no shooting."

"He is an enemy," answered Tawannears, unmoved.  "He hates us.  Why
should my brother care whether he lives or dies?"

"But he has done nothing to us that advantaged him," I argued.  "He
does not even know that we are here."

"Perhaps he does," said Tawannears.  "Perhaps he has followed us,
when Le Moyne refused to do so.  Perhaps his Ouabaches and Miamis
lurk behind him."

"He is alone," repeated Peter.  "But just der same we better shoot
him.  He is no goodt."

"It would be murder," I insisted.  "We shall serve no object by
killing him.  What harm can he do us?  In a few hours we shall have
passed the river where his Indians cannot reach us."

The Jesuit was in full view, advancing almost directly toward us, his
eyes on the blue horizon.  He was chanting to himself in a deep,
sonorous voice, and as he drew nearer I identified the words of the
Vesper Hymn:

  "mens gravata crimine,
  Vitae sit exul munere,
  Dum nil perenne cogitat,
  Seseque culpis illigat."


"I am going to speak to him," I said.  "It can do no harm.  He does
not know we are here.  Why, Tawannears, the man is fearless.  He
would walk straight into your musket, and defy you to shoot.
Moreover, he has withstood the torture more than once, and I do not
think he is right in his head.  Would you be proud of killing one
whose mind the Great Spirit had wrapped in a cloud?"

Tawannears was all Indian, despite his perfect English and the
erudition he had absorbed from his missionary teachers.  Corlaer,
after a life among the red men, had imbibed many of their prejudices.
My last remark turned the scale.  A man whose mentality had been
touched was sacred to any tribe.

The Seneca smiled unwillingly.

"Otetiani is a strong pleader.  Very well.  Let Black Robe live.  But
if he meditates treachery we must kill him, even though Hawenneyu has
set him aside among men."

"He is alone," declared Peter for the third time.  "Always he trafels
alone.  I know it.  But he is no friend to us.  We watch him, eh?"

"Surely," I agreed.  "He is a Frenchman and our enemy.  That I do not
deny.  But he cannot harm us.  Come, we will ask him his business
here.  Afterwards, if necessary, we will keep watch on him."

Black Robe had halted some thirty yards south of our hiding place,
and stood now on the edge of the bluff, surveying the wonderful
prospect of the unbridled river, its yellow waters glistening in the
sunlight, the opposite bank a low green wall two miles or more away.
His lips moved in words I could not hear, and he dropped to his knees
in the attitude of prayer, head bowed, and remained so many minutes,
his body rigid with the ecstasy of devotion.

I waited until he had risen again, then stepped from our hiding-place
and walked toward him.  Tawannears and Corlaer followed me.  He saw
us almost at once, but he made no sign of surprise.  He simply stood,
facing us, his terribly maimed hands locked in front of him, his
spare frame vibrant with the suppressed energy of the indomitable
spirit within him.

"So you came this way," he said harshly.  "I thought as much, but
they would not listen to me."

"And you, Père Hyacinthe?" I asked.  "Where do you go?"

"I go upon my Father's business," he answered in the phrase I had
heard him use more than once before.

"Alone?"

His pallid, riven face cracked in what I suppose he intended for a
smile of sarcasm.

"Shall I take with me such guards as attend the Holy Father when he
rides in state?  No, but I am guarded, Englishman.  Cohorts of angels
attend me.  The cherubim chant me on my way.  It suffices."

"I do not seek to probe your affairs," I replied as politely as I
could, "but you are our enemy.  We do not wish to harm you, yet we
must protect ourselves."

"You cannot harm me," he said without irritation.  "Enemy?  No, my
erring son, I am not your enemy--or, rather say I am enemy only to
the evil that hath possession of you.  But content yourself.  I have
come many miles this day and I saw no living thing, save the beasts
of the forest."

I was satisfied, for I knew it was not in the priest to lie.

"Have you food?" I asked.

"Food?" he repeated doubtfully, almost as if he had not understood
me.  "No, but I shall eat."

"If a heretic's food----" I began.

"Heaven's grace is vouchsafed in divers ways," he cut me off curtly.
"It may be this opportunity has been given you to find an escape from
sin.  I will eat your food, Englishman."

Tawannears and Peter listened sullenly to my invitation, and their
faces expressed neither welcome nor toleration as the Jesuit walked
back with us to the recess under the bluff.

His hollow eyes lighted with unusual interest when he spied our raft.

"You are crossing the Great River, Monsieur Ormerod?"

He seemed tricked out of his dour mannerisms for the moment.  His
voice took on the casual courtesy of one gentleman to another.  But
it was a fleeting manifestation, no doubt an echo from some
long-buried past.

"Yes," I said, "as I told the Chevalier----"

"Strange," he interrupted me abruptly, his old manner returning,
"that you of all men should be appointed to aid in the fulfilling of
my mission.  How inscrutable are God's ways!  Yet there must be a
meaning in this.  Blessed Virgin aid me!"

My comrades would have nothing to do with him.  They took their food
and removed out of ear-shot, leaving me to do the honors, which was
only fair, inasmuch as I had foisted him upon them.  But it insured
an ill evening for me, for Black Robe utilized the opportunity to
examine me at length upon my religious convictions--sketchy, at best,
I fear, after a lifetime of wandering--and read me a lecture upon the
errors of my creed.  I marvel much as I look back upon that incident.
In many ways I hold he was wrong, but of all men I have known as well
I must account him the most holy.  He knew not the meaning of the
word self-interest.  Life for him was service of the Word of God, as
he understood it.  He wasted no time in the search of Truth, for he
held that it was ready to hand, ay, inscribed in letters of fire
across the skies for all men to see.

He talked to me for hours after the others slept, and I listened with
undiminished interest to the end.  The man's stern conviction was an
inspiration, whether you agreed with him or not.  And if some hold me
religiously a weakling because I grant him the merit of believing
what he preached, my answer is that such as he was, he--and many
others like him--was one of the most potent forces in carrying the
rule of the white man into the Wilderness Country.  If he and his
fellows did not convert the savages, at least they taught them the
strength of the white man's will, and by their pioneering endeavor
they taught their own people the worth of the unknown lands that
always lie beyond the horizon's rim.

In the night the weather shifted, and the morning was overcast and
blustery, with a changeable wind.  We debated whether we should trust
ourselves to the raft under such conditions, and Tawannears and Peter
advised against it until Black Robe derided their fears.

"What?" he cried in the Seneca dialect, which came readily to him, he
having been long a missionary to the People of the Long House.  "Is
the Warden of the Western Door afraid to go upon the waters?  Is
Corlaer, whose fat belly is dreaded by every squaw from Jagara to the
mouth of the Mohawk, fearful lest he wet his moccasins?  You have
dared all manner of perils over hundreds of leagues, and now you
wince at a few leagues of water!  Pluck up your courage!  I am the
wreck of what was a man, yet I am not afraid.  Will you let me daunt
you?"

"Black Robe does not know what he says," replied Tawannears stiffly.
"A silly little bird has whistled idle thoughts in his ear.  He knows
well that Tawannears does not fear even the Master of Evil,
Hanegoategeh, whom Black Robe serves."

Peter said nothing, after his fashion, but his little eyes squinted
thoughtfully, and presently he drew us aside.

"If Black Robe is touched in der head we might be safe," he proposed.

"Nonsense," I retorted impatiently, "what has that to do with whether
the wind blows or the waters rise?  It is dangerous out there on the
raft or it is not.  Black Robe has nothing to do with it."

"My brother Otetiani may be right," said Tawannears, "yet he has said
that the Great Spirit has taken Black Robe under his protection.  If
that is true, will Hawenneyu allow him to drown?"

"Perhaps not," I admitted, "but we might drown whilst he escaped."

"Otetiani speaks with a straight tongue," affirmed the Seneca.
"Nevertheless I say that we cannot let Black Robe put a slight upon
us.  There is danger on the bosom of the Father of Waters.  But if we
do not venture forth Black Robe will laugh at us, and perhaps some
day he will tell the story to his people.  Let us go."

I shrugged my shoulders.  I did not like the look of the river.  It
was roughening every minute.  But neither could I resist the quaint
logic of Tawannears, and of course, no man enjoys being told he is
afraid.

"Have it your own way," I said at last.

Tawannears walked up to the priest.

"We go," he said quietly.  "If we die, remember that you urged us
forth."

One of those rare reflections of a personality long submerged shone
in the Jesuit's face.  He dropped his hand upon the Seneca's bare
shoulder.

"There is naught to fear," he said gently.  "God watches over us on
the water as on the land.  If He has ordained for you to die, you
will die.  The good warrior thinks not upon death, but upon his
mission."

His manner changed.  His hand dropped by his side.  His voice became
harsh.

"Heathen, would you blame me for your wickedness?  As well do so as
charge me with your death!  You and I have no power over life!  Look
up!  Look up, I say!  There is the Power that decides all.  Ha, you
fear--you fear what you know not!"

His face a study in masked fury, Tawannears strode to the side of the
raft, drew his knife and laid the keen edge against the mooring withe.

"Tawannears waits," he said.

Black Robe stepped aboard without a word.  Peter and I climbed after
him, and the Seneca severed the withe with a single slash.  We piled
our muskets, powder-horns and pouches upon a raised framework in the
center of the unwieldy craft, where they would be out of the reach of
the water, and took to the pushing poles, the Jesuit lending a hand,
and shoved out into the current.

The raft rode high, as we had expected, but its heavy weight made it
drag fearfully in the slack water under the bank.  We bent all our
strength on the poles, yet the headway we achieved was trifling.
Sagging, lurching, its component trees rustling and squelching, it
crawled forward a foot or two at a time.  A sandbar held us up for an
hour, and after an unsuccessful effort to push across, we finally
contrived to float around it.  Then we resumed the battle, and
half-naked as we were, the sweat poured from us and our muscles
ached.  How Black Robe endured it I do not know.  Of us all he alone
did not sweat, but he worked unflinchingly until the moment, when,
without warning, a monstrous force seemed to seize upon the raft.

There was a swirl, a peculiar sucking noise--and the shore began to
recede.  The raft wavered crazily, twirled about, started across the
current and as abruptly was spun back downstream.  We stood stupidly,
leaning on our poles, scarcely realizing what had happened.

"The river does our work for us, it seems," I remarked.

Tawannears shook his head, a worried expression in his eyes.

"No, brother, the worst is ahead of us.  The river is like a wild
beast to-day."

"_Ja_," squeaked Corlaer, striking his pole down in a futile effort
to find bottom.

Black Robe remained by himself on the forepart of the raft, his gaze
on the mirky distance where he appeared to be able to see landscapes
that were denied to our earth-bound spirits.

"We can work across the current," I suggested.  "It may take time,
but----"

A yellow-brown wave, its crest tipped with scum, slapped against the
side of the raft and spattered our feet.  Another rolled in from the
opposite quarter and lapped over the side.  The structure of the raft
groaned and shifted.

"It will take many hours," answered Tawannears.  "Our work has just
begun."

We got out the rough paddles we had carved and undertook to steer
diagonally with the current, but experience proved that a consistent
course was impossible of attainment.  We made distance in the desired
direction--and were promptly picked up by an eddy and tossed back
again, or else the vagrant wind set in to toy with us.  The waves
rolled higher constantly, and we were wet to the waist.  But we
fought on, and the longer we fought the more intelligent our efforts
became.

There was a trick to this work, a trick entirely different from
navigating a light, amenable, birchen canoe.  Our raft had a will of
its own, and a certain sense of decency.  Handled as it desired to
be, it would even accomplish a measure of our desires, and gradually
we came to learn its ways.  This aided us in winning ground--or, I
should say, water; but nothing could aid us in conflicting the
capricious moods of wind and current.  Sometimes we had both behind
us, and then we were driven rapidly downstream.  Again, the wind
would come from the quarter and mitigate somewhat the effect of the
current.  Mid-afternoon found us with nothing gained beyond a
hazardous mid-stream course that was varied by occasional wild
lurches in the direction of one shore or the other.

When the current discharged us towards the eastern bank we battled
desperately against it.  When, in one of its incomprehensible moments
of beneficence, it started us in the desired direction we labored
with gritting teeth to assist it.  And every time this happened it
ended by spinning us around and starting us back the way we had come.
Night shut down upon us miles from our starting place, but less than
half-way across.

Sleep, of course, was unthinkable.  We were wet.  We had little
edible food.  But tired as we were, we were still unwilling to
suspend for a minute our struggle against the river.  Moreover, we
now required all our vigilance, for the waters were laden with other
floating objects, sinister, half-sunken projectiles that had been
trees and were now the instruments of the river's wrath.  One of
these, a giant hulk of wood, careened against us in the faint
star-light and partially demolished the structure upon which we had
placed our arms and superfluous clothing.  We narrowly escaped losing
all our store of powder in this misadventure, and the shock had
noticeable effect in loosening the fabric of the raft.  It developed
an increasing sluggishness, a more frequent tendency to lurch
uncertainly, and our attempts to direct its progress became
ridiculously inept.

But we did not desist.  The night was cool, but we sweated as we had
on the broiling savannahs, and tapped unknown reservoirs of strength
to maintain our fight.  We seldom spoke to one another.  There was
little occasion for words, except once in a while to shout a warning.
And Black Robe paddled and poled beside us, hour by hour.  I do not
remember that he ever spoke that night.  We were afraid, frankly,
openly afraid, admitting it tacitly one to another.  But I am sure
that he was as serenely indifferent to fate as he had been in
prodding us to start.  He was the only one who did not croak hoarse
exultation when the river played its last trick upon us.

This came just after sunrise.  We had felt for the past hour an
erratic swirl in the eddying current.  Now we sighted a mile or so
ahead of us to the right the mouth of another river, little narrower
than the Mississippi.

"That is the Missouri, brothers!" exclaimed Tawannears.  "We are far
downstream.  If we are carried beyond this we shall land in the
country of the Mandans, who are enemies of the Dakota and eaters of
human flesh.  Hawenneyu has veiled his face from us!"

But at that instant Hawenneyu withdrew the veil and smiled upon us.
What happened, I think, was that the incoming stream of the Missouri,
meeting the torrent of the Mississippi, combined with the Great River
to form a whirlpool of eddies, with a backshoot toward the western
bank.  At any rate, we were suddenly spun about like a chip in a
kennel, so rapidly that it was dizzying.  Nothing that we could do
had any influence upon the course of the raft.  We tried to work
against the eddies for several moments, and finally gave it up in
disgust, determined to meet whatever doom was in store for us without
flinching.

Our reward was to be impelled at most amazing speed toward the west
bank.  Twice on our way we were caught and torn at by opposing
eddies, but each time the raft worked free of its own volition, and
the rising sun saw us floating, water-logged and bedraggled, in a
backwater under the western bank, perhaps half a mile above the mouth
of the Missouri.

We were still a long way from shore, of course, and it required two
hours of steady poling to work us through the sandbars to within
wading distance of the river's edge; but we made it.  We shouldered
our muskets and staggered ashore to collapse upon the bank just above
the water-level--all except Black Robe.  Without a glance at us or
the sodden remnants of the raft that had carried him here, without
even a casual inspection of the country before him, he climbed the
bank and strode westward.  He had not slept through the night; he had
eaten a bare handful of food since morning; he had labored as hard as
we had.

I called after him, but he dismissed me with an impatient wave of the
hand.  The last I saw of him his black figure was outlined sparsely
against a low wood.  There was an uncompromising air to his back I
did not like, but I could not have pursued him to save myself.
Tawannears and Peter were stretched inert upon the bank beside me,
their eyes closed in sleep.  I hesitated--and sank beside them.




CHAPTER VII

THE COUNTRY OP THE DAKOTA

"Wake, brother, wake!"

The words rang faintly in my ears.  Mingled with them was a peculiar
underlying sound.  "Pop!  Pop!  Pop!" it went, and rippled off into
the noise a wood fire makes when it is burning merrily.

I was conscious of being shaken, resented it, tried to pull away--and
reluctantly awoke.  Tawannears was bending over me, clutching my
shoulder.  His face showed relief as I sat erect.

"Otetiani slept as though he were already in the Halls of the
Honochenokeh," he said.  "Hark!"

Stupefied as I was, I realized that the peculiar sound which had
helped to rouse me from the slumber of exhaustion was the steady
crackle of musketry.

"Black Robe!" I exclaimed.

Tawannears shook his head.

"It may be so, but the firing is not at us, brother.  Come, let us
join Corlaer."

I stood up, musket in hand, and for the first time was aware of the
soreness of muscle, joint and sinew.  Every inch of my body seemed to
cherish its special ache or twinge.

"We are in no condition for fighting," I remarked glumly.

"The warrior fights when he must," returned Tawannears sententiously.
"Hasten, brother.  Corlaer waits us."

I climbed after him toward the top of the bank where I could barely
see the Dutchman's big form huddled in the grass that grew as high as
our waists.  The sun was declining in the western sky.  The wind was
negligible.  The Mississippi, behind us, was as calm as a ditch-pond,
and in the clear, warm sunlight the opposite shore looked absurdly
near.  It was difficult to believe that our battle to cross it had
ended only that morning.

From the crest of the bank an entirely different prospect appeared.
Crawling into the grass beside Peter, Tawannears and I peered
cautiously over its rustling tips to the wall of the low wood in
which Black Kobe had vanished.  This wood was half a mile distant.
Between it and the river-bank stretched an open meadow.  Another
half-mile to our left a few scattered clumps of bushes denoted the
bank of the Missouri.  We were ensconced upon one side of a triangle
of land at the intersection of the two rivers, and it was obvious
that the fighting going on under cover of the wood was working down
into this open triangle.  Apparently one body of men were seeking to
drive a second body into the _cul de sac_ of the triangle.

Even as my mind formulated this theory there was a flash of color on
the edge of the wood and a figure darted into the open.  It was an
Indian, a tall man, wearing a headdress of feathers such as I had
never seen before, a bonnet that encircled the head and reached down
between his shoulders, giving him an exaggerated effect of height.
He leaped back behind a tree as we watched, fitted an arrow to his
bow and loosed it into the recesses of the wood.  Then he turned and
ran.  He had not covered a dozen yards when a shot was fired, and he
bounded high in air and fell upon his face.

Other men, similarly dressed, leaped into view, pausing momentarily
to take advantage of the last cover of the wood to loose their arrows
against whoever was pursuing them.  There must have been a score of
them, I suppose, all fine, tall warriors, naked but for breechclout,
moccasins and headdress; and they ran like antelope across our range
of vision.  From the wood came occasional reports and a second man
plunged to the ground.  We heard a shrill yelping.

"Dakota," granted Tawannears.

"What does it mean?" I asked.

He pushed his musket into position.

"Be patient, brother.  Let us see what happens next."

Other figures broke from the wood, whooping and firing after the
fleeing Dakota, who, their bows hopelessly out-ranged, made no
attempt at resistance, but raced for the protection of the Missouri
bank.

"Chippewa!" squeaked Corlaer.

Tawannears nodded, frowning.

"They are the war-party who crossed the Great River ahead of us," he
agreed.  "What shall we do, brothers?  The Chippewa are allies of the
French.  Corlaer and Tawannears have spent many months in the teepees
of the Dakotas.  But the odds are heavy against our Dakota brothers.
If we cast our lot with them we may lose our own scalps."

"We are in sore danger, no matter which way we turn," I retorted.
"The Chippewa would show us no mercy at any time.  I am for aiding
the Dakota.  If we can save them they will be all the more eager to
help us on our venture, as you suggested before."

"_Ja_," assented Corlaer.  "Andt we gife dose Chippewa a surprise,
eh?"

"We must give them Death," answered Tawannears grimly.

He made good his words as he spoke; and I brought down a second man.
Corlaer waited until I had almost finished reloading, and secured two
men in a row for target, hitting one in the shoulder and drilling the
other through the body.  Firing at ease, with our guns in rest, we
could not miss; and the Chippewa, with howls of rage, promptly went
to cover in the long grass.

This marked the initiation of a second phase of the engagement.  The
Chippewa were excellent marksmen, and when Corlaer took his second
shot they deluged him with bullets that dug up the sods around him
and sent him rolling down the bank, spitting dirt out of his mouth.
Tawannears and I slid after him, deeming discretion preferable to
valor.

If our fusillade had astonished the Chippewa it had been equally
disconcerting to the Dakota.  They did not know what to make of it.
At first they seemed to fear a trap, but when they marked the furious
discharge of their enemies that drove us over the bank they evidently
decided we must be friends, and struck off from their line of flight
at right angles so as to accommodate a union of forces with us.

We, on our part, were concerned to effect this union and at the same
time compel the Chippewa to hold off long enough to permit us an
opportunity to concert a plan of strategy with the Dakota band.  So
after trotting a rod down-river we reclimbed the bank and poured a
second volley into the line of Chippewa, whose crouching figures were
only half-concealed by the waving grass-tips.  Before they could
shift their aim from the position we had formerly occupied we had
slid down the bank and were making for a new vantage-point.

By means of such tactics we were able to force the Chippewa to an
advance as slow as it was cautious, for they dared not expose
themselves unduly after the punishment we had inflicted in the
beginning, and we secured time to work down river to where the
remnants of the Dakota band hugged the protection of the bank, arrows
notched, and curious glances mirroring the suspicion they still
entertained of such unexpected rescuers.  But their suspicion faded
as we came close enough for them to identify Tawannears and the
immense body of the Dutchman.

Their chief, a sinewy giant of forty, with a high-beaked nose and
keen, direct gaze, his headdress of golden eagle's feathers, stepped
forward to greet us, a light of welcome on his face; and both my
friends exclaimed at sight of him.

"Do you know him?" I panted eagerly.

"He is Chatanskah*, Chief of the Wahpeton Council Fire," answered
Tawannears briefly.  "Many a buffalo he has stalked with Corlaer and
Tawannears."


* White Hawk.


Chatanskah exchanged a few curt sentences with Tawannears, who nodded
agreement with what he said, and then led his warriors at a dead run
toward the junction of the two rivers--the apex of the triangle over
which this fighting ranged.  The Seneca motioned for us to follow
them.

"Haste, brothers!" he urged.  "We must trick the Chippewa.  It is
Chatanskah's plan to seek the protection of the wood where it
approaches the Missouri bank, nearly opposite here."

But this was not so easy of accomplishment as it sounded.  The
Chippewa soon appreciated our intent, and we had not doubled the apex
of the blunt promontory, with its glacis of mudflats, when they
tumbled over the Mississippi bluff and pelted us with lead.  Others
headed across the meadow which constituted the heart of the triangle,
thinking to cut us off as we bounded its outer edge, but Tawannears,
Corlaer and I crawled to the top of the Missouri bluff and drove them
to cover again.  And at last, by dint of this and similar desperate
ploys, we were enabled to scramble up the Missouri bank in the rear
of our allies and dash across a narrow belt of grass land into the
green shelter of the wood, a shower of balls slicing the boughs about
our shoulders.


There we were reasonably safe, and Tawannears explained the situation
to us whilst the Dakota produced meat from their pouches, and we
snatched a hasty meal as the evening shadows lengthened.

"This wood runs west and north for a mile," he said.  "Beyond it the
country is all open, buffalo grazing-ground where the Dakota were
hunting when the Chippewa surprised them this afternoon.  It is
Chatanskah's counsel that we hold the wood until it is dark when he
can afford to risk taking to the prairie.  The Dakota villages are a
long day's----"

He was interrupted by the resumption of the Chippewa's attack.  They
had massed their men behind the Missouri bank in front of us, and
fired into the wood as rapidly as they could load and reload.
Bullets "_phutted!_" into the trees, swished through the branches and
whistled in the air.  I was long to remember the sinister song they
sang, for years were to pass before I was again obliged to stand up
to the battering of musketry.  The racket was awesome, yet it
achieved remarkably little harm.  One of the Dakota abandoned shelter
to loose an arrow and sagged to the ground with a bullet in his
lungs.  Otherwise we were scathless so far.

The firing increased in volume.  It became a hell of fury, and we
could hear the Chippewa yelling encouragement to one another.  Smoke
clouds billowed out from the bank in thick, cottony puffs, and
suddenly Chatanskah screeched a warning.  The smoke clouds seemed to
vomit forth low-running figures, musket in one hand, tomahawk in the
other.  But this was a chance for which Tawannears, Peter and I had
been waiting, and we made our shots count.  Our allies, too, were not
dismayed.  In the smoky dusk, at such short distances, the bow was on
more than equal terms with the musket.

The Chippewa did not dare to stop to reload.  They were obliged to
rely upon the covering fire of the half-dozen comrades who had
remained behind the bank, and these found it impossible to aim
because of the heavy smoke that the dying wind could not disperse.
The Dakota bows boomed with savage joy.  All around us I heard the
tense, twanging hum of the strings, the prolonged "_his-ss-s-tsst!_"
of the arrows.  Out in the open men tossed their arms aloft and
dropped with arrows in their bowels, or fell kicking and coughing,
pierced in the throat, or went straight over backward with a bunch of
feathers standing up just over their hearts.

The attack faltered and gave ground, and the Dakota warriors burst
from the wood.  Two of them collapsed before a ragged volley from the
river-bank, but there was no stopping them.  They swept over the
field with tomahawk and scalping-knife, and their arrows drove the
surviving Chippewa out upon the mudflats, where they would have
followed if Chatanskah had not called them in, fearful of an
ambuscade in the gathering darkness.

That was a proud night for the Dakota band.  The youngest warrior
counted coup, for the Chippewa had lost two-thirds of their number.
But what pleased our new friends the most was not their tale of
scalps, but the eighteen French firelocks that were theirs for
lifting from the ground.  It was the biggest haul of war-booty their
tribe had ever taken, of incalculable military value, as the future
was soon to show.  Moreover, that battle in the triangle between the
two rivers, obscure though it was, became famous in the annals of the
plains tribes, as proving that under favorable circumstances they
could stand up to the forest tribes from the east side of the
Mississippi, despite the better arms of the forest warriors.  And
many chiefs, who up to that time had concentrated their efforts upon
stealing horses, branched out into elaborate schemes for procuring
musketry.

Weary as his men were--and we no less than they--Chatanskah would not
allowed them to camp on the scene of their victory.  Loaded with the
spoil, which was considerable, including, besides the muskets, their
enemies' equipment of powder-horns and shot-pouches, knives,
tomahawks and other weapons, the band trotted through the wood and
out upon the open prairie beyond.  With the rising moon to light them
they headed inland from the Missouri, bearing northwest by the stars,
and doggedly maintained the pace until I guessed it to be midnight.
Then Chatanskah consented to make camp, without fires, and set guards
for the balance of the night.  Tawannears offered to have us take our
share of this duty, but the Dakota chief would not hear of it.

"What?" he exclaimed.  "Shall a guest be asked to wait upon himself?
Chatanskah and his warriors were as good as dead men when Tawannears
and his white brothers came to their rescue.  We owe you our lives.
And now you shall sit in the center of my teepee.  My squaws shall
wait upon you.  My young men shall hunt you game.  Our old men shall
tell you stories of the long-ago.  If you will stay with us we will
find you maidens to suit your eyes and we will make strong medicine
to turn the white brothers red, and you shall become chiefs of the
Dakota.  Then the tribe will prosper and grow mighty in war."

His eyes gleamed as he conjured up that picture of prowess.

"That is a plan worth considering, my brother of the Hodenosaunee,"
he went on.  "We will raid the Chippewa, the Miami, the Potawotomi,
the Illinois, the Shawnee for guns.  We will steal horses from the
Spaniards and the tribes below the Missouri.  We will grow great,
brother."

"My brother forgets," Tawannears answered gently.  "When I was among
the Dakota before I told of a search I had undertaken."

"True," the Dakota assented, crestfallen.  "And does Tawannears still
pursue that search?"

"Yes, brother.  My white brothers go with me.  We seek the Land of
Lost Souls, which the old tales of my people say is beyond the
sunset."

The Dakota shrugged his powerful shoulders.

"It may be.  My people know nothing of it."

Tawannears hesitated, and I who knew him so well, recognized that he
dreaded to press the question.  But his will triumphed over his
spiritual fear.

"Has Chatanskah asked any warriors from afar if they know of the Land
of Lost Souls?"

"Chatanskah never forgets a promise to a friend," returned the
Dakota.  "Many times I have spoken with the brothers of the Dakota
Council-fires that stretch toward the Sky Mountains.  What is beyond
those mountains they do not know.  This land you speak of may be
there.  But they do not know.  No warrior has ever gone far across
the mountains and returned.  A large band dies of hunger and thirst.
A few warriors are killed by the people of the rocky places."

"Yet Tawannears and his white brothers will go there," the Seneca
declared.

"If you go, you will die," replied Chatanskah.  "It will be much
better to stay with Chatanskah and become a great chief."

"Nevertheless Tawannears must go on," insisted Tawannears.  "My
brother of the Dakota has said that he owes us his life.  Will he pay
the debt he owes by aiding us on our way?"

The Dakota bowed his head.

"Chatanskah may not deny what Tawannears and his white brothers ask.
You shall come with us to our villages, and rest awhile.  Our squaws
will repair your moccasins.  You shall grow fat and strong, for it is
easy to see that you have traveled hard and gone hungry.  Afterward,
if you still ask it, Chatanskah and his young men will take you west
to our brothers of the Teton Council Fire, and they shall guide you
to the foot of the Sky Mountains.

"And now let Tawannears sleep in peace.  Chatanskah will watch."

But hours later I was aroused by a cold wind that blew from the
north, and I sat up to find Tawannears sitting with his chin on his
knees, his arms wrapped around his ankles, his eyes on the
star-flecked western sky.  On his face was that terrible expression
of exaltation which I had seen there many times before, a look of
brooding anticipation, of fearful expectancy, as of one who hopes to
see, but dreads the test.

It was an eery moment betwixt the night and the dawn.  The wind
clashed overhead and the stars seemed to stoop earthward.  There was
a feeling of unheard voices chanting behind the sky.  I remembered
the agony I had known, that I was now fleeing from.  And without
cause or reason I felt my heart leap in my breast, and the wells of
sorrow seemed to empty and dry up.  But a voice whispered out of
nowhere:

"_Alone!  Alone!  Alone!_"

Yet I was not dismayed.  I was alone, yes.  But memories flocked
forward to draw the sting from the word.

Memory!  That was the key to it, I saw.  Out of memory a man might
whittle a new life, a club to shatter loneliness.

I probed the dark corners of my mind to test the theory, dragged
forward thoughts and recollections which once must have set all my
nerves ajangling.  And now they fell into orderly sequence, suffered
themselves to be arrayed and rearrayed, tabulated and put back whence
they had come.  From some of them I had pleasure.  From some a stab
of pain.  But I was always their master.  My grief was cured.  My
mind was again my own.

I spoke softly to Tawannears.

"My brother has not slept?"

He turned sad eyes upon me.

"No, Tawannears thinks of the past--and the hopelessness of the
future.  But what is this?"  He bent toward me.  "Otetiani's eyes are
clear.  The Evil Spirit no longer clouds his face."

"I have found peace, brother," I said simply.

A sudden flame of inner light burned the dejection from his face.

"Otetiani has saved Tawannears from himself.  Hawenneyu has spoken.
Hanegoategoh has lost his grip.  The future is hope, brother."

He lay down where he was and was instantly asleep.




CHAPTER VIII

THE FIGHT FOR THE HERD

Chatanskah's village was a group of buffalo-hide teepees on the bank
of a creek flowing into the Missouri, constituting with several
similar communities the Wahpeton Council Fire.  This was one of the
seven divisions, or sub-tribes, of the Dakota, who held the north
bank of the Missouri as far as the foothills of the Sky Mountains,
and whose political organization, in some ways, reminded me of the
great Iroquois Confederacy, an opinion which Tawannears also
entertained.

There was about these sons of the open savannahs the same sturdy
self-reliance and classic dignity which marked the People of the Long
House, dwelling beneath the shadow of the primeval forest which
covered most of the Wilderness country east of the Mississippi.  They
were all big men, lithely-muscled, handsome, with clean-cut,
intelligent features, fearless warriors, clever hunters, splendid
orators.  Like the Iroquois, too, they had conceived the advantages
of union, and were consequently feared by all the neighboring tribes.

We had dwelt with them upwards of a week, resting from the fatigue of
our recent adventures, when a party of young men came in with news of
the approach of a gigantic herd of buffalo from the north.  The end
of Summer was at hand, and the herds ranging north were beginning to
turn back for the southward migration to the Spanish countries, an
event of the utmost importance for the Dakota, for whom the buffalo
furnished the staples of existence.

They fed largely upon its flesh.  They clad themselves in its fur.
They wove rope from its hair.  Its dung they used for fuel in a
country nearly destitute of wood.  From its sinews they devised
bow-strings.  Its horns were employed for weapons or to strengthen
their bows or for containers.

For them the buffalo represented the difference between hunger and
repletion, between cold and warmth, between nakedness and
protection--as it did for all the surrounding tribes, for hundreds of
thousands of wild, free-roving people, inhabiting a country equal to
the area of western Europe.  And the buffalo was most valuable in the
late Summer or Fall, after it had fattened for months upon the juicy
grasses of the boundless savannahs, and its fur was grown long and
silky in preparation for the Winter.

There was a flurry of preparation amongst the teepees, and as every
man counted, we volunteered to accompany the hunting party, which
Chatanskah mustered within the hour.  The second day we came upon
isolated bunches of buffalo, but the chief would not permit his
warriors to attack them, claiming, with reason, that if the animals
continued in their present direction they would pass close by the
village, and might be attended to by the home-stayers.  The third day
we saw several large herds of many thousands each, but the young men
who had brought the news of the migration claimed that the main herd
was yet ahead of us.

We proved this true the next morning when the prairies showed black
under the migratory hordes.  North and west they filled the
landscape.  Eastward they stretched for a bare half-mile, and
Chatanskah hastened to lead his hunters across the front of the
serried columns, so as to be able to attack the herd in flank and
maintain a constant forward pressure.  No man would have cared to
attempt to stop in front of that animal mass.  Their hoofs shook the
ground, and a slight haze of dust rose over them.

To gain our flanking position we were compelled to dip into the bed
of a small creek shaded by dwarf trees, and we followed this for
perhaps a quarter of a mile.  Coming out into the open again, an
entirely different spectacle presented itself.  Bearing down upon the
herd from the northeast appeared a second party of warriors fully as
numerous as our own.  Exclamations broke from the Dakota ranks, and
although at that distance the strangers looked to me no different
from our allies, none of Chatanskah's men were in doubt as to their
identity, and Tawannears answered my question without hesitation.

"Cheyenne, brother.  They are the Striped-arrow People, so-called
from their custom of using turkey feathers on their arrow-shafts."

"Are they friends or enemies?"

He smiled.

"When two tribes have one herd of buffalo, Otetiani, they cannot be
anything else but enemies."

"Yet surely there are buffalo enough here for all the Indians in the
Wilderness!"

"My brother forgets that once the buffalo are attacked they will
begin to run, and no man can tell which way they will go."

"Then we must fight the Cheyenne?"

"So it seems, brother," he replied with truly savage indifference.

Chatanskah and his people were equally convinced that there was but
one way out of the difficulty, and they advanced upon the opposing
party at a run.  The Cheyenne, of course, had seen us as soon as we
saw them, and they made it their business to meet us half-way.  But
both bands halted as though by command a long bow-shot apart, and
stood, with weapons ready, eyeing each other provocatively.

A curious scene!  Less than a mile away the buffalo poured south like
a living river of flesh.  There was some tendency on the part of the
outer files to edge away from us, but the bulk of the vast herd paid
us no attention whatsoever.  They were terrifying in their numbers
and inexorable progress.  There must have been millions of them.  And
here were we, so relatively few, preparing to dispute with an equally
insignificant body the right to slaughter some few units of their
multitudes.

The chief of the Cheyenne stood forward, a giant of a man, his arms
and chest gashed by the ordeals of the Sun Dance.

"Why do the Dakota interfere with the hunting of the Cheyenne?" he
demanded.  "Have they painted for war?"

"The Cheyenne know best whether there is war," retorted Chatanskah.
"It is they who interfere with the Dakota's hunting."

"There is war only if the Dakota make it," asserted the Cheyenne.
"The Cheyenne have pursued these buffalo for a day.  Let the Dakota
retire to their own country, and await there the coming of the
buffalo."

"Since when have the Cheyenne said what the Dakota shall do?" flashed
Chatanskah.  "My young men have an answer ready for you."

The Cheyenne surveyed our array before replying.

"Nakuiman* sees that the Dakota have with them two of the
Mazzonka,"** he remarked.  "One of them is a large man, but very fat.
Send him out here and let him show the warriors if he has strength in
that big belly.  Tell him to lay aside his weapons, all save his
knife, and Nakuiman will do the same.  If he comes, Nakuiman will
tear out the Mazzonka's heart with his fingers and eat it before the
Dakota.  But the Mazzonka will not come.  He is afraid."


* The Bear.

** Iron-makers, Indian name for white men.


Chatanskah somewhat dubiously translated this speech to Corlaer.

"The Bear is a strong warrior," he added.  "He has counted more coups
than any man of his tribe."

"_Ja_," said Corlaer, and putting down musket, tomahawk, powder-horn
and shot-pouch, he pulled his leather shirt over his head.

Still Chatanskah hesitated.  As it happened, the Dakota had never
seen the big Dutchman at hand's-grips with an enemy, and whilst they
had respect for his marksmanship and quiet sagacity they were
inclined to make fun of him behind his back because of his excessive
corpulence.

"Chatanskah need not be concerned," spoke up Tawannears, smiling.
"Our brother Corlaer is the strongest warrior of his people.  The
Cheyenne will choose a new chief tomorrow--those who escape from the
arrows of the Dakota.  Tell Nakuiman to lay aside his weapons."

Chatanskah complied none too happily, and a young Cheyenne warrior
advanced from the ranks of his band and relieved his chief of bow and
arrows and tomahawk.

"Nakuiman waits," proclaimed the Cheyenne chief.  "The Mazzonka is
not in a hurry to die."

But Corlaer shambled forward as soon as his opponent had given up his
weapons.  The Dutchman's legs wobbled comically.  His huge paunch
waggled before him as he walked.  Fat lay in rolls and ridges all
over his hairy brown torso, and lapped in creases on his flanks.
Only those who had seen him in action knew that beneath his layers of
blubber were concealed muscles of unhuman strength, and that his
placid exterior was a mask for a will that had never yielded to
adversity.

The Cheyenne warriors greeted him with guttural laughter, and the
Dakota pulled long faces.  Nor could I blame them, after contrasting
the outward appearance of the two champions.  The Cheyenne was the
biggest Indian I have ever seen, well over two yards in his
moccasins, with the shoulders of an ox, clean-thewed, narrow-flanked,
his legs like bronze pillars.  He crouched as Corlaer approached and
drew his knife, circling on the balls of his feet, the keen blade
poised across his stomach in position to strike or ward, as need
arose.

Corlaer, on the other hand, had not even drawn his knife, and his
hands hung straight beside him.  He slouched along with no attempt at
a fighting posture, his whole body exposed to the Cheyenne's knife.
The Cheyenne warriors passed from laughter to gibes and humorous
remarks--which, of course, Corlaer could not understand--and Nakuiman
evidently decided that they were right in their judgment, for he
commenced a kind of dancing progress around Corlaer, never coming to
close quarters, hut maintaining a constant menace with his knife.

Peter, affecting his customary manner of stolid indifference, turned
clumsily on his flat feet as the Cheyenne circled him, making no
effort to stay the quick rushes by which his opponent gradually drew
nearer and nearer.  This went on for so long that the Dakota around
me commenced to fume with rage and humiliation, whilst the Cheyenne
were convulsed with mirth.  Then Nakuiman evidently decided to end
the farce.  He bounded at the Dutchman like a ball flung at a wall,
and confident as I had been, I experienced a moment of foreboding as
that rush came.  Compact with concentrated energy, the Cheyenne drove
home his thrust so fast that we bystanders could not follow it.

But Peter could.  The Dutchman came awake as though by magic.  His
lolling stupidity vanished.  His great body became instinct with the
vitality that flowed inexhaustibly from springs that had never been
plumbed.  The Cheyenne struck.  There was a flash of steel.  Peter's
arms whipped out.  Steel flashed again in a wide arc, and the knife
soared high in air and fell, point-down in the sod, twenty feet away.
Remained, then, two heaving bodies.  Peter held his man by one wrist
and a forearm.  The Cheyenne was struggling with every ounce of
strength to break one of these grips so that he might seize his foe
by the throat.  Whilst I watched he stooped his head and fastened his
teeth in Peter's shoulder.

The blood spurted from the wound and a quiver convulsed Peter's
mighty frame.  But he refused to be diverted from his purpose.
Slowly, inexorably, he applied his pressure.  And slowly, but
inevitably, the Cheyenne's straining sinews yielded to him.
Nakuiman's left arm was forced back--and back.  Suddenly there was a
loud crack.  The Indian yelped like an animal in pain.  The arm fell
limp--and with the swift ferocity of a cat Peter pounced on the man's
throat.

The jaws still fastened in the Dutchman's throbbing shoulder yielded
to that awful pressure.  A single gasping cry reached us.  The
Cheyenne's head sank back, and by a marvelous coordination of effort,
Peter heaved the man's body at arm's-length over his head.  A moment
he held it there, his eyes on the ranks of Cheyenne warriors who had
laughed at him.  Then he flung it at them as though it had been a
sack of corn.

It twisted through the air, struck the ground and rolled over and
over into a huddle of inanimate limbs.

Peter shook himself, turned on his heel and walked slowly back to us.

"_Oof_," he remarked mildly.  "Dot made me sweat."

That matter-of-fact action, brought the Cheyenne to realization of
what had happened.  Carried away by the spectacle of their chief's
end, they abandoned all thought of moderation and charged us,
bow-strings twanging.  But the Dakotas were not unprepared.
Chatanskah had fetched along a dozen of the French firelocks, in the
use of which we had instructed his warriors, and we were able to meet
the enemy with a devastating discharge which brought them up short.
Leaderless and doubly dismayed, they had no fight left in them, and
fled across the prairie pursued by the fleetest young men of the band.

We were left with the pleasant task of reaping a full toll of
buffalo-meat, and the remaining Dakota, after scalping the dead
Cheyenne and congratulating Corlaer, formed in a long line and
trotted down toward the flank of the moving herd.  The firing of the
muskets had disconcerted the outer files of its mass, but these so
far seemed to have made no impression upon the inner columns, and the
net result of their perturbation was to slow up the herd's pace and
start a confusion which was accentuated to a horrible degree as soon
as the Dakota came within bow-shot.

Chatanskah afterward assured us that this herd must have wandered far
without encountering men because it showed so little evidence of fear
at our approach.  He was also of the opinion that any herd of such
enormous dimensions was more difficult to stampede than a herd of
comparatively small size.  At any rate, it was several moments after
the booming twang of the bow-strings began that the herd showed a
tendency to mill and change its direction.  And during those few
moments the Dakota slew enough meat to last their village through the
Winter.  Aiming between the ribs of the shaggy beasts they drove
their flat-headed hunting-arrows into the fat carcasses up to the
feathers, and it was seldom that two shots were required for one
buffalo.  Some staggered on a ways, but any buffalo that had a Dakota
hunting-arrow in its vitals was sure to drop.

They dropped so fast and so easily that I was overcome with a pang of
horror.  It seemed ghastly, this wholesale slaughter.  Bulls, cows,
half-grown calves--but especially cows--fell by the score.  It was a
battue.  And yet it made no impression at all upon the myriads of the
herd.  As far as we could see from horizon to horizon all was
buffalo.  They surged up over one skyline and dwindled behind
another.  And the only noises they made were the low rumbling of
their countless hoofs and an indescribably plaintive note, part
bellow, part moo--before the fright took them.

Our hunters had slain until their arms ached from pulling the taut
bows, and whilst the thousands of buffalo adjacent to us had threshed
away and striven to gallop either backward or forward or into the
heart of the mass, the mass, itself, had given no indication of
realizing that it was being attacked.  I remember thinking that if
the brutes possessed any reasoning power they would turn upon us in
their numbers and trample us in the dust.

Instead, they fled from us.  By some obscure process of animal
instinct the warning was conveyed at last from the minor hordes we
had harried so mercilessly to their farther-most brethren on the
unseen western edge of the swarming myriads.  One moment they were
trending from north to south like some unsoluble phenomenon of
nature, an endless, dusty procession of shaggy brown hides.  The next
they had showed us their sterns, turned westward, and were galloping
away with a deafening roar of hoofs.  It was as if the whole world
was in motion.  The dust clouds became so dense as to hide all
movement.  We stood now on the verge of the prairie.  From our feet a
brown desert stretched in the wake of the fugitive herd, a desert of
pulverized earth in which there was not a single growing thing.

The roar of hoofs became faint in the distance.  The dust-clouds
slowly settled.  A short while afterward I came and looked in the
direction the buffalo had taken, and they were gone.  The brown
desert filled the skyline.  And all about our Indians were busy with
skinning-knives, wrapping the choice cuts of meat in the bloody
hides; and Chatanskah was dispatching runners to bring out the full
strength of the tribe; for we had made such a killing as seldom fell
to the lot of an Indian community, and it behooved them to lose
nothing of the riches nature had thrown in their way.  Whatever might
be the lot of their brothers in the neighboring villages, the Dakota
of the Wahpeton Council Fire knew that for this Winter at least they
were certain to abide snug and well-fed in their teepees.

Chatanskah talked of our deeds as the band clustered about the
camp-fire that night, with sentries thrown out around the area strewn
with dead buffalo to guard the spoil against wolf and wild dog and
the eagles that swooped from the air.

"There will be much spoken of this in the Winter Count," he announced
proudly.  "The old men will say we have done well.  The other Council
Fires will be envious.  But remember, brothers, that it was our white
brother who slew Nakuiman with his bare hands and turned the hearts
of Cheyenne to water.  _Hai_, that was the greatest fight I ever saw!
The Cheyenne will go home and creep under their squaws' robes.

"And what shall we say of our white brother who broke Nakuiman in
pieces?  The Cheyenne was called The Bear.  Is not a warrior who
slays a bear more than a bear?  _Hai_, my warriors, I hear you say
yes!  So let us give the slayer of The Bear a new name.  We will call
him Mahtotopah*--for he is a bear, himself; he is Two Bears."


* Two Bears.


"_Hai, hai_," applauded the circles of warriors who sat around the
fire, first the old men, outside those the youngsters, who had names
to win.

"But Chatanskah will not forget that he has promised to guide
Tawannears and his white brothers to the country of the Teton
Dakota?" reminded Tawannears.

Chatanskah shook his head sorrowfully.

"Chatanskah has not forgotten," he said, "but he hoped that a bird
might come and whisper in the ears of his new brothers and tell them
to stay with the Dakota.  In the Sky Mountains you will find no sweet
buffalo meat.  There are no teepees to shield you from the wind.
Mahtotopah will waste his strength on the rocks.  But you are brave
men, and I know you will go on until the Great Spirit calls you."




CHAPTER IX

THE HORSE STEALERS

Chatanskah made good his promise as soon as the tribe had secured the
spoils of the hunt.  He collected a little band of picked warriors,
presented us with powder and lead captured from the Chippewa to
replenish the reserve stock Corlaer carried in a great ox-horn and
leather pouch, and we said good-by to the huddle of teepees, now
surrounded by high-built racks of jerking meat and pegged-out hides
in process of tanning.  The last breath of Summer had left the air,
and we were glad of the buffalo-skin robes the Wahpeton gave us.  But
there was advantage, too, in the keen zest of the lower temperature,
for it inspired us to greater exertions, and we traveled at a rate we
could not have attained during the hot months.

Our course lay up the valley of the Missouri in a north-westerly
direction, more truly north than west, as I discovered.  We journeyed
so for many days, encountering frequently bands of the other Dakota
Council Fires, Mdewakanton, Wahpekute, Sisseton, Yankton and
Yanktonai.  Once a raiding band of Arikara, savage warriors, with
buffalo horns woven into their long hair instead of feathers, and
wolf-skin breechclouts, swooped down upon us from the north.  But
they were looking for an undefended village to yield them the
buffalo-meat they had been denied by some perverse trick of fate, and
they sheered off at the discharge of our muskets, carrying their dead
with them.

Each night we expected to awake to find the ground covered with snow,
for the Winter usually develops earlier in these western lands than
on the seacoast; but Providence aided us, and at the end of two weeks
we met a wandering band of Yanktonai, who told us the Teton bands had
crossed the Missouri and followed westward another river bordered by
sandhills,* which entered the Missouri a day's march ahead of us.
These Yanktonai were the first horse Indians we saw.  They were of
leaner build than the eastern Dakota, with keen, predatory faces and
a harsher speech, matchless riders.  Their mounts, which they stole
from the Southern tribes--who in turn stole from the Spaniards--or
bred from stolen stock, were small, clean-limbed beasts, bespeaking
the Arab strain the Spaniards favor.  Their arms were the lance in
place of the tomahawk, and bow and arrow, and they carried also a
small, round shield of the thick, rugged neck-hide of the buffalo.


*I think Ormerod refers to the Platte.  From here on, his account of
his wanderings increases in vagueness, owing to lack of established
place names.--A.D.H.S.


Chatanskah was much concerned at the news that the Teton had moved
farther west, for he knew that his return journey to his own villages
would probably be delayed by snow; but when we offered to relieve him
of his pledge he scouted the idea and insisted upon accompanying us
as he had promised.  And to say truth, as we penetrated deeper into
this land of incredible distances and unknown peoples, we appreciated
as we had not before the advantage of his knowledge and protection.
The horse Indians, as we were to learn at first-hand, were natural
thieves, who stole for the love of thieving and whose hands were
instinctively raised against all men.  To them, likewise, the name of
the Long House, which had reached even the Wahpeton, was all but
meaningless.  I am sure the Yanktonai band would have murdered us
cheerfully, if it had not been for Chatanskah's escort.

We easily identified the river they had described to us by its size
and the white shimmer of the sandhills along the bank.  Luckily for
us the Missouri was low, and it was a task of no difficulty to ford
and swim its bed at a point just above the other river's mouth.  But
the water was bitter cold, and we were glad to build two roaring
fires and broil ourselves between walls of flame.

The next day, and for another two weeks, we continued up the valley
of this river, having, to our no small discomfort, to pass over many
tributaries large and small.  But the weather continued clear,
without a trace of moisture or snow.  The country, it seemed to me,
sloped upward slowly, as though climbing toward the huge mountains,
which the Indians said were the final bar to the world they knew.  We
saw no people, but we passed a number of deserted village-sites,
which Chatanskah asserted to represent the course taken by the Teton
in their westward journey, probably in search of better grazing
conditions for their horse herds.

Indeed, this proved to be the case.  Our first glimpse of a man after
we parted from the Yanktonai came as we surmounted a hill that
shouldered abruptly above the level of the savannahs.  As noiseless
as a figure in a dream, a boy of adolescent age rode over its summit
and peered down at us with startled eyes.  A yelp rose from his lips,
and he heeled his mount up and down in confused fashion as if not
knowing which way to turn, then, shaking his fist defiantly in our
direction, galloped off down the opposite slope.

"The Teton keep good watch," I commented.  "But why did the boy wait
to run?"

"He was signaling," explained Tawannears.  "When we reach the
hill-top you will see what he has accomplished."

From the brow of the hill we looked down upon a broad stretch of
level grass-land.  Midway of it hundreds of teepees clustered in
concentric circles, with an opening to the east.  Smoke curled up
between the lodge-poles, and men, women and children swarmed the
streets, all staring up at us.  A body of warriors were running from
the village toward the river, where several thousand horses were
being rounded up by the boy herd-guards, whose shrill cries came
faintly to our ears; and whilst we were still a considerable distance
away the herd was in motion toward the village, and an imposing troop
of warriors galloped to meet us, the sunlight glinting on feather
head-dresses and lance-points and the bright beadwork of sheaths and
quivers.

"_Hai!_" exclaimed Chatanskah.  "The Teton have their eyes open.
They do well to watch from the hill-top, but if I were choosing a
place to pitch my people's teepees I would not put them under a hill
which I could not see through in the night.  However, I suppose they
must have protection for their _sunka wakan_* from the cold north
winds.  And here beneath the hill they have fine grazing grounds and
water for the taking."


* Mysterious dogs--Indian name for horses.


At his advice we halted at the foot of the hill to await the coming
of the horsemen, who stormed up as though they would ride us down.
But a little, shriveled-up old man who rode in advance, flung out one
hand with a single word of command, and they yanked their horses to
an abrupt halt, scattering the sods right and left and flowing around
us in a circle that barred all chance of retreat.

"Hao," said Chatanskah calmly.  "Have the Teton left the Council of
the Seven Fires?  Does Nadoweiswe** forget the face of Chatanskah?"


** The Adder.


The little, shriveled-up chief eyed us grimly from the back of the
big horse he bestrode.  He had much of the look of an adder, beady,
bright eyes, and a trick of thrusting out his tongue when he talked
to lick around his lips.  He spoke with a hissing sing-song accent
because of the loss of several front teeth.  And he was sudden in his
actions, and his warriors plainly feared him, although any one of
them could have tucked him under one arm.

"_Hao_," he answered.  "Why did not Chatanskah send one in advance to
tell Nadoweiswe he was coming?"

"Chatanskah knew not where the Teton were camped," retorted the
Wahpeton chief.  "This is a strange country for my warriors.  Are the
Wahpeton welcome or must they go back and tell their brothers the
Teton no longer honor the Seven Fires?"

Nadoweiswe made an impatient gesture with his hand.

"Chatanskah talks like a child.  He comes suddenly, without warning,
and is surprised because we do not expect him.  The Wahpeton and the
Teton are brothers.  But the Teton are not brothers to the Mazzonka I
see with you."

"What enmity has Nadoweiswe for the Mazzonka?" asked Chatanskah in
surprise.  "There are none in his country."

"There was one a few sleeps ago," replied the Teton with savage
emphasis.  "He turned the hearts of my young men to water, so that
they allowed the Siksika* to run off twenty hands** of horses the
next night."


* Blackfeet.

** One hundred.


He turned in his saddle, and scowled at his warriors, and the fear
that showed in every eye was amusing.

"Cowardly squaws!" he snorted.  "They were afraid to leave their
teepees.  The white man had watered their hearts with his medicine."

And now he transferred his scowl to Corlaer and me.

"That is why we will have nothing to do with any white men," he
concluded.  "They may be friends of the one who bewitched my young
men."

Tawannears spoke up, his ringing, musical voice in strange contrast
to the rasping tones of the old chief.

"I am Tawannears, War Chief of the People of the Long House," he
began.

Nadoweiswe looked at him with some astonishment.

"_Hai_," he said, "you are a long way from your lodge, young warrior."

"Many more moons' journey than my people have ever traveled,"
admitted Tawannears.  "It is my post to guard the Western Door of the
Long House.  Tawannears has honor in his own country."

"That may be," returned The Adder ungraciously.  "Here you are
unknown."

"And Tawannears is also known in his country as the friend of the
white men," continued Tawannears.  "He is the friend of these white
men here.  They came with him to aid him in a search.  They are his
brothers."

"If they are friends of the Mazzonka who bewitched my young men they
shall go away from here," snapped Nadoweiswe, "or I will take their
scalps for my new medicine lance."

"What was this white man like?" inquired Tawannears.

"He was tall, and he wore a long black robe that reached his
moccasins.  My young men found him on the prairie, and they galloped
up to take him captive.  But he drew a weapon from his belt and shook
it at them, and a great fear possessed them.  There was strong
medicine in that weapon.  It did not make a loud noise like that."
He pointed to my pun.  "Nor did he strike with it.  He did no more
than hold it toward them, calling something the while in a loud
voice, and their hearts turned to water, and they fled."

"What was the appearance of the weapon?" pressed Tawannears.

The Adder crossed two fingers, and Tawannears laughed, repeating the
conversation to us.

"It was Black Robe!" I exclaimed.

"_Ja_," assented Corlaer.

Tawannears turned back to the Teton chief, whose eyes had never left
our faces during this interval.

"Yes, Nadoweiswe," he said, "Tawannears and his white friends know
the white man you speak of.  He is our enemy."

"_Hai_," cried The Adder, "is it him you seek!"

"No," denied Tawannears, "we cannot lift finger against him, for the
Great Spirit has set his seal upon him."

A look of comprehension dawned in The Adder's face.  He nodded his
head wisely.

"That was it," he said.  "The Great Spirit punished my young men for
threatening one He had set aside.  I have known it to happen.  _Hai_,
it was unfortunate!  But perhaps we can make it up.  Chatanskah, you
and your friends are welcome.  There are seats in my teepee awaiting
you.  Come, and tell us of your wanderings; for soon it will be
Winter, and we shall have nothing to do save sit around the fire and
talk of what has been."

And I am bound to say the old rascal entertained us with savage
courtesy during our progress to the village.  We asked him for
additional details about Black Robe, but all he could tell us was
that the Jesuit had been seen south of the river the one time.
Whence he came or where he was going, the Teton could not say.

A quarter-mile short of the teepees we were held up by the retrograde
movement of the horse-herd, which was being shifted back to the
grazing grounds along the river.  The young lads who handled it
worked with consummate skill, yet with the peculiarly cruel tactics
which the Indians seem always to practice.  They had driven the
horses out of the village circle, and were turning them south when a
diversion was created by a splendid stallion with a mottled brown and
white coat, that had eluded all attempts to maneuver him into the
ranks of the herd.  Finally one of the youngsters raced up beside him
and quirted him heavily over the flanks with a rawhide whip.

The stallion screamed with rage, swung around on his hind-legs and
lashed out with fore-hoofs and snapping teeth.  He missed the boy,
but laid open the ribs of the other horse, that naturally took
fright, unseated its rider and made off.  For a moment the mottled
stallion stood motionless, panting, nostrils expanded, eyes wide.
Then he danced after the fleeing boy, heels flirting, teeth bared.

Nadoweiswe and his warriors paused to see what would happen next.
None of them seemed anxious to interfere, and the love of horses that
has been in my blood ever since the boyhood I spent in the Dorset
countryside gripped hold of me.  I handed my musket to Tawannears and
started toward the stallion.

There was a thrill of interest in the group of Teton, and Nadoweiswe
called after me.

"The Teton says to stay here," translated Tawannears.  "He says
_Sunka-wakan-Kedeshka_* has never been backed."


* Spotted Horse.


But that was just the push I needed to send me on.  The instant my
eyes had lighted upon that herd of glorious, half-tamed beasts my
thighs had itched to clasp horse-flesh again, and the idea that the
stallion was unbroken was the definite lure.  One gift I confess to
pride in is my knack with horses.  It comes naturally to me, and at
home in England and afterward in France, I had frequent occasion to
learn the fine points of the ménage.  Moreover, I was fairly sure
from what little I had seen of the horse Indians up to this time that
their only theory of horse-taming was horse-breaking.  They knew
nothing of the arts of conciliation by which the most high-strung
animals can be mastered--arts which I had learned from many a Gypsy
farrier to supplement the natural ability that was born in me.  I
suspected that in the case of this stallion they had found it
impossible to do anything with him short of killing him.

I kept on, emitting a shrill whistle, which, as I anticipated,
switched the stallion's attention from the Indian boy to myself.  He
hesitated, looked from one to the other of us--and gave the boy time
to catch his own badly-scared mount.  That was enough for the
stallion.  He was after some human on two legs, and he cantered up to
me, eyes wickedly distended, lips drawn back.  I simply folded my
arms, and waited until he was within ear-shot before I spoke to him
in a gentle, soothing tone, taking care to reveal no trace of fear or
uneasiness.  I suppose he had never heard a kind word from a man.  It
would have been contrary to the practice of his masters.  So he was
bewildered, and he slowed up involuntarily, and sidled around me.

I made no attempt to catch him, and his curiosity increasing, he
circled me and peered into my face, careful to keep beyond reach, for
he was now more afraid of me than vicious.  I was a new experience.
An Indian was something that he knew would lash him or kick him or
stick a lance into him.  He didn't know what I would do.  So I talked
to him some more, using the few Dakota words I had picked up, but
aiming more to influence him by the tone of my voice and my eyes.
And gradually I succeeded.  He came closer.  He pushed his velvet
muzzle into my face, whinnying as ingratiatingly as though I were a
young mare.  But I affected not to notice him, and talked on.

When I threw one arm around his lowered neck, his eyes widened, but
he did not bare his teeth or draw back.  When I twisted one hand in
his mane he shivered slightly, but stood still.  I talked to him a
while longer, and he quieted down.  Then I patted his broad back, and
vaulted upon it, leaned forward quickly and whispered again in his
high-cocked ear.  He hesitated, I pressed his flanks with my knees,
jerked his mane, and he headed toward the herd.

Fifty feet from the nearest of his kind I slid from his back, and
slapped him smartly on the rump.  He turned his head, gave me a
reproachful glance and cantered quietly up to a group of mares,
taking his place as if by right among them.  But as I walked away he
flung up his head once and sent after me a prolonged whinny of
farewell, surely as close to a human good-by as a beast could manage.

Nadoweiswe, with Chatanskah and Tawannears, rode out from the array
of warriors to meet me.

"The Adder says," Tawannears hailed me, "that he would like to have
you sit at his right-hand in his teepee.  He does not know how good a
warrior you are--" the Seneca's teeth showed in a smile--"but he is
sure you would make a great horse-stealer."

I laughed.

"What did you tell The Adder?" I asked.

"I told him this was a feat I had never seen you perform before, and
I did not think that you would consent."

Nadoweiswe leaned down from his horse, and spoke rapidly again.

"He says," Tawannears translated, "that he wishes to recover his
horses the Blackfeet stole, but that with you to aid him he would
likewise go south and raid the pastures of the Apache and the
Comanche."

"Tell him," I answered, "to have his warriors remember that a horse
does not have to be beaten to be mastered.  As for the Blackfeet,
tell him in my country they teach their warriors to stampede an
enemy's horses by firing the grass behind them."

Nadoweiswe listened to this advice with a look of intense admiration.

"He says," Tawannears gave me his reply, "that you must be much wiser
than you look.  He is amazed at you.  He will do what you say."

And it is a fact that during our short stay with the Teton they
honored me as their principal guest, not because I was a warrior, or
because I had displayed skill in diplomacy such as many tribes
admire, or because I was an orator.  No, the quality which they
considered admirable was my God-given talent for horse-stealing.




CHAPTER X

THE WOLF-BROTHERS

There were several minutes of silence in the crowded teepee after
Tawannears had finished his story.

"Tawannears has made strong the heart of Nadoweiswe," said the old
Teton chief at last.  "Nadoweiswe will tell the tale of Tawannears'
search to all his young men so that their hearts may be made strong,
too.  If Nadoweiswe were a young warrior he would offer to go on with
Tawannears and his white brothers and look for this strange Land of
Lost Souls.  But Nadoweiswe is an old man, and he is used to riding
on horses; and horses could not climb the Sky Mountains which shut in
the sun's hiding-place."

He lifted his pipe of ceremony from the ground at his feet and
lighted it with a coal plucked from the fire.

"Can Nadoweiswe tell us about the land across the Sky Mountains?"
asked Tawannears.

The little chief dropped his wrinkled, dried-apple visage on his
chest.

"No," he answered, after another interval of reflection.  "The
stories of our wise men say nothing about this Land you seek.  But my
father was a medicine man, a _wakan witshasha_.*  He was very wise.
He had traveled farther than any of our people--although not so far
as Tawannears.  And he told us the tribes beyond the Sky Mountains
said that the Great Spirit lived not far away.  He sits in a certain
place on the earth, very white and still, with his head in the
clouds.  And sometimes when he is angry he hurls forth storms, and
smoke and flame and loud noises fill the air.  But these people never
spoke of a Land of Lost Souls."


* Literally, mystery man.


"Yet if the Great Spirit sits there, the Land of Lost Souls cannot be
far away," exclaimed Tawannears, with more animation than he had yet
shown.  "Nadoweiswe has put new courage in our hearts.  Now, we can
go forward, without fear."

Nadoweiswe shook his head.

"Do not go," he urged.  "See, the fire roars here in the midst of us,
but without robes we should be cold.  Any day, perhaps today, the
snow will fall.  The land will all be white.  Death will be in the
wind."

"Nadoweiswe has given us the reason why we must leave his tepee,"
replied Tawannears.  "We have far to go.  Already we have lost time.
If we stayed by the Teton fires the Winter would pass away and we
should have achieved nothing."

"We might steal many horses," argued Nadoweiswe, with a shrewd glance
at me.  "We will march south and raid the Spanish tribes.  There is
much to be done in winter."

Tawannears smiled.

"If we can steal horses in Winter, surely we can travel west," he
said.  "It will be as cold going south as going toward the Sky
Mountains."

"But Tawannears does not understand that the Sky Mountains contain
more dangers than cold," returned the Teton chief.  "The spirit
beasts of the Underworld roam their defiles.  They are the
dwelling-place of the Powers of Evil."

"Tawannears doubts it not," agreed our comrade.  "But we expected
such perils before we left the Long House.  Tawannears and his white
brothers will journey through the country of Hanegoategeh, if need
be."

Nadoweiswe tried again.

"Stay, and you shall have half the horses we steal," he offered, "and
in the Spring I will go west with you, I and my young men."

"It cannot be," said Tawannears.  "Our hearts will be sore at parting
with Nadoweiswe and Chatanskah and all their people.  But we must go."

The Teton gave it up.

"Tawannears and his white brothers walk to their deaths," he said
sententiously.  "The spirit beasts will devour them.  _Hai_, it is a
pity!  But we will tell your story in the Winter Count.  You shall be
remembered."

And 'tis a fact that the old chief parted from us in the morning with
as sincere evidence of regret as an Indian could show.  He pressed
upon us all the dried meat we could carry, together with three pairs
of snowshoes and a new and more powerful bow and quiver of arrows for
Tawannears to use in hunting game, thus making it possible for us to
save our precious store of ammunition for self-defense; and he and
all his warriors escorted us to the edge of the village.  Nor must I
leave out Chatanskah and our Wahpeton friends, whose demonstrations
of affection were equally touching--if for no other reason than
because of their stoical suppression of all signs of emotion.

But our last farewell we received after we had left the village and
were skirting the horse-herds grazing west along!  the river-bank.  I
heard a whinny of delight, and Sunkawakan-kedeshka, the mottled
stallion, came trotting toward us with his attendant band of mares.
He stopped some distance off, with a neigh of inquiry, as if to
demand why I would not stop and play with him.  I thought for an
instant he would follow us, and so pretended to ignore him; but when
we had gone on for perhaps a mile and reached the crest of a slight
ridge he evidently lost interest and trotted back to the herd.  The
incident amused me, although I saw in it no significance and it
slipped my mind completely as Tawannears pointed to the cold, gray
aspect of the northern sky.

"Somewhere there is snow," he commented.

"_Ja_," assented Corlaer.  "Andt der wind comes this way."

The flakes commenced to fall during the afternoon, but we were on the
edge of the storm and they were never thick enough to obscure our
vision.  At night we contrived a shelter of brushwood, and lay fairly
warm beneath our buffalo robes.  Yet we knew that in a severe storm
we should require more protection, and in the morning were relieved
to discover the snow was no more than three inches deep with the sky
above us a clear blue.

Two days afterward the belated Winter broke in earnest.  A wind like
a giant's sickle howled out of the northwest, and the snow reared a
dense, white, fluttering wall a hand's-breadth from our eyes.  It was
all a man could do to lean against the blast and keep his footing.  A
yard apart we were lost from each other.  Our voices might not carry
through the soft, bewildering thickness of it and the shrieking of
the wind overhead.

Ill-fortune had caught us in a bare valley between two hills, and the
nearest shelter we marked down before the snow blinded us was a clump
of timber a mile south.  For this we made as best we could, stumbling
and falling, never sure of the way, the breath torn from our lungs by
the tug of the gale, the snow freezing on us as it fell, our faces
smarting from the bite of the sheer cold.

I think 'twas Corlaer's giant strength carried us to safety.  He
strode betwixt Tawannears and me, and when one of us faltered, his
arm was swift to lend support.  In his quiet, bull-headed way, too,
he found the right direction, despite the dazing isolation, the
stupefying impact of the storm.  He saw to it that we quartered the
wind, and steered us straight to the very wood we had aimed for as
the snow blotted out our surroundings.

Here in the wood it was just as cold and dark as in the open, and the
snow sifted through the branches like the moulting feathers of bird
flocks incredibly vaster than those that had passed over the Ohio;
but the trees at least served to break somewhat the force of the
wind, and we had the added comfort of work to do, for we knew that we
could ward off the death foretold by Nadoweiswe only if we hastened
to improvise a weather-tight habitation--no easy task in the white
darkness and the chill that seemed to strike into the brain.

In the heart of the wood we came upon an immense bowlder, and with
our hatchets we felled a number of trees so that they toppled across
it.  They were firs, heavy with foliage, a dense, impervious roof.
We also felled saplings to heap up for end-walls, and fetched in many
arm-loads of pine-boughs for bedding and fire-wood.  As we worked our
blood flowed faster, and we conquered the numbing force of the storm.
And the snow, steadily floating down, improved our handiwork, heaping
an extra roof and more substantial walls to shut out the cold.  When
we had crawled inside, and by skillful use of a few pinches of
gunpowder induced the beginnings of a small blaze out of damp wood we
felt cheerful again.  A meal of jerked meat and a night's rest under
pine-boughs and buffalo-robes, and we were ready to discount the
continued fury of the storm upon awaking.

Three days it snowed.  The first two days there was no diminution in
the storm's vigor, but the third day the wind became less violent,
although the snow fell uninterruptedly.  It was on the third day that
we heard a far-off, mournful howling.

"_Wolfs_," commented Corlaer.

"What are they doing?" I asked.  "Surely, in this distemper of
nature----"

"They are hunting," said Tawannears.  "The deer and the buffalo
cannot run away in such weather."

The howling came nearer, died in the distance.

The morning of the fourth day we wakened to a world that was all a
clean, dazzling white, snow to the depth of a man's chest on the
level, ay, and higher, and heaped into drifts the size of young
mountains in the hollows.  We in our hut were obliged to tunnel to
the surface, for the bowlder and our artificial structure had formed
a windbreak against which the snow was piled to twice my height.  We
cut our way out gradually, taking care not to permit the treacherous
stuff to cave in upon us, fetched up our weapons and packs, donned
snowshoes and resumed our journey.

Snowshoeing is slow work in hilly country, but we made better going
of it than the unfortunate wild things we saw on every hand,
profiting by a thaw which gradually scummed the level drifts.  In a
gulley a herd of buffalo were buried chest-deep, some of the outer
ones frozen solid, the others subsisting by their combined animal
heat.  A herd of great deer--the bucks as tall at the shoulder as a
tall man--that Tawannears called Wapiti*--were plunging clumsily
through the crusted surface of the snow, falling forward on their
horns.  In a tiny valley which had been unusually sheltered an
immense concourse of antelope threshed about, butting each other for
the scanty food available.


* Of course, Ormerod refers to the elk.--A.D.H.S.


We saw numerous bears, which Tawannears deemed strange, saying that
these beasts must have been surprised by the sudden advent of the
storm, after delaying to den-up, as is their custom, because of the
protracted fall.  A cougar, a striped, cat-faced demon, passed us on
a hillside, belly to the snow, on the track of some quarry.  And
during the afternoon we heard at frequent intervals the wailing cry
of the wolves.  Toward dusk they came steadily nearer, and I grew
uneasy; but neither of my companions said anything, and I did not
like to seem more nervous than they.  I held my peace until we were
traversing a level stretch of plain just short of sunset, and a
torrent of low-running gray shapes erupted over the skyline.

That indescribable, heart-shaking howl of the hungry wolf echoed
across the snow.

"Those beasts are tracking us," I exclaimed.

"They are wolves, brother," said Tawannears briefly.

"And they appear to know that we are eatable," I retorted.

"They will do us no hurt," he answered with a trace of impatience.
"There is abundant game for them to pull down on every side."

"Then why follow us?" I insisted.

"They come our way, brother.  Why not!  Who knows what end of the
Great Spirit they serve?"

"But--"  I did not know what to say; occasionally Tawannears became
so Indian that I lost touch with him--"they are wolves.  They have
nothing to do with the Great Spirit.  They are hungry."

He looked at me somberly.

"I have that here they will respect--" he tapped his chest, where I
knew he carried the wolf's-head sign manual of his clan--"they are my
brothers."

"Brothers!" I gasped.

I was myself by adoption a member of the Wolf Clan, yet I had never
thought of wolves as brothers.

"_Ja_," corroborated Corlaer, joining the conversation for the first
time.  "Der wolfs are broders.  Why not?"  He used Tawannears' own
words.  "Do not worry, my friendt.  They run our way.  Dot is all."

But I did worry as the shadows lengthened.  The piercing howls seemed
fairly to tremble with menace.  I thought they were nearer at dusk
than they had been in the full glare of the sunset.  Then the early
moon rose, and I saw the gray pursuers once more, low, sinister
shapes, galloping over the snow, their broad pads seldom breaking
through the crust--and I knew they were nearer.

"_Aaaah-yaaah-oooo-oouuu-wh!_"

Long-drawn-out, it quavered upward, was sustained and dropped off on
an eerie pitch of unspeakable import.

"I don't like this," I declared, unable to restrain myself.

"What would Otetiani do?" inquired Tawannears mildly.

"Shoot them.  There seems to be no cover available."

He shook his head.

"Whatever else happens, brother, do not shoot."

"Are we to be dragged down out in the open, then, without raising a
hand in defense?" I asked sarcastically.

"No, brother.  I have said that they will do no harm.  We have far to
go yet.  We cannot camp here in the open without wood or shelter.
Let us hurry."

I looked at Corlaer for support, but his attention was centered on
the pathless trail ahead of us, and I felt myself outvoted.  There
was nothing for it but to keep on.  Both these men I had known for
years.  With them I had tracked the Eastern Wilderness.  But never
had I known them so perverse as this night.  What folly to nourish a
belief in an absurd totemic tradition!  It was amazing.  Corlaer was
a white man like myself.  Tawannears might be red, but he was as well
educated as I, according to the white man's theory, better far than
Corlaer.

"_Oooow-woouuow-aarrrgh!_"

Louder and louder rose that cry of dreadful menace.  The gray shapes
were now so many rustling bulks in the moonlit darkness.  Looking
back I could see eyes that gleamed red or green as the silver light
caught them, fluffy brushes flicking high, the drive of powerful
shoulders and haunches.  They were big brutes!

I stopped abruptly, and swung musket to shoulder.  Before I could
pull trigger I heard the sucking fall of snowshoes behind me, and
Tawannears laid his hand on my arm.

"Of what avail, brother?" he asked gently.  "If you shoot one, the
others will be driven mad by the smell of blood.  They will overwhelm
you."

"Why don't you mention yourself?" I snarled.

"Heed me, and they will do us no hurt," he said, ignoring my thrust.
"They do not know.  When they learn who we are, it will be different."

"Do you mean to tell me you will risk our lives on your ridiculous
heathen theory?" I demanded.

"I am trying to save all our lives, which, I fear, may be lost if you
persist, brother."

I flung the gun over my shoulder.

"Have it your way," I said sullenly.  "It is on your head."

"On my head," he agreed.

"Rocks," grunted Corlaer in front of us.

I looked up eagerly.  A few hundred yards away a cube of rock
projected from the snow dominating the country for miles, the one
break in the level of the high plateau.

"Good," said Tawannears.  "We will talk to the brothers there.
Perhaps we can make a camp."

"_Ja_," assented Corlaer.  "Andt trees."

His keen eyes had identified a scraggly patch of timber that
clustered around a cleft in the side of the rock-mass.  The moon
shone on the snow-flecked, dark-green boughs of evergreens, but for
the most part it was little better than dried-up bushes and dwarf
growths.  Yet such as it was it meant shelter and warmth again--if we
could shake off that stealthy procession of ghostly figures behind
us.  They had quickened their pace as they sensed our approach to the
rock.  The howls became frankly savage and lustful.  Close at hand I
heard the snapping of frantic jaws.

"Don't run," urged Tawannears' voice in my ear.  "The man on
snowshoes is at a disadvantage, brother.  We have time."

Time, but no more.  In that cold that was so severe as to make it
agony to touch fingers to steel I gained the mouth of the rock-cleft
with the sweat dribbling down my back.  And it was not the sweat of
haste, but of fear.  All around us the pattering of feet sounded like
the swishing of women's skirts in the lightly packed snow.  A
half-circle of gray figures formed, red tongues lolling over flashing
white teeth, steam rising from five-score panting chests.  Eyes
glinted like pricks of flame.  They were silent--snapping at each
other, yawning, _grr-rr-rrhing!_ softly, but no more baying their
mournful challenge to the sky.

They waited.  And we waited.

"If we build a fire----" I suggested in a whisper.

"Wait, brother," Tawannears replied.  "They fear a fire."

I cursed impartially.

"Are you for saving _their_ lives?"

He stood in front of me, very erect, as Indian as old Nadoweiswe.

"Otetiani forgets that we are of the totem of the Wolf.  Their--" he
gestured toward the gray half-circle--"emblem is on my chest.  It is
forbidden to slay the totem-beast of your Clan."

"That may mean something to you, but certes, it little interests me,"
I said disagreeably.

"It means much to Otetiani."  His voice was stern.  "Did not Otetiani
become a member of the Wolf Clan?  Will not what he does affect not
only himself, but his Clan brothers?  Be wise.  Stay your hand.
These gray brothers are curious and hungry, but they do not know us.
We will tell them, and they will go away."

I laughed shortly.

"Try!" I invited him.  "My gun is loaded, and I propose to climb a
tree.  It won't be comfortable, but I'll last as long as I can."

"Foolishness," remarked Corlaer dispassionately.  "You watch
Tawannears.  He knows."

"What?" I jeered.

"Der wolfs."

As if in acknowledgment of this remark, Tawannears handed his musket
to the Dutchman and opened his leather shirt across his chest.  Then
he stepped forward three paces, and faced the half-circle of gray,
slavering shapes, with his arms flung wide.

"Brothers!" he began.

And I swear a whine as of interest rose from the half-circle.

"You are hungry.  You have followed a scent that was different.  You
have turned aside from the buffalo and the deer, the antelope and the
_wapiti_, to follow this different scent.  For a long time you have
tracked us.  You could have had meat for the taking, but you must
savor this new meat that smelled different."

Not a sound from the half-circle, except the rhythmic panting of
powerful lungs.  The scores of eyes, so luminous, so impersonally
cruel, were riveted upon the orator.

Tawannears advanced another step.  He might have been addressing the
Hoyarnagowar.

"You have been wrong, brothers.  You knew not what you did.  See!"

He stooped before them, stripping his chest to show the wolf's head
painted upon it.

"Tawannears is of the totem of the Wolf.  These others with me are of
the totem of the Wolf.  We are sworn to brotherhood with you.  We may
not slay you nor eat your meat nor wear your fur.  We are your
brothers."

A big, deep-chested beast threw back his head and sent out a mournful
howl.  Others answered him.

"Go back, brothers," continued Tawannears.  "If you touch us
Hawenneyu will punish you, just as he would punish us if we harmed
you.  When there is free meat on the trail it is not for brothers to
hunt each other.  You have done wrong, already; but you did not know.
Go back."

And he walked directly into their ranks, and set his open palm
against the chest of the wolf that had raised the first howl.  And
the wolf bent his head and licked the hand that rested on his chest!

"Go, brothers," repeated Tawannears.

They were gone!  I rubbed my eyes, and stared into the darkness.
Yes, there flitted a dull, gray shape.  Snow crunched under their
pads.  A click of teeth as one snapped at another.  Then the
hunting-call of the leader, quavering toward the stars.
_Yap-yap-yap!_ in answer.  Howl and counter-howl, yelps of discovery,
the quick, rasping bay announcing a fresh scent.  Fainter--and
fainter----

I sunk my fingers in Corlaer's bulbous arm.

"What were they?"

I felt him shrug his shoulders.

"Wolfs."

"Real?  Did I imagine that?"

"It may be they were spirit wolves, such as Nadoweiswe warned us of,"
said Tawannears at my other side, taking his musket from the
Dutchman's charge.

I could not see his face, but his voice was serious.

"You mock me," I answered.

"Why, brother?  Who knows?  We have passed beyond the world of men, I
think."

"You touched one, did you not?" I insisted.

He considered.

"True."  He raised the hand to his nostrils, sniffed.  "And it left
on me the rank wolf smell.  Yes, they were no spirit beasts, brother,
but it does not matter.  Spirit beasts or flesh and blood, they would
never have touched me."

"Why not?"

"Why did the wild horse walk up and suffer Otetiani to mount him?"

"Because I did not fear him or have thought to harm him."

"Otetiani speaks always with a straight tongue," said the Seneca
gravely.  "There was no fear in my heart of the wolf brothers, nor
did I think of harming them."

"But a wolf is not a horse!" I protested.

"True.  But he is our brother.  Did not Otetiani see me show them the
Clan insignia on my chest?"

"My God!" I exclaimed.  "One of us is mad!"

"_Oof_," remarked Corlaer, with his rare fluency.  "Nobody is madt.
But der white man does not know eferything.  Dot is all.  Andt now we
make a goodt hut andt a fire--eh?  It is coldt.  _Ja_, I take this
tree."




CHAPTER XI

THE MOUNTAIN THAT WAS GOD

So far on our journey the obstacles thrown in our path by hostile men
had outweighed those opposed by nature.  From now on the reverse was
true.  The men we met were feeble savages, ignorant, superstitious,
easily put to flight.  But nature loomed as a foe of overawing
strength.  Each day brought its tests of endurance, daring, brawn or
skill.  Time meant nothing in face of the difficulties we must
conquer.  A month passed after our escape from the wolf pack before
we even sighted the gigantic barrier of the Sky Mountains, and the
passage of their snowy summits required additional months of effort.

But this is to gallop in advance of my story.  Yet I scarce know how
to set down in sober language the magnitude of the forces we
encountered, the supreme majesty of that unknown country, the Godlike
splendor of the Winter scenery, the awful, silent loneliness.  And of
all the wonders that lent emphasis to our own puny might I think the
one that affected us most was the absence of man from the plains and
forests that intervened betwixt the Teton villages and the mountains.
For months we were companied only by the myriads of beasts that had
fled the intense cold of the heights for the milder temperature below
the timber-line.

The great deer which Tawannears called Wapiti, red deer, antelope,
buffalo, wild goats and wild sheep we saw in millions.  We killed
fresh meat with our hatchets, and had it always at need.  They moved
about the low-lands--which, of themselves, were sufficiently high,
inasmuch as the country shelved upward, mile after mile--in search of
such food as could be afforded by tree-bark and the herbage left
beneath the snow; and in their sore want and innocence of man they
did no more than step aside from our path and stare after us.  Of
wolves we saw many and heard some, but they never again came near
us--explain it as you choose.  For myself, I have no more to say,
being convinced by marvels I was yet to behold that Corlaer was right
past disputation when he said, "der white man does not know
eferything."

That was a Winter of unprecedented cold.  Late in coming, it
developed protracted periods of severe frost, linked by tumultuous
storms, after which the forest would be scattered with wild things
frozen in their tracks.  Taught by experience, we became apt at
seeking shelter with the first hint that the Wind Spirits were
plucking the wild geese in the North, careful not to move across open
country unless the weather signs were favorable; and whilst this
delayed us, 'tis beyond question it preserved our lives.  With a
roof, four walls and fire, men may defy nature's worst attacks, no
matter how make-shift the covering.

I said it was a month before we sighted the Sky Mountains--but they
were still many miles away.  We had followed a fork of the river
which flowed through the Teton country.  It carried us northwest, and
after several weeks brought us within view of a range of ragged
peaks, which, at first, we took to be our immediate goal.  But the
river banded the broken country at their base, and we came presently
into a wide upland somewhat like the savannahs that lined the
Missouri.*  The ragged peaks dwindled behind us; the horizon was
empty ahead--until a day of unusually brilliant sunshine with a
cloudless sky revealed a serrated glory in the west, cones and
saddlebacks and hulking ridges, square and round and oblong and
eccentrically-shaped rock-masses, all draped in snow.


* It seems probable that Ormerod refers here to the Medicine Bow
range and the Laramie Plains.--A.D.H.S.


A storm delayed us another week, but we picked up the trail with
light hearts, and each sunset was an inspiration to faster progress.
It was as if a giant's paint-pots had been upset and splashed
harmoniously over the mountain-wall--soft reds, purples, yellow, and
the half-tones that run between.  Or the Painter's mood would be
different, and they would be slung on in harsh, contrasting belts of
color that jarred your eyes.  Amazing!  And it continued after we
were at the very foot of the towering wall, poking this way and that
to find a gateway to the mystery land beyond.  The heights close by
might lose their potent spells, but in the hazy distance, North or
South, the Painter worked his will at random.

In my youth I marched with the Duke of Berwick into the Pyrenees.
That was child's play compared to the undertaking we confronted.  For
we had no knowledge whatsoever of the secret of this jumbled
prospect.  Forests cloaked the mountains' lower flanks, and under the
trees the snow was heaped so deep we must have been swallowed to
suffocation but for our snowshoes.  Above the timberline began the
dominion of the rocks, and here all was snow and ice, either smoothly
slippery or treacherously loose.  Upon our first attempt to gain a
height we precipitated a slide which carried us into the tree-tops of
a forest.  We were cripples for days.

Again and again we probed ravines and valleys in hopes they would
lead up to a practicable pass, but we passed no more than time.  We
wasted weeks on protracted journeys which led to the brinks of
precipices or dead-walls--dangerous work as well as tiresome, for the
snow-slides were frequent and impossible to forecast.  Enough sun on
a certain spot to start a thaw, and a whole hillside might go.

In the beginning we worked north along the base of the range, in
accordance with a theory advanced by Tawannears that possibly the
fork of the river we had followed might break through the Sky
Mountains, and when we demonstrated this was not so he suggested that
the other, or southern fork, might do so.  Neither Corlaer nor I had
a better plan to offer, and we retraced our steps to the south, and
presently struck into a likely valley that ended in a ramp of
precipices.  So we tried again, and a third time, always without
success.

It was after this third try that we were snowed up in a hut we threw
together in a rock-hollow.  There was nothing to do, except eat,
sleep and keep the fire going.  None of us was talkative.  We were
too disappointed, too tired.  But some time in the afternoon of the
second day Corlaer woke up Tawannears and me.

"I hafe foundt der way," he announced.

"What way?" I yawned.

"Ofer der mountains."

Tawannears looked interested, but I was resentful at being disturbed.

"Oh, it starts here in the hut?" I jeered.

"Perhaps," he answered, unmoved.

"What is in Corlaer's mind?" asked the Seneca eagerly.

Peter made up the fire before replying.  Talking was an effort for
him, and he usually required time to sort out his words.

"We follow der animals," he said at length.

"What?" I exclaimed.

But Tawannears nodded.

"True.  Corlaer is right, Otetiani.  If there is a pass, the wild
things must know of it.  We have only to watch them."

"But it is quite probable that in this weather no pass will be
practicable, especially for animals," I objected.

"Spbring is coming soon," replied the Dutchman.

"We have only to wait and watch," added Tawannears.

I had to admit that they were right.  And when the storm blew itself
out two days later, having doubled the mountains' snow blanket, we
abandoned our frontal attack upon the barrier in favor of a
reconnaissance of its approaches.  For a week we pushed on south
through the foothills, and were finally forced to a halt by a
spur-range, which ran eastward.  Manifestly, 'twas a waste of time to
envelop this, and we retraced our steps again, by no means so
confident that Corlaer's suggestion had been as canny as we first
supposed, for we had seen not a single indication that the animals
were entering or leaving the higher altitudes.

But at the end of this week a thaw set in which continued from day to
day.  The hillsides were soon running with tiny rivulets.  The snow
underfoot was soggy, and packed hard.  The avalanches were worse than
ever.  Every hour or two there would be a rip and a roar and a swish
of breaking trees, and bowlders and pebbles would rain down upon us.
It was one of these slides which was instrumental in showing us a way
across the barrier.  We had abandoned our set path, and hugged the
protecting face of a high cliff, knowing any slide that topped it
would over-shoot us, when a mountain sheep came bounding out of a
little gulley we had passed without paying it any special notice.

Corlaer raised his arm, and pointed.

"'Tis the first animal we've seen as high as this," I admitted.

"If we go in there we shall need more meat," said Tawannears.

And he quickly strung his bow, notched an arrow and loosed.  The
animal dropped a scant fifty yards away, and I ran to pick it up.
But Corlaer was close on my heels, and he hoisted the carcass on his
broad shoulders.

"_Oof_," he squeaked.  "Der is still light.  We don't wait to cut up
der sheep.  We go on, eh?  _Ja_, we go on."

I nodded, and Tawannears was equally willing.  We made no attempt to
persuade the Dutchman to let us carry the dead sheep, for neither of
us could have handled it and our equipment at the same time,
especially on the tricky footing of the snow-covered rocks, with
snowshoes to manage.  But it was no effort at all to Peter.  He
strode along after us as easily as though he had been carrying a
rabbit.

The entrance of the gulley was perhaps twenty feet wide.  It threaded
back into the hills, widening gradually, until it turned an elbow of
rock and became a respectable defile.  The bed was strewn with
bowlders of all sizes, and with the melting snow and a trickle of
water that in time would become a fair-sized stream it was anything
but a pleasant place for walking.  The one satisfaction we had was
that the side-walls were so steep as to assure us some protection
from the eternal avalanches, our most dangerous foes.

The ascent was easy, and toward evening we rounded another elbow and
found ourselves in the throat of a lovely rock-bound valley, locked
away in the heart of the hills.  Above it lifted peaks that pierced
the clouds, their lower flanks garbed in jade-green pine forests.
Its floor was similarly tree-covered, but at intervals the forest
yielded to open parks, where herds of mountain goat and sheep and
antelope rooted for food beneath the snow.  In the center was a
little lake, its frozen surface glinting like a scarlet eye under the
sunset glow.

Not a sound marred the magic stillness.  It was like a picture
painted on a screen, a highland solitude, which, so far as we could
determine, had never before been visited by men.  Certes, the wild
creatures were tamer than the stags and hinds I remember to have
chased as a new-breeched younker in the deer-park of Foxcroft in
Dorset, where first I saw the light.  The blows of our axes felling
trees for a hut and the crackling of the campfire were bait to lure
them closer.

The valley was miles in length, and we reached the opposite exit too
late to pass through the next day; but the second morning we dived
into a replica of the defile by which we had passed the eastern
barrier range.  And that night we shivered around a scanty fire in a
small area we cleared of snow amongst the rocks, fearful lest the
constricted crevice become an impasse like those that had baffled us
for months.  But fortune stood our friend, and we emerged at high
noon of the fourth day of our wanderings upon a land of rambling
foothills.  Behind us reared the snowy peaks of the Sky Mountains,
seemingly more impassable than ever.

We had done what no man I have ever met could fairly claim to have
done.  I know there are those who pretend to have traversed the
Western Wilderness, and would prate of marvels done and seen; but
show me the man who can make good his boast.  There are Jesuit
missioners and _couriers du bois_ who have beheld the Sky Mountains
afar, but I have the word of Charles Le Moyne, himself, that none
hath come to him or his people with such a tale as we can tell.

But again I wander from my story.  Patience, prithee!

The inanimate ferocity of nature lacks the dramatic quality of men's
individual hates and struggles, but no achievement of my comrades and
I can compare with the battles we fought against mountain, forest and
stream.  Mark you, a living opponent, man or animal, you can touch,
hurt, visibly overcome.  But what satisfaction can you wring from
nature after beating her?  None, I say, unless it be the right to
live.  You do not even know for sure that the victory is yours until
the zest of combat is long forgotten.

A day's journey from the Western base of the Sky Mountains we saw men
again for the first time in near five months.  They were a stunted,
long-haired people, dressed in stinking skins, who beset us with
arrows as we lay in a valley, but fled in panic at the first
discharge of our muskets, leaving one of their number with a wounded
leg.  Him we caught, but no sign of intelligence showed on his brutal
face as Tawannears put question after question in the Dakota tongue,
except when he was asked where lay the seat of Wakanda, the Great
Spirit.  Whether he caught the meaning of the word or was cunning
enough to perceive that we were seeking a certain place, I cannot
say, but he lifted his arm and pointed to the Northwest, with a
chatter of gibberish that meant nothing to us.  So we left him with
his wound bound up and enough meat for a day, and departed in the
direction he had indicated.

I should pursue no useful purpose if I recounted in detail our
ensuing wanderings.  This country beyond the Sky Mountains was more
savage and desolate than the Great Plains which stretched westward
from the Mississippi, and more varied in character.  We found many
minor mountain ranges, some of them not lightly to be surmounted.  We
near died of thirst on deserts of parched grass.  We hungered amongst
a weird world of jumbled sun-baked rocks.  But always we advanced in
a direction north of west.

Usually game was easy to find.  The Indians were more scattered than
on the plains, and for the most part they were a debased race,
leading a hand-to-mouth existence, Occasionally we were attacked, but
they always ran at the reports of our guns, and those we captured
refused even to show intelligence at the word Wakanda, so that after
a while we became discouraged, and decided that our first prisoner
had pretended recognition of it simply as a device to be rid of us.

But we had no better course to follow, and continued toward the
northwest until we came to a considerable river that flowed due
north, with a line of hills showing dimly in the blue distance a long
way to the west.*  We decided to make use of the river to save time
and ease our weary bodies, and repeated our expedient for crossing
the Mississippi, constructing a raft of tree-trunks bound together
with withes; but this came to pieces in the first rough water it
traversed--rough enough in all conscience--and we went on afoot as
far as a village of fishing Indians, who possessed canoes hollowed
with fire and stone hatchets out of logs.  At my suggestion, we
traded an extra knife with these people for a small craft barely
large enough to hold us all, evaded by bare luck an attempt they made
to trap us in our sleep, and again took to the river.


* Probably the Snake River, the border line between Idaho and
Oregon.--A.D.H.S.


As we expected, this stream, after flowing north for several hundred
miles, turned the flank of the distant mountains we had seen and
headed west.  A week later it joined a larger stream flowing from the
north, which, holding south for a day's paddling, likewise was
diverted to the westward.*  But what interested us most was the sight
of another snowy barrier, incomparably higher than the Sky Mountains,
which gleamed in early morning or late afternoon across the western
horizon north of the river.


* Undoubtedly, the Columbia.--A.D.H.S.


Another two days' paddling down-stream, and we came abreast of an
Indian village which drew an exclamation of excitement from
Tawannears.  The houses were long, oblong structures of wood, with
the smokes of many fires rising above their roofs, buildings almost
identical with those long houses which furnished the Iroquois their
distinctive name; and a fleet of canoes put off from shore to
intercept us.  With the odds so heavy against us it seemed foolish to
fight unless we were compelled, and we put by our paddles and waited
with muskets ready to abide the issue.  But our fears were
immediately set at rest.  These Indians were the handsomest, most
straightforward race we had seen since leaving the Dakota.  They were
eager in their signs of peaceful intent, and as eagerly beckoned us
ashore.

"Shall we go?" I asked doubtfully.

"Why not?" returned Tawannears, shrugging his shoulders.  "We have
come far with little success.  If these people are kind perhaps they
will set our feet on the true path."

"If they are kind," I repeated.

Peter, in the stern, swept his paddle in a curve that steered us
toward the bank.

"_Ja_," he grunted.  "Andt berhaps we get something different to eat."

We had no cause to regret the decision.  These people, who called
themselves Tsutpeli,* were both kind and considerate, and much
impressed by the white skins that Corlaer and I still possessed,
despite thick coats of grease and sunburn.  They were likewise very
intelligent.  After we had been escorted to the house of a chief, in
which dwelt the families of all his sons, and had eaten of several
different foods, in particular a large fish which I suspect to have
been a kind of salmon, besides berries and a stew of roots, leaves
and twigs--much to Peter's enjoyment--our hosts began a humorous
attempt to strike a common ground of intercourse with us.


*Nez Percés--although it is difficult to understand how they got so
far West.--A.D.H.S.


They would point to various objects, and give their names for them,
then question us for ours; and we, or rather, Tawannears, who was
spokesman for us, would reply with the Seneca terms.  In this way, in
the course of the weeks we spent in this village, we came to acquire
a working vocabulary, and were able, with the help of signs and
guess-work, to engage in simple conversations.

They told us that they had not always held the river to the point
they now occupied, but had recently conquered it from a tribe they
called the Chinook, who were notably fine sailors and who still
controlled the lower reaches where were the best fisheries.  With
some difficulty, Tawannears made them understand the general purpose
of his quest, but all the principal men disowned any knowledge of a
Land of Lost Souls.  Very different, however, was their reception of
the legend Nadoweiswe had recounted of the abiding-place of the Great
Spirit.  Their faces lighted at once, and Apaiopa, the leading chief,
signed to us to follow him from the lodge.

It was sunset, and the mountain wall we had discerned to the north of
the river appeared as a string of isolated peaks, three or four of
them towering in lordly majesty above the indefinite blue outline of
the lesser ridges.  The farthest one we could see was the mightiest.
It bulked across the horizon with the effect of a monstrous
personality, dazzling white, its crest ripping the clouds apart.  At
that distance it had the look of sitting in the heavens, detached,
not earthbound.

"Tamanoas,"* said Apaiopa, pointing.  "The Great Spirit!  The Chinook
told us about Him when we came here.  Sometimes He is angry--Bang!
Like this."  He touched my musket.  "Sometimes He goes away into the
sky.  He is the Great Spirit!"


* Obviously, Mt. Rainier.--A.D.H.S.


Tawannears expelled his breath with a sigh of contentment, and I
rushed into hurried speech to restrain the certain disappointment I
felt he was laying up for himself.

"Nonsense, 'tis only a mountain, bigger than others," I said.
"Think, brother!  You will--"

"It may be a mountain," returned Tawannears quietly.  "But is that a
reason why it may not be the Great Spirit Himself?"

"_Ja_," affirmed Corlaer, "if der Greadt Spbirit come to earth, I
guess he come as a mountain, eh?  _Ja_, dot's it."

I remembered the wolf brothers, and desisted in an attempt which I
knew could not succeed.  And for the remainder of the evening
Tawannears was occupied in securing information on the route to the
base of Tamanoas.  In the morning, our hosts loaded us with food and
saw us on our way.  They made no endeavor to restrain us.  Indeed,
they seemed to think we could accomplish anything.  A Great Spirit,
which was white, they reasoned, ought to be glad to see two white
men.  Tawannears, they considered, would be accepted on our
guarantee.  We bade them farewell with sorrow.  They were the noblest
Indians we found beyond the Sky Mountains.




CHAPTER XII

THE ALTAR OF TAMANOAS

We made our last camp in a glade strewn with wild-flowers that was
rimmed by one of the dingy glaciers, hanging like out-thrust arms
along the mountain's flanks.  High overhead, several miles in the
still sky, soared the blunted cone of the summit, silver-white at the
peak, shading to a deeper tone where black hulks of rock cropped up
through the snow-mantle, and steel-gray farther down where the
ice-rivers of the glaciers crawled beneath loads of rock-dust and
pebble-bowlders, wrenched from earth's fabric by their resistless
flow.

Below the glaciers came the zone of wild-flowers, miles and miles of
them, casting their pollen into the air in the midst of icy
desolation, banding the heights with a cincture of fragrant beauty.
Then, a mile nearer earth's level, stood the timber-line; first,
straggling dwarf growths, bent and gnarled and twisted by the winds;
behind these the massive bulwark of the primeval forest, stout cedars
and cumbrous firs, the least of them fit for main-mast to a King's
ship, a green frame for the many-colored miracle of the flower-fields
and the white splendor above.

"Do you think to climb higher, brother?" I questioned Tawannears,
standing with arms folded, his eyes fixed upon the summit that seemed
so near in that radiant atmosphere.

He nodded.

"'Tis no more than a mountain," I continued gently.  "Do you not see?"

He turned somber eyes upon me.

"It looks like no other mountain Tawannears has ever seen, Otetiani."

I waved my hand from South to North, where gleamed a dozen peaks
scarce inferior to the giant upon whose thighs we couched.

"They are not the same," he flamed with sudden passion.  "Have not
all the people we met told us that this was the Great Spirit?
Tamanoas!"  He repeated the name with a kind of ecstasy.  "Did
Otetiani ever see anything more like what the Great Spirit must be?
Is He, then, a man like us--with feet and hands and a belly?  No, He
is Power and Strength and Beauty and Stillness!"

"_Ja_," agreed Corlaer shrilly.  "Andt if we go up high we see all
der country aroundt.  Dot safes trouble.  _Ja!_"

I unsheathed my tomahawk.

"Very well," I said.  "'Tis settled.  We try for the top.  Therefore,
heed what I say.  A mountain is a jealous foe, strong, as you have
said, eke treacherous.  In France there is a mountain like to this,
which is called the White Mountain.  Men climb it for love of danger,
but they go in parties roped together, so that if one falls, his
mates may save him.  We must cut up our buffalo-robes and braid the
strips for rope, and besides, we shall need sticks to help us on the
ice.  Also, we must make shift to climb by daylight.  In the darkness
we should slip to our deaths--if, indeed, we do not die, in any case,
which I think is most likely."

Concern showed in the Seneca's face.

"Tawannears is selfish," he said quickly.  "He thinks only of
himself.  There is no need for Otetiani and Peter to go with me.  Let
them wait here whilst I go up and make prayer to Tamanoas."

I laughed, and Corlaer's flat visage creased in a ridiculous simper,
which was the Dutchman's idea of derisive mirth.

"These many thousand leagues we have traveled," I answered, "without
one venturing alone.  Shall we begin now?  I say no."

"_Ja_," said Corlaer.  "But we go in der morning, eh?  Tonight we
eat."

In the morning we cached our muskets and spare equipment in a hollow
tree, and started up, with no more encumbrances than our
food-pouches, tomahawks, some fifty feet of resilient hide-rope and
the staves we had whittled from cedar saplings.  Our path was obvious
enough.  We crossed the zone of the wild-flowers, skirted the glacier
which terminated in their midst in a spouting, ice-cold stream of
brown water, and found firm footing for half a mile upon a tongue of
rock.  Beyond this was a snow-field, solid and frozen almost to the
consistency of ice, in which we were obliged to cut our steps foot by
foot.  The glare was dazzling as the bright sunlight was reflected
from the smooth, sloping surface, but we won to our objective,
another rock-mass, only to discover it too precipitous for climbing,
and were forced to entrust ourselves to the glacier, which encircled
it.

Here was work to try our souls.  The dull, dirt-hued ice-river was
riven by cracks and crevices, some a few inches wide, others
impassable, from whose dark-green depths came faint tinklings, and
blasts of that utter cold that numbs life instantly.  But it was not
cold on the glacier's top.  The warm sun made us sweat as we toiled
upward, testing the ice in front of us with our sticks at every step,
studying ways to evade the widest crevices, aiding each other to leap
those where there was substantial footing on either side.

But the hour came when a great, spreading crack that struck
diagonally across it compelled us to abandon the glacier as a
highway.  We clambered laboriously over the side walls of bowlders it
had built in the ages of its descent, and assailed another
snow-field, aiming for a series of rock-ledges which lifted, one
above the other, toward the summit.  The air was like wine, heady,
yet strangely thin, and we began to pant out of all proportion to our
efforts.  Tawannears and Peter, both of them stronger than I, seemed
to feel it more; and I was startled to see the big Dutchman sink to
his knees.

"I bleed," he gasped.  "Who strikes us, eh!"

Tawannears, too, dashed a flux of blood from his nose and collapsed
on the snow.

"Tamanoas is displeased," he muttered as I stooped beside him.
"Otetiani was right!  We die."

His bronze face was ghastly pale, and for a moment I feared he would
faint; but he rallied when I shook him by the arm.  I was worried
more for him than for Peter, in which respect I erred.

"'Tis not Tamanoas," I urged.  "At least, brother, 'tis no more than
ordinary mountain sickness I have often heard men tell of.  Up here,
above the world, the air is lighter than we are wont to breathe.  We
have gone too fast.  Let us rest, and grow used to it."

He accepted the explanation with the illogical combination of
civilization and barbarism which was the key to his extraordinary
character.

"Peter," he grunted, pointing weakly.

I looked around to find the Dutchman in a dead faint, the blood
trickling from mouth and nose, to all appearances dying.  But after I
had bathed his temples with snow for a short while he struggled to a
sitting position.

"Who shoots us?" he quavered.

I explained the phenomenon to him as simply as I could--he was
actually more ignorant of physics than the Seneca--and once he had
comprehended its significance he was for continuing the ascent
immediately; but upon my insistence agreed to allow his body an
opportunity to readjust itself to the new strains upon it.  We
occupied the enforced rest by examining the country disclosed to us
at this height, a panorama of dense forests and snowy peaks, and
westward, in the distance, a winding body of water, too broad for a
river, too irregular for a lake.*  But nowhere a sign of habitation,
of beings, human or otherwise, who might have enjoyed this land of
natural happiness and plenty.  Indeed, 'twas avoided by the
surrounding savages as the abode of that divinity they visualized in
the snowy majesty of the mountain, Tamanoas.


* Apparently, Puget Sound.--A.D.H.S.


Tawannears rose first, a look of grim determination in his eyes.

"The sun is high, brothers," he said.  "If Corlaer's pain is gone----"

"_Oof!_" interrupted the Dutchman, with the distaste of any man of
abnormal physique for admitting weakness.  "We go to der top now.  If
der air is thin I hafe fat, eh?  Dot's enough.  _Ja_."

To us, then, it seemed as though the summit was at most an hour's
climb away, but actually our stiffest effort was ahead of us.  All of
that weary afternoon we climbed, risking precipice and crevice,
pausing at frequent intervals for the rest that was essential, if we
were not to become light headed and dizzy.  Once we slipped and slid
a half-mile toward death, bringing up by driving our staves through
the ice and checking gradually the impetus of our descent.  That
meant an hour's work to do over again.  We gritted our teeth and did
it.  Our moccasins were shredded on knife-edged rocks and ice-chunks.
Our faces were blistered by the sun-glare.  Our hands were cut and
sore from constant contact with the ice.  We had spells of nausea.
But we went up--and up.

I was leading, head bowed, my eyes on the rocks and ice ahead in
search of the safest foot-holds, when Tawannears touched my shoulder.

"See, brother," he exclaimed.  "Tamanoas breathes."

I looked up, startled.  The rim was several hundred yards away, and
above it floated what I took to be a cloud low in the sky.  But there
were no clouds, and I soon saw that the mist in the air above the rim
was constantly disintegrating, constantly being replenished.  It was
like the steam that exudes from the spout of a boiling kettle.

"We shall soon learn what it means," I said.  "There is an opening
here.  Keep to the snow--the rocks are shifty."

We crossed a ramp of snow, sloping easily, and entered a huge gap in
the crest.  What a spectacle!  No, I speak not of the view spread out
around the mountain's base.  We did not look at that.  Our eyes were
on the vast bowl, a mile in breadth, that was carved in the
mountain's top.  Snow filled it deep in many places, poured over the
rim through gaps such as that we stood in to form the sources of the
glaciers that twisted downward into the flower-zone like gigantic
serpents with silver tails and dingy-gray, scale-covered coils.  But
here and there over the snowy floor were scattered groups of
peculiar, black rocks out of which jetted the steamy clouds that
Tawannears had noticed.

"Whose fires?" squeaked Corlaer.

The Seneca looked eagerly in all directions, hungry for----  Who can
say what vague form his thoughts were molded in?

"The Great Spirit built them," I answered.  "Ay, and tends them this
moment."

Tawannears bent doubting glance upon my face.

"'Tis so," I affirmed.  "Do you remember in the missionary's school,
talk of mountains called volcanoes?"

"But those were found only in hot countries--or so they taught us,"
answered the Seneca.

"Then they taught you wrong.  I, myself, have seen such a mountain in
Italy, which is in Europe.  And here we stand on a mountain that
is--or has been--a volcano."

Corlaer jumped perceptibly.

"Volcanoes hafe fires?" he protested.

"Yes," I agreed.  "Did not our Indian friends tell us that sometimes
Tamanoas exploded--made a loud noise?  That is what they meant.  Deep
down, under all this ice and snow, in the bowels of the rocks, burns
the undying fire of the world.  And I suppose 'tis not far wrong to
say the Great Spirit tends that.  From it flows all life, and is not
He the Giver of Life?"

"_Ja_," said the Dutchman thoughtfully.  "Andt now we go down pretty
---- quick, eh?"

But I pointed to the sun dropping in the West behind a welter of
clouds, and then to the miles of icy rocks betwixt us and the
timber-line.

"What chance of coming down whole of limb in darkness?" I asked.

Tawannears spoke up before he could answer me.

"Tamanoas is--Tamanoas," he proclaimed in his resonant voice.  "As
Otetiani has said, under us burns the fire of the Life-giver of the
world.  Brothers, Tawannears goes to make his prayer to the Great
Spirit.  Surely, here in His own abode, He will listen!"

And he strode to the nearest rock-pile whence issued the steam of the
earth-fires, and flung up his arms in the Indians' dignified gesture
of prayer--for I think it incomparably more dignified for man to
approach the Great Spirit, in whatever form, not as a suppliant upon
bended knee, but as one who craves favor from an honorable master.
And his voice rang sonorously again in the rhythmic oratory of the
Hodenosaunee, as he stated his case, pleaded his hungry heart, cited
his bitter need.

We could not hear his words.  They were not for us; and we welcomed
the little wind that blew into the crater, twining his stately figure
in the mist of the fumeroles and carrying the echoing phrases over
the opposite snow-banks.  But we watched him enthralled, the while
the shadows blackened on the mountain's lower flanks and a pink glow
flooded the peak around us, shooting a miniature rainbow through the
steam-clouds.  Tawannears tossed out his arms in one final appeal,
proudly, as though he had a right to ask, then turned, with a light
of exultation in his eyes, and walked back to us.

"I think Hawenneyu opened His ears to me," he said simply.  "My heart
that was sad commenced to sing bravely.  It grows strong.  All fear
has left me."

With the approach of night the little wind became a gale that moaned
amongst the rocks.  The air, deprived of the sun's heat, was deadly
cold.  We were in the grip of a Winter frost.  And true it is we
should have died there before morning had it not been for a
steam-chamber I found in one of the clumps of black rocks.  'Twas
unpleasantly damp, but the warmth gave us opportunity for sleep.  We
awoke in a different world.  The peak was wrapped in a thick, moist
blanket of fog.  The air that had been briskly cold was now clammy.
Water congealed on our foreheads.  Our hide garments were stiffened
by it.  We shivered like people with marsh fever.  Our teeth rattled
as we ate our breakfast--the last food we had, for in our ignorance
we had thought to complete the ascent and return in a single day.
Even Tawannears, uplifted by his conviction that he had secured for
his quest the aid and endorsement of an unearthly power, was
depressed by this outlook.

Having finished our scanty meal, we fumbled our way to the gap in the
crater wall by which we had entered the previous evening, and
hesitated there, peering into the fog.

"We have two choices," I said at length, shattering the uncomfortable
silence.  "We can stay here without food in the dampness until the
clouds are dispersed--or we perish.  Or we can commit ourselves to
the hazards of chance in this pit-mirk and essay to go down where
yesterday we came up--with every chance, comrades, that a misstep
will hurl us all to destruction."

At that instant the fog was rent for as long as the eye can remain
open without blinking, and we caught a fair glimpse of the
flower-fields and the lordly stands of timber those few short miles
away.

"Let us go down, brothers," said Tawannears.

"_Ja_," squeaked Corlaer.  "Here I hafe shifers in my back."

I had been leader on the ascent, but when we came to rope ourselves
together Tawannears insisted upon going first.

"Tawannears brought you into this peril, brothers," he declared.  "It
is for Tawannears to lead you out."

So 'twas he who headed us as we scrambled down the outer side of the
crater rim.  I came next, and Corlaer, puffing lustily, was third.
At the beginning our task was simple.  We had only to follow the
foot-holes we had chopped in the snow-ramp under the crest, and we
made this initial stage at a rapid rate.  Below the snow-ramp was a
rock-ledge, and we negotiated this with equally swift success; but
Tawannears was confused by the swirling gray fog and missed the chain
of foot-prints that started from the lower edge of the rocks across
the next snow-bank.

We blundered around for a time trying to find them, and finally, in
desperation, launched out upon the dim white expanse of the
snow-field, here so level that we did not need to chop foot-holds.
When we started we had been able to see perhaps a dozen feet ahead.
Tawannears, in advance, was a ghostly figure in my eyes, no more than
a voice in the mist to Corlaer.  But in the middle of this level
snow-field the fog suddenly thickened to a soupy consistency, and we
all three disappeared, one from another.  I could not see the hand I
held in front of my face.  The clouds were so dense as to seem
stifling.

"What shall we do, brothers?" called Tawannears in a voice that was
muffled and bodiless.

"_Oof!_" grunted Corlaer behind me.  "We choke to death here, eh?"

"Bide, and give the mirk time to weaken," I advised.

We sat and waited until our garments were so saturated with moisture
as to weigh heavy upon us, and our clicking teeth warned us of the
danger of inaction.  The Seneca rose abruptly.

"Tawannears did wrong to say we should descend, brothers," he said.
"But we will die of the cold and wet if we stay here.  To try to
climb back to the top is as dangerous as to climb down.  We have no
choice save to continue.  If Hawenneyu has his eyes upon us we shall
live."

Ten steps farther on I bumped into his crouching figure.

"Back!" he cried fiercely.  "Here is death!"

I looked down past his feet at a blue-green gulf that showed in an
eddy of the mist and was promptly swallowed up again.  We had
wandered out upon a glacier, of which the snow-bank was the source,
and this was one of those fathomless abysses that descended into the
icy vestments of the mountain.

Foot by foot, on hands and knees, we traced the course of the crevice
to a snow-bridge that spanned it, an arch of icy masonry.  This
Tawannears beat upon with his staff to test its resistance.  It did
not quiver, and he ventured but upon it, whilst Corlaer and I dug our
heels into the snow and leaned back to catch him up should it bear
him down.  Presently the fog swallowed him--and his voice hailed us
announcing he had crossed.  I followed him with celerity, and gave
the word to Corlaer.  The Dutchman's figure, distorted out of its
true proportions by the shifting mists, swam into our view, stepping
cautiously across the arch, when, without warning there was a crackle
of splitting ice, and Peter bounded into the air and dug his heels
into the very margin of the precipice's brink as the snow-arch sank
beneath his weight.

Tawannears and I gasped in horror and braced ourselves for the shock
of his fall; but he teetered back and forth for two breaths, there on
the verge of eternity, then balanced erect and stepped toward us.

"_Oof_," he remarked with shrill glumness.  "Dot time Peter heardt
der angels sing.  _Ja!_"

We worked off the top of the glacier onto a second rock-ledge, none
too sure of the direction we were taking, but thinking mainly of
escaping the treacherous network of crevices.  But we could not have
avoided the tangle of glaciers on the mountain's sides with the sun
shining to light our way, and in the fog it was a certainty we should
stumble onto them so soon as we had reached the lower margin of the
rock-island--for that was what it really was--we had gained.  We were
encouraged, however, by an apparent tendency of the mist to
dissipate, which enabled us to achieve almost satisfactory progress
across the yawning surface of this second stretch of
glacier--probably a lower coil of the one which had nearly trapped us
above.  But just as we were congratulating ourselves upon our success
and hoping that we should soon pass out of the cloud-bank, the wind
veered and the thick, gray blanket walled us in again.

We kept on doggedly, now immune to fear--or rather, fearing more the
suffering of inertia.  Tawannears walked like a blind man, tapping
the ground in front of him with his staff, and shouting to us from
time to time the nature of the ground ahead.  The descent was
regular, and for a quarter-mile or so the ice had given excellent
footing.  I suppose it made him over-confident.  The mist was
thinning once more, too, and I could discern his figure, a shadow
gliding in advance of me a dozen feet away.

"The ice is broken, brothers--beware a bowlder on the right--no----"

He vanished!  There was a violent wrench upon the rope hitched around
my waist, and I was jerked from my feet, clawing with all my limbs
for a hold to stay me.  Small stones and ice chunks rattled down as I
slid forward.  I felt one leg pass over a declivity, sensed that my
right arm was beating space.  Then some new force was exerted behind
me.  My descent was arrested.  I sprawled half over the precipice,
but I did not fall further, as I normally should have done.

"Who is there?" gasped Corlaer out of the fog.

"'Tis I!  Ormerod!" I answered.  "Tawannears is over the brink."

"Is he dead?"

I mustered courage to peer into a blue-green caldron of writhing mist.

"Tawannears!" I shouted in an oddly cracked voice.

"Yes, brother," he answered calmly, surprisingly near.  "I am here."

"Are you hurt?"

"No.  I am holding to the rope.  I have one foot on an ice-shelf."

"I hear," came Corlaer's voice behind me.  "Now, you do what I say.
I pull--like----!  First comes Ormerod.  He lets oudt der rope as he
comes.  When he is safe, we pull togedder for Tawannears.  Readty?
Oop!"

The Dutchman's breath came in great, gagging pants.  It seemed as
though a dozen yoke of oxen were tugging at that rope.  An
exclamation from Tawannears warned me that the haulage might pull him
from his foot-hold on the ice-shelf, with a resulting increase in the
strain upon Corlaer, and I managed to wriggle sideways as Peter
dragged me up, so as to release a spare coil of the hide-rope.  The
instant I had all four limbs on hard ice, I shouted to Peter to let
be, lifted myself shakily to my knees and crawled to where he sat,
with his feet propped on the bowlder Tawannears had warned us
against, taking in the slack of the line, hand over hand.

"Now, we pull Tawannears oudt," he puffed.

I seized the line beside him, but my efforts were not what counted.
His immense shoulders bent forward.  His back and arm-muscles bulged
through his hide shirt.  His legs braced like steel pillars against
the bowlder, luckily frozen fast to its icy bed.  And slowly, very
slowly, I was able to collect a few inches of slack.  The heavy rope
chafed against the dull, rounded edge of the precipice, but it held
is no hempen cable could have done.

Tawannears' arms appeared above the brink, clutching for something to
hold to.  Presently, the Seneca's face rose to view--and Peter's
breath came in the same regular, explosive puffs.  Then Tawannears
got one hand on a level space, found leverage for the other.

"Corlaer has done enough," he panted.  "Hold fast!  Tawannears can
bring himself up the rest of the way."

We held the line taut, the Seneca gave a heave, swung one leg over
the edge--and crawled out of danger, carefully, inch by inch, lest
the broken ice betray him a second time.

Corlaer straightened to his feet, and released the breath from his
lungs in one mighty blast.

"_Oof!_" he grunted.  "Dot was no choke."

"No joke!" I protested.  "You saved our lives!"

"Corlaer has added more to the debt which Tawannears can never
repay," said the Seneca.  "He is stronger than the buffalo bull.  He
is like the Great Tree which upholds the sky.  Tawannears will not
forget."

"_Ja_," mumbled the Dutchman.  "Andt now we go down, eh?  It is not
goodt here.  I hafe shifers in my back."

We brushed the moisture from our eyelashes and started forth anew
with redoubled caution.  The mist was not so thick, but the
wind-currents were brisker, and the clouds eddied in a way that was
most perplexing.  We succeeded in getting off the glacier onto a
rock-edge, and this fetched us to a snow-field, so steep that we must
resort again to our hatchets to cut steps for our descent--and here,
I think, the blinding mist was an advantage, for it prevented us from
being confused by the giddy depths below.

I had just taken the lead from Tawannears to rest him from the taxing
labor of chopping out the foot-holds, when the whole surface of the
field commenced to slip.  Corlaer lost his footing first, and was
flung head over heels across the snow, dragging Tawannears and me
after him.  The mass of snow gathered headway as it sped on, but a
short distance below the starting-point it was arrested by a terrace
in the mountain-side, and only a miniature torrent of ice-chunks
attended us on our continued descent.  For we, probably because of
our individual weight, were bounced off the terrace, and rolled down
a farther slope, sometimes flung into each other's arms, occasionally
separated by the length of our connecting lines, anon ramming one
another in head or stomach.

How far we slid I cannot say, but it must have been several thousand
feet.  Of a sudden, the clouds around us seemed to thin away, and we
rolled out of darkness into the comparative brilliance of an overcast
day.  I had a fleeting perception of the lowering wrack overhead,
glanced down as I turned an involuntary somersault and perceived the
wild-flower zone almost at hand, and the next moment we were cascaded
over a bluff and dropped into a snow-drift within a quarter mile of
the glade from which we had started the ascent.

Bruised and sore, our clothing slashed to ribbons, we were yet sound
in limb, and we picked ourselves up from the snow with feeble grins
of amusement at the figures of dilapidation we presented.  Then,
limping through the flowers to our hut, we made a fire, broiled a
haunch of green venison and crawled into a bed of sweet-smelling
cedar boughs for a sleep that lasted until after sun-up the next
morning.




CHAPTER XIII

WE TURN BACK

The sun was burning away the fog that had overlain the country since
we left the base of the Ice Mountain, and the West breeze carried to
our ears the odd muffled booming noise that we had heard once before
that day.  As the fog lifted, the noise increased.  It was like the
pounding of great waters over a cataract, but there was no brume in
the air such as marked that of Jagara, and we were wholly at a loss
until at sunset we fought our way through the briary walls of the
forest upon the surface of an open bluff.

The booming noise was the beating of surf upon a rocky shore.
Westward and north and south the waters rolled, blue-green off-shore,
inland a smother of foam.  The combers came lunging in, one after the
other, in an endless succession of charges, smashing themselves into
fine spray and spume against the cliffs.  The bluff on which we stood
was spattered by them; the breeze carried a fine mist to drench the
near-by forest foliage.

"Here is a sea as vast as the Cadaraqui Lake, brothers," commented
Tawannears, as our eyes drank in the picture.

I laughed, for a drop of the spray had reached my mouth.

"Cadaraqui, and all this wonderful land we have traversed, could be
dropped into the bosom of this sea, and still fail to span it," I
answered.  "'Tis the South Sea, the Pacific Ocean, which, the
geographers tell us, stretches from this western verge of our
continent to the shores of the farther Indies."

"How can Otetiani know that?" exclaimed Tawannears.

"Taste it.  'Tis salt, the water of the open sea."

Both he and Peter stooped and scooped handfuls of it from pools in
the rocks--and quickly spat it out again.

"_Ja_," agreed Corlaer.  "Sea water.  We hafe gone to der endt of der
landt."

Tawannears nodded dispiritedly.

"We have traveled as far as men may go," he admitted.  "And we have
failed.  Hawenneyu has veiled his face from us, after all."

"We have not seen all the land," I reminded him.

"_Ja_," spoke up the Dutchman.  "We go sout' along der shore, eh?"

But Tawannears made no reply.  He dragged behind us, dejected and
dismayed, as we skirted the irregular shoreline, looking for a
convenient camp site.  When we found what we sought he aided in the
routine duties of the evening, ate his share of the meager meal which
was all we could afford, and then took his stand upon a lonely rock
that jutted out into the angry waters.  An hour later he strode back
into the circle of firelight.

"Tawannears forgot that he was a grown warrior," he announced with
proud humility.  "His heart turned to water.  He was very sad.  He
was afraid.  But now he has driven the fear out of his heart.
Whatever is worth while the Great Spirit makes difficult to find.  We
have come a long trail, my brothers, but it may be we have even
farther yet to go.  Tawannears will not cry again if the thorns cut
his feet.  Shall we continue?"

"Until you are satisfied, brother," I said.

Peter simply wagged his big head affirmatively.

"It is good," said the Seneca.  "In the morning we will start south.
Tawannears will take the first watch.  A spirit bird is singing in
his ear tales of the past."

That was all.  When my eyes closed he was sitting outside the range
of the firelight, his back against a tree-trunk, his musket across
his knees, his eyes fixed on the shadows.  His disappointment must
have been almost unfathomable.  To have come so far, beyond the
wildest imaginings of his race, to have risked the legendary as well
as the absolute, to have withstood so many risks--and then to find
that it was practically all to do over a second time!  'Twas no
ordinary shock.  And he, who had so lately achieved audience--as he
supposed--with the very spirit of Tamanoas, who had inhaled the
breath of the Life-giver, was all the more disheartened.  Yet he
rallied to the shock; he refused to yield to the disappointment.
From his reserves of courage he mustered the strength to embark
afresh upon the quest he had been confident was approaching a
conclusion.

Two days' journey southward we were halted by the estuary of a mighty
river, and we turned inland, following its northern bank in search of
means to cross.  We passed several deserted villages, and on the
third day were attacked from ambush by a tribe of tall, lean savages,
with heads that sloped back from the eyebrows to a peak.  They fled
from our musketry, and we pursued them into their village of long,
well-built log houses, and helped ourselves to a dug-out canoe in
repayment for the ammunition we had expended upon them.  They stood
at a distance the while, silent and plainly fearful lest we should
burn the village, but 'twas never a point with us to do more harm or
foray goods other than need required.

Across the river and equipped with good store of smoked fish and
dried meat from the savages' huts, we skirted for several weeks a
wondrously healthy wooded country betwixt the sea and mountains
scarcely inferior in height to those snow giants we had beheld
surrounding the Ice Mountain.  We saw or encountered Indians many
times, but they were poor creatures of less spirit than the fisher
folk by the river, and seldom offered us any hostility.  A shot was
always sufficient to scatter them.  Indeed, 'twas observed by all of
us that since we passed the Sky Mountains we had seldom met savages
as fiercely valorous as the warrior tribes of the vast central plains.

For these first weeks we wandered aimlessly.  We had gone as far
Westward as we could, and we had not yet determined on another
definite course.  But a series of damp winds and clinging sea-fogs
such as this country seemed disposed to, set us to figuring upon
plans for weathering the approaching Winter.  We were clad now in the
rags of garments, insufficient to withstand the cold.  Tawannears and
I were gaunt from hardship, hunger and abnormal physical effort, and
if the huge cask of blubber that covered Corlaer's bones was not
diminished appreciably, fatigue had grooved deep lines and hollows in
his flabby face.

Gone from us was the _élan_ that had enabled us to dash ourselves
without thought upon the barrier of the Sky Mountains.  We wanted
rest, food in plenty, time to manufacture new clothing.  For close on
a year and a half we had wandered thousands of miles from one side of
the continent to the other, conducting journeys such as no men had
ever attempted before--as Master Cadwallader Golden, the Surveyor
General of our Province of New York, has assured me to be the fact,
he having studied to much advantage the available data on the
geography of America.

So there came a night when we huddled close to a scanty fire under a
brush shelter and debated our future.

"When the snow comes we shall want more than this," I said, fingering
the holes in my moccasins.  "I would we had the buffalo robes we
sacrificed on the Ice Mountain yonder."

"Otetiani speaks wisely," agreed Tawannears.  "We do not know what
the Winter in this country will be, but it is not a warm land.  There
is always snow on the mountain-tops.  In Winter, then, the cold must
be felt in the low lands."

Corlaer, gnawing infinitesimal shreds of meat from a bone, shrilly
growled approval.

"We must have shelter," I continued.  "We must have food in plenty.
We must take a sufficiency of meat and peltry."

"What of the fisher-tribes?" suggested Tawannears.  "It may be they
would give us hospitality."

"Ay, and stab us separately some night whilst we slept," I retorted.
"I like not these people.  They have shifty eyes.  They will not
stand up in a fight.  Moreover, we cannot speak to them, nor they to
us."

Corlaer cast aside his bone with a gesture of disgust.

"Go to der mountains," he squeaked.  "In der valleys is cofer--andt
wood--andt game for der killing--andt no odder mans."

It was true what he said.  We had proved it in our wanderings.  The
valleys at the foot of the high ranges were the favorite haunts of
all the animals.  They were well-wooded and watered.  And the savages
of these parts seemed to shun the mountains for the tidal rivers.  In
the right valley we might expect to find as perfect living conditions
as nature afforded.  We adopted Peter's counsel, and in the morning
struck off southeast into the foothills.

The first valley we came to we rejected for lack of wood.  The second
was forested, but showed no sign of attracting over-much game.  The
third was too inaccessible.  But after a fortnight of zigzag
wanderings we entered by accident a valley which promised all the
attractions we desired.  It reminded us of the vale in the Sky
Mountains through which we had crossed to their Western side.  Like
that it offered a contrast of forest and savannah.  A small river
wound down its center.  Snow-capped peaks rose all around it.  The
tameness of its wild inhabitants proved they had never been hunted by
man.

We made our camp in the neck of the miniature pass by which the
valley communicated with the outside world, happy in the confidence
that at last we were assured a resting-place where we might forget
for a season the feverish impulses that had hurled us so far from
what we each called home.  And that night, as we shivered in the wind
that blew off the glaciers we had consolation in planning the snug
cabin we would contrive in some elbow of the hillside, with a
fireplace of mud and bowlders fetched from the river's bed.

We cast lots the next morning, using grass-blades, long and short, to
divide the first day's work.  And it so fell out that Tawannears must
do the hunting, which was necessary to insure us ample food and to
start the collection of hides we should need--and we were all three
glad of this because he was our best bowman, and we could not afford
to use our fast-dwindling stock of powder and lead to fill our
bellies.  Peter and I were to explore the valley's length, especially
with a view to determining a site for the cabin.

It was a glorious day, the sun shining warmly and the wind crisp and
invigorating.  Footsore and tired as we were, we started upon our
errands at a swinging lope, and I shouted a cheery good-by to
Tawannears as he disappeared into the standing timber below the
little pass, and Peter and I undertook to climb to a narrow shelf of
level land that formed a platform midway of the valley's
gently-sloping Southern wall.  From here we could secure a sweeping
view of that side of our domain and likewise gain some idea of the
opposite wall which we intended to examine on our way home.
Tawannears replied to me with the hunting-whoop, and Peter joined my
answering yelp.  Then we were alone, only the crackling branches
underfoot and the crashing of deer, antelope and wild sheep in the
thickets to interrupt our silent progress.

The valley was a broad ellipse in shape, and the encircling hills
were terraced by such shelves as the one we trod.  We did not keep to
it of course, but climbed down or up as the case might be, to examine
features of the landscape.  But for the most part we held to the
hillside, for in the valley-bottom the forest trees obscured the
country twenty feet away--except in the occasional savannahs or parks
that bordered the river's banks.  I think we had traveled all of two
French leagues when we came to a place where the shelf on the
hillside became a rocky ledge, strewn with pebbles, and a raw
out-crop of rock overshadowed it.  Peter, in the lead, hesitated, his
rifle at the trail, and sniffed the air.

"Make haste," I exclaimed impatiently.  "It grows toward noon, and we
have to compass the valley before dark."

"I smell something," he returned.

"Smell something!" I laughed.  "Sure, man, I can smell a dozen forest
odors."

"I smell beast," said Peter gravely.

This made me laugh the more, and I thrust myself in front of the
Dutchman and took up the blind trail at a dogtrot.

"_Waidt!_" he called after me, as I came to a shoulder of rock that
projected across the ledge.

I waved my hand in answer, and trotted blithely on around the
shoulder.  A snarl that sounded like the ripping of a thousand sheets
of sail-cloth greeted me.  Straight in front, not twenty feet away,
stood the biggest bear I had ever seen.  We had come from downwind,
so it had not smelled us; but its little beady eyes blinked
ferociously at me as it hovered over the half-devoured body of a
mountain sheep.

In my first burst of astonishment I lost my head.  Forgetful of the
ground, I jumped backward and lifted my musket, intending to shoot
the beast before it could move.  But my foot slipped on the pebbly
cliff-side, my ankle twisted under me with a stab of pain, and my
musket hurtled out of reach down-hill, leaving me crippled and
fearful lest the slightest movement should send me after it.

The flash of the steel barrel was enough for the bear.  It sensed
that I had meant it harm; it saw me prostrate, my fingers tugging
frantically at the tomahawk sheathed at my side.  And with a snarl
that became a bellow of rage it reared on hind-legs and waddled
toward me, a fearsome figure, taller than a tall man, thick brown fur
bristling, saliva dripping from gaping jaws, great fore-paws poised
like a boxer's arms, long, steel-tipped claws quivering out of the
immense pads.

I decided that my time had come--and then Peter trotted around the
rock-shoulder, a worried look on his fat face.  For a bare instant
the Dutchman hung paralyzed, one foot off the ground.  The next
moment his heavy musket had leaped to his shoulder, and the flame
darted from the muzzle.  But the bear was no less quick.  It lurched
forward and to one side, ignoring me with the changeable ferocity of
its kind, and all intent upon this latest intruder.  By doing so it
took Peter's shot in the shoulder instead of in the brain, and this
served only to infuriate it the more.  The creature's snarls were
demoniacal as it reared to its hind-feet again, and advanced at a
waddling run, heedless of the blood that streamed from the
bullet-hole in its furry hide.

"My gun, Peter!" I cried.  "Down-hill!  Never mind me."

Peter's answer was to draw knife and tomahawk, jump over my body that
was sprawled out before him and meet the bear half-way with a
whirling wheel of steel.  That was a battle for you!  Peter, big as
he was, looked small beside the bear.  The great beast's mask
overhung the Dutchman's head, and for a moment I thought it would
snap off Peter's neck.  The cavernous mouth was distended; the little
eyes gleamed red; the jaws came together with a click.  But Peter was
not there.  With the amazing agility that was always so out-of-place
in connection with his awkward figure he had stooped, evaded the
beast's embracing paws and ripped it down the ribs with knife and
tomahawk.

The bear howled in mingled pain and anger, slumped to its four feet
and circled its enemy--and now Peter was at a disadvantage, for he
would not leave me uncovered, and this circumscribed the area he
could maneuver over.  The bear seemed to comprehend this.  It made a
quick dash at me, and when Peter stepped lightly betwixt us reared up
on hind-legs for the third time, and rushed at Peter, forepaws cast
wide to hug him in.  And Peter met the rush without budging.

I expected to see the Dutchman toppled over, but he held his ground.
The bear caught him, its furry paws, so absurdly like a man's arms,
enfolded him, their claws ripping convulsively at his shirt and
breeches.  But Peter was busy too.  Hugged close to the big beast's
body, he was butchering for all he was worth with both his tools.
His knife worked in and out--in and out.  His hatchet in his left
hand pecked remorselessly at groin and hams.

The bear's insane growls, low, tense, rasping drones of utter rage,
became instinct with pain.  The creature yelped.  Its grip slackened,
and Peter tore himself away.  But I lay aghast at sight of the
Dutchman's reeking figure.  He had dodged the snapping jaws
successfully, but no celerity of movement had availed against those
two fore-paws working with spasmodic energy.  His back, flanks and
thighs were one mess of blood.  His tattered clothing was in ribbons.
But he crouched unperturbed, his gaze fixed on the bear.

"Give over, Peter!" I cried again.  "Run whilst you can.  I will roll
down the hill."

"Stay!" he croaked at me, without shifting his eyes from his
antagonist.  "I finish him dis time."

The bear felt the same way, and prowled forward on all-fours, its
roars echoing between the hillsides.  Peter, anticipating its rush,
sprang in so swiftly that his tomahawk clattered on the lowered skull
and chopped out one of the little, red eyes.  Then the bear went mad.
So far it had fought with the cautious circumspection of a great,
stupid man-beast, aware that it was at a disadvantage as regards
wits.  Now it simply threw itself upon Peter.  They met in a
desperate clinch, as the bear heaved itself erect, and it hacked at
him with all four sets of claws, rolling over and over on the ground,
until Peter slipped free and staggered off, wiping the blood from his
eyes.

He had no time to rest, however.  The beast was on him once more,
bellowing wildly, its hide gashed and torn.  They came chest to chest
in full career, Peter chopping and stabbing, the bear champing its
teeth and slashing with its claws; and I found myself crawling toward
them, dragging my injured ankle, fighting over a yard of pebbly slope
to gain a foot of distance.  But before I could reach them the end
came.

The bear seemed to throw its weight forward with desperate energy and
Peter reeled back, exposing his throat so that the bear bent its head
and snapped for the throat.  But Peter twisted violently and the
savage teeth met on his collar-bone.  In its preoccupation with this
new hold the beast must have relaxed its grip upon him, for in that
very moment he slipped his knife home through a gash in its ribs and
reached its heart.

It tottered there, its eyes glazing slowly, whilst Peter frantically
whittled at its vitals and the blood pumped from the hole in its side
and its claws dug at him with dying energy.  Then it slumped over on
its back, dragging Peter with it.  When I reached the two bodies they
lay in one heap, the bear's teeth still gripped in the flesh of the
Dutchman's shoulder, his knife embedded in the beast's flank.  I
pried loose the bear's teeth with my knife-blade before the final
rigor set in, and pulled Peter away as gently as I could.  I was sure
his life was oozing with every gush of the red tide.  But he opened
his eyes and grinned up at me.

"I make me a fine robe of dot pelt--_Ja_," he squeaked faintly.




CHAPTER XIV

THE SQUAT BOWMEN

I did what I might to staunch Peter's terrible wounds, but that was
very little.  We had no medicines and no cloths, save a handful or
two of tow-wadding for the cleaning of our pieces.  I used this stuff
to pack the worst gashes, and bound the lips of other wounds with
strips of hide cut from my shirt that I wound about his body.  Then I
scrambled over to his musket and loaded and fired it twice, in case
Tawannears had not heard the first report.  This much accomplished, I
accumulated a stack of twigs and damp leaves and set them alight with
my flint and steel.  I knew the plume of smoke would attract the
Seneca's eye, if his attention had been drawn by the musket-shots,
and moreover, 'twould serve to guide him to us all the quicker.

Afterwards I made Peter comfortable as best I could, stacking a
pillow of leaves beneath his head and searching his inert form for
concealed wounds that I had missed in my first hasty examination.  He
was scratched from instep to scalp, scarce an inch of skin left
whole.  Yet he breathed, as I convinced myself by holding my
knife-blade to his lips, and his pulse still fluttered feebly.  His
heart I could not hear.  His eyes were closed.  He had not uttered a
sound after that last expiring flicker of vitality when he promised
himself "a fine robe of dot pelt"; and I was certain he was dying.
My one idea was to ease him out with as little suffering as possible.

But Tawannears refused to accept my theory when he climbed the
hillside an hour later.

"Corlaer will not die today," he declared looking up from the
Dutchman's scarred body.  "Otetiani stopped the bleeding in time."

"'Tis impossible," I protested.  "You have not seen how dreadfully he
is hurt.  And the bleeding is not stopped."

Tawannears removed the pack I had inserted in one of the ghastliest
of the wounds in Peter's belly.

"See!" he said, holding back the flaps of flesh.  "It is a clean
wound--or it will be when I have drawn the poison from it.  No
ordinary man could have lived through this, but Corlaer is not
ordinary.  His fat has saved him.  None of these hurts goes deep
enough to kill."

I joined the Seneca and probed the gashes with a knife-blade seared
in the flame.  Tawannears was correct.  In no case had the bear's
claws sliced through the overlying blubber into the vital parts.
Such wounds would have meant the slashing of our intestines for
Tawannears or me, but they had done no more than drain Peter of some
of the blood that always poured in a torrent through his giant frame.
His shoulder was badly torn where the beast had nipped him with its
teeth, and we could not be certain whether the bone was broken; but
aside from loss of blood and the chance of poisoning, here again
'twas a mere flesh wound, more ill to look upon than to cure, as
Tawannears asserted.

"There is the chance that Peter will die," he admitted.  "Not today,
but tonight or tomorrow or the day after that.  If we are to save him
we must have him under cover.  We must secure herbs to dress his
wounds.  We must have warmth to fan his life-spark alight.

"Otetiani must first skin the bear here.  We shall have need of the
hide and the meat, and the fat will make grease for a healing salve.
In the meantime, Tawannears will seek shelter.  We must hurry,
brother.  Before night we must have him settled quietly.  He should
be moved before his mind escapes from the cloud that is over it."

When Tawannears returned he brought two young saplings, which he had
laced together with vines to form a litter, and we rolled Peter--my
swollen ankle would not permit me to exert my full strength--upon it.
He had also cut a stick for me so that I could hobble beside him and
be of some aid in handling the litter.

"We owe much to the bear," remarked Tawannears grimly.  "He had a
comfortable den at the foot of this slope.  We will lower Peter to
it, and then you shall clean it whilst Tawannears hunts herbs to
mingle with the bear's grease.  If Hawenneyu's face is smiling,
Corlaer will be a whole man before the Winter's snow is gone."

It was a back-breaking task to work down-hill with that inert weight,
and most of the effort fell upon Tawannears.  But we made it, and
dragged the litter slowly into the mouth of a shallow cave under the
shadow of a jutting pinnacle of rock.  The bear had left visible
traces of his occupation in the shape of a litter of bones and filth,
and I made shift to sweep out the rock chamber with a broom of
pine-boughs, and later burned over the floor and walls with torches
of light-wood.  A fire in a convenient corner by the entrance drove
out the dampness and the lingering beast odor, and long before
Tawannears was back I had carried water from a near-by brook that fed
our little river.

All this time Peter had not moved a muscle.  He lay like a lump of
tallow, white and wan, exactly as if he were a corpse.  The shaking
he had received in being moved down from the ledge to this level had
reopened several of his wounds, but I contrived to staunch the blood
with bunches of leaves that Tawannears indicated to me as possessing
styptical properties, and even washed the gore from his head and arms
and torso.  I met Tawannears as I was limping up from the brook with
a second potful of water, and he took it from my hand and directed me
to cut pine-boughs for bedding for the three of us.

Neither of us slept much that night, however, he because there was
too much to be done, I in part because of the need to help him, and
likewise because of the throbbing of my ankle.  From the slabs of fat
that I had hacked from the bear's belly Tawannears brewed a heavy
grease, and when this had boiled to a paste he mixed with it
quantities of leaves and roots, and bits of bark shredded fine,
stirring the mess so that it might not catch fire.  It had a fine,
savory smell.  When it was of such a consistency that the stick he
used in stirring would stand upright he withdrew it from the fire,
and between us we laid bare Peter's mangled body.

Tawannears' first thought was to wash those parts which I had not
attended to, and after that he overspread the wounds with his salve,
one by one.  Next we boiled out the meager handfuls of tow I had used
to pack the wounds and reëmployed them for dressings, cutting up
portions of our own garments for bandages.  We cast aside the
remnants of Peter's shirt and breeches and reclad him in Tawannears'
and mine, I offering the upper and Tawannears the nether garment,
slitting them to make room for his cumbrous form.  And lest he take
cold in the night we covered him with aromatic pine-boughs and built
up the fire to a roaring blaze.

Then, Peter being attended to, Tawannears turned his attention to my
ankle, prepared a plaster of leaves immersed in boiling water and
wrapped the whole in mud, bidding me sleep; and when I demanded to
stand my watch, promised to awake me in due time.  But the bare truth
is that I collapsed from sheer weariness and suffering in that hour
which precedes the dawn when life is at its lowest ebb, and I did not
awaken until Tawannears touched my shoulder as the noon sun beat into
the cavern entrance.  He put aside my protests with a smile, and
handed me a barken bowl of bear's broth.

"Drink," came Peter's voice weakly.  "Dot bear makes goodt soup.
_Ja!_"

There across the cave the big Dutchman lay with his eyes open again
and a grin on his marred face.

"Is he--alive?" I asked in amazement.

Tawannears nodded, still smiling, and Peter's grin broadened.

"Dis time Peter hafe der choke on you, eh?"  He shook a feeble fist
at me.

"You t'ink I die, eh?  Nein, we need bear's grease for der Winter,
dot's all."

But it was many a long week before Peter was able to be up and out
with us at our daily chores in the valley.  Most of his wounds healed
rapidly, thanks to the magic salve that Tawannears had concocted, and
the healing balsam pitch of the fir-trees; but his mangled shoulder
was stubborn, and we made him give it time.  After the first month
there were plenty of small undertakings for him about the cave, and
in his own placid fashion he was able to keep sufficiently amused;
but no other man I ever knew would have suffered the torments Corlaer
did in regaining his health, let alone the physical strain of his
struggle with the bear, and come through alive and untouched in
sanity.

We never built the cabin we had planned, for we could not have moved
Peter with safety a second time.  Instead, Tawannears and I sealed up
the entrance to the cave with bowlders and mud from the river,
leaving a recess for fireplace and smoke-hole.  'Twas a tight,
weather-proof habitation, the most comfortable we enjoyed upon our
travels.  But Tawannears and I were seldom within doors except for
meals and sleeping, for there was more work to be done than we could
well attend to, especially in the opening months of Winter.

Naked as we had been before Peter's fight with the bear, we were less
covered there afterward; and we had pressing urgency for furs to
shield us from the cold.  But for the hardihood we had acquired we
must have died from exposure during the first week, whilst we were
tanning skins of deer and sheep and drying sinews for use as thread.
If I stick to the truth, I shall admit that we made no very careful
job of that first tanning emprise.  Our wants were too pronounced.
But later Tawannears took the pride of his people in curing and
dressing to the softness of woven goods the store of pelts we
captured.

For lack of the required materials he could not use the Iroquois
method, which I hold to be unmatchable; but, assisted by the devices
of the Plains tribes, he turned out robes and garments that no white
man could have matched.  In place of cornmeal for the dressing
process he cooked a paste of brains and liver.  His final stage,
after soaking, scraping and dressing, was to rub the skin over the
rounded top of a tree-stump.  Squaw's work, he called it, laughing;
but it made a pelt as pliable as a woolen shirt, and of course, 'twas
vastly warmer.

We did not want for anything all Winter long.  We killed only what we
required, and the animals that swarmed in the valley were not
frightened away.  We had firewood in abundance within twenty steps of
our door.  We had a warm, dry house.  And we found delight in
manufacturing for ourselves all manner of little utensils that we had
dispensed with on our wanderings, vessels crudely molded in
clay--Peter would have toyed with these by the hour; barken bowls and
containers; cups and knives and spoons carved from horn.

We furnished our abode with the loving care of housewives.  We
labored tirelessly over tricksy devices which were unnecessary,
merely to surprise one another.  But in the long run we wearied of
it.  The call of the unknown country beyond the Eastern vent of the
valley cast its spell upon us.  The hunger for the untrodden trail
welled up again in our hearts.

One evening as we listened through the open doorway to the drip of
the melting snow on the lower hillsides I broke a prolonged silence,
a silence compounded of three men's unspoken thoughts.

"Peter," I said, "how many miles did you do today!"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Aroundt der valley--how many miles I don't know."

"Does your shoulder pain you?"

He flexed his arm and shoulder muscles for answer.

I bent my eyes upon Tawannears.

"We have had a long rest, brother.  'Tis time we resumed our quest."

His face lighted with the glad zest it had owned when we first
started from the Long House.

"Tawannears is ready," he said.

Corlaer yawned sleepily.

"_Ja_," he muttered.  "We better go.  If we stay der moss grows on
us.  We better go."

We slung on our equipment and tramped out of the valley in the
morning, bound we knew not whither.  But after beating
indiscriminately through the mountains for a week we decided to
strike due east, at least, until we discovered a reason for altering
our course.  And God knows there was no reason for heading otherwise
in this devil's country we were soon swallowed up in.

Beyond the range of snow mountains surrounding our happy valley we
traversed first a high plateau, well-watered; but a few days' journey
eastward conditions changed.

At intervals were low ranges of mountains or hills.  Betwixt the
ranges were barren plateaus or basins.  Sometimes they were covered
with coarse grass.  Along the infrequent streams were patches of
dwarf timber.  But often we tramped over bare, blistered rock or dry
sand deserts, where the wind, when it blew, scorched us like the
breath of an oven.

Many times we should have died had it not been for the forethought of
Tawannears, who, during the Winter, had sewn up two sheepskins into
water-bags.  'Twas these saw us safe across the deserts.

In the beginning the heat was not bad, but as we continued, and
Spring turned to Summer it became severe.  The dust of these high
deserts had some chemical reaction upon the skin, and our faces were
cracked and creased with crusted blood.  Food was hard to come at,
and when we killed an antelope or deer we must take pains to jerk
every shred of meat.

Twice we thought of turning back, but we had a feeling that this
country would have to be passed before we could gain more favorable
lands, and we did not like to spoil our record of overcoming every
difficulty that offered.  So we kept on, and always, as we advanced,
our privations became more extreme, so much so, that whatever had
been our former reasons for continuing, we were now governed rather
by dread of what we had seen than by fear of the unknown ahead.

Three months after leaving our happy valley we had our first gleam of
hope.  We were crossing a barren country of rocks when Tawannears'
keen eyes perceived the glitter of sunlight on water.  We pressed on
eagerly, thinking of drinking without stint, of being able to bathe
our hot bodies; and as we drew nearer, our excitement grew, for the
water stretched away into the far distance, with no visible banks or
boundaries.  We concluded it must be a lake of considerable size.

But when we rushed down to the shore and buried our faces in the
nearest pool, its water choked and burned our throats.  'Twas bitter
salt.

"Der sea again!" exclaimed Peter, puzzled.

"We have gone in a circle," said Tawannears, glumly.

"We have walked for three months with our backs to the westering
sun," I cried.  "We could not have circled."

"It is another sea," said Tawannears.

"_Ja_," agreed Corlaer, "der Spanish Sea, eh?"

But I was sure it could not be.  I had studied the southern section
of the continent fairly drawn upon Master Golden's maps, and I was
convinced we could not possibly have reached the coast of the Mexican
Gulf of the Main.  We were thousands of miles North and West of it.
There was also the thought that we had seen no signs of Spanish
influence, had not even seen savages for months.  And finally, the
water was salter than the spray of the Western Ocean.

I suggested, then, that we follow the salt water southward, and this
proved me right, for three days' journey disclosed it to be no more
than a great lake.  We struck off to the southeast where mountains
loomed across the sky, and were overjoyed at last to find a
sufficiency of water.  But we saw smoke-signals on the horizon, and
deemed it wisest to continue into the mountains in case the Indians
were watching us.  Our ammunition was very low, and we could not
afford to fight unless we must.

It is strange by what trivial incidents men's lives are influenced.
Instead of turning south along the shores of the Salt Lake we might
equally as well have turned north.  And but for the smoke-signals I
have referred to we should certainly have plunged on eastward.  In
either event the issue of this story would have been different.
Strange, indeed!  But if we speak of strangeness in our own petty
affairs, how much more strange that that Salt Lake should be isolated
a thousand miles from the salt sea which doubtless mothered it.
After all, what is strange?

In these mountains we discovered the easiest progress was gained by
following the channels of the streams that flowed through them, and
they carried us south of east into a country more terrifying than the
nightmare ranges of mountains and deserts we had recently traversed.
It was a country of monstrous plateaus intersected by abysmal
ravines, ay, sometimes many thousands of feet in depth, so buried in
the bowels of the earth that we, in pursuing the course of a river,
could scarce see the daylight overhead.  And the rocks were most
astonishingly colored, almost as though it had been done by painters'
brushes, in lurid streaks, chromatic, dazzling.  And there was never
a tree or blade of true grass, only occasionally a few stunted
bushes, rooted in a sediment of pulverized rock.

Did I say the other was a nightmare country?  This was far worse!  So
empty, so appallingly desolate!

We were picking our way amidst the bowlders in the bottom of one of
these ravines when an arrow shattered against a rock under
Tawannears' arm.  In the same breath Peter leveled his gun and fired,
and a squat savage came twirling down through the air and landed
almost at our feet.  Such of him as was left showed him to have been
naked, with long, lank hair and primitive weapons; and whilst we
viewed him his comrades assailed us with a continued patter of
arrows.  We hurried on, thinking to placate them by retreat.  But we
were mistaken.

They harried us all that day, and we remained awake most of the night
in fear of a surprise-attack.  In the morning they were at our heels
again.  Day succeeded day, and they clung to us.  After their first
experience they never tried to rush us, but they were numerous and
persistent and uncannily skillful in utilizing the cover of the
rocks; and we were obliged to fire at them every so often, in order
to hold them off.  And this meant a steady drain upon our ammunition,
which compelled us to cut bullets in half and reduce the
powder-charge.

A week of this, and we lost our sense of direction, for we had
difficulty in estimating the sun's course.  We did not know where we
were or how we were heading.  Two or three times we had emerged
temporarily from the gloomy light of ravines into wide, rocky
valleys, scattered with square, table-like rock-masses, rising
abruptly from the valley-floor.  But invariably the squat bow-men, no
matter how deadly our fire, would swarm over the valley behind us and
on both flanks and herd us into another ravine.

Two things we were thankful for.  We had enough water, and they never
attacked at night.  So confident did we become on this last score
that we abandoned attempts to watch, and slept, all three of us, from
dusk to daylight, for we were always dog-tired.

But now we reached a ravine which was waterless.  One of our
water-skins was punctured by an arrow and useless.  The other was
rapidly diminishing in contents.  Our jerked meat was running out.
Thirst and hunger confronted us.  We were in desperate plight, and
our relentless pursuers knew it.  They crept closer and closer.  We
must move as carefully as they if we were to escape an arrow in the
chest.

A charge, attended by a waste of powder and lead, drove them back
temporarily, but they had caught up with us again when we sighted an
elbow turn in the ravine ahead of us.  They seemed to be oddly
excited.  We could hear their guttural calls from cliff to cliff,
could see them running between the bowlders and along the
cliff-ledges.  They came after us with increasing confidence, and we
dodged under their arrows and raced around the elbow of the cliff.

Tawannears was leading us, and he froze stiff at the first glimpse of
the valley below.  But it was not at the valley he was looking.  I
saw that at once.  His eyes were glued on the figure of the shepherd
maid, who stood lithely in front of her feathered flock, bow raised
and arrow on string, challenging our approach.




CHAPTER XV

KACHINA

She was a lissom creature, with a ruddy skin and blue-black hair as
fine-spun as silk--not coarse as is most Indians'--bound with a
fillet of serpent's-skin.  Her dress was a robe of white cotton,
edged with vivid crimson, that was looped over her right shoulder,
passed under her left arm and belted about her waist with another
band of serpent's-skin.  It stopped short of her bare knees.  On her
feet were sandals, cleverly made of some vegetable fiber.  And all
around her strutted and cackled and gobbled hundreds of turkeys,
their brazen plumage a splendid foil for her bronze beauty.

Her arrow was aimed full at Tawannears' chest, and she called to him
with a kind of high disdain in a throaty dialect which none of us
understood.  But in the middle of her question she caught sight of
Corlaer and me, and her lustrous brown eyes widened in an excess of
surprise.

"Espanya!" she exclaimed.

Now, in my youth, amongst many other experiences of great and little
value, I campaigned in Spain with the Duke of Berwick--a good lord
and a man of honor, albeit a bastard--and I have some lingering knack
with the Spanish tongue.  So I called back to her.

"Not Spaniards, but Englishmen!"

Her arrow wavered from one to the other of us.

"Espanya," she repeated uncertainly.

I took a step forward, but instantly the arrow steadied, and for the
blink of an eye I thought she would loose.

"We are friends," I said.

"Stand," she ordered in broken Spanish, with a strange accent such as
I had never heard.  "What are English?  You are Spanish!  Go away!"

At that there came a yelp from the squat bowmen on our trail, and a
squad of them rained arrows on us from the cliffs overhead.  She
looked up more startled than ever.

"We are friends," I insisted.  "The bowmen pursued us here."

"Awataba," she murmured, almost to herself.

And quick as a flash she snatched a turkey-bone whistle from the
breast of her robe and blew a keen treble note, that seemed to slip
like a knife-blade through that clear, dry air.  She half-turned as
she did so, and I seized the opportunity to examine the valley behind
her.  'Twas a bowl in the riven plateau-country, perhaps a league
wide and twice as long.  Through it flowed a respectable stream that
issued from a ravine to the right of where we stood, and its floor
was carpeted with green fields, interspersed with the stunted trees
that were all this desert land afforded.

The whistle-blast called up dozens of men from the nearer bank of the
river, and looking closer, I saw that they had been working in
cultivated fields.  Indeed, the whole surface of the valley appeared
to be given over to cultivation.  Beyond the river, against the
right-hand wall of the valley, loomed a rounded protuberance of rock
that hung from the towering cliffs like a woman's breast.  Its top
was surmounted by a mass of walls and towers, and as the shrilling
whistles carried back the warning of the turkey shepherdess a host of
tiny figures popped out upon the roofs and battlements.

"What place is that?" I asked curiously.

The turkey-girl replied mechanically--

"Homolobi."

It meant nothing to me at the time, but afterwards I was struck by
its aptness--The Place of The Breast.*


* This word, as well as most of the other bits of phraseology which
Ormerod mentions, indicates a relation between this cliff-dwelling
tribe and the present Hopi.  There is similar evidence in the
religious customs cited.--A.D.H.S.


I started to walk forward for a better view, and the turkey-girl
promptly renotched her arrow.

"You must wait for Wiki," she announced.

"But we are friends," I declared.  "If we stay here----"

"Who is he?" she interrupted with more interest than she had yet
shown, gesturing with her arrow toward Tawannears, who had not moved
since first he saw her, his eyes devouring her face in a manner most
extraordinary in one so self-contained and regardless of women as the
Seneca.

"He is an Indian warrior, who has journeyed with us from the country
by the Eastern Ocean, where we English dwell.  He is of the People of
the Long House."

She shook her head.

"You talk nonsense.  What are English?  People of the Long House!  Do
not we of Homolobi dwell in long houses?  Wiki says that all our
people do so, except the Awataba, who have been cursed by Massi* to
go naked amongst the rocks.  And what is an ocean?"


* Ruler of the Dead.


How I should have answered these very difficult questions I don't
know, but fortunately--or unfortunately--at that moment the bowmen,
the Awataba, as the turkey-girl called them, were emboldened by our
quiescence to attempt a final charge.  They preceded it with a
tempest of arrows aimed to follow a high arc and fall on our side of
the bowlders that partially sheltered us.  One of these shafts killed
a turkey, and the herd-girl was immediately almost in tears.  Another
stuck in the sleeve of Peter's shirt, and he squeaked indignantly.

"Come!  We gife der naked men a lesson, eh?  Afterward we take der
girl's friendts."

We had no choice.  Our tormenters were dodging in and out of the
rocks at the mouth of the ravine, and if we ran from them we should
present excellent marks on the open ground of the valley floor.

Peter tumbled over one of the nearest to us, and I knocked a poor
wretch from his cliff-perch.  Tawannears, rousing from the bewildered
stupor which had overcome him, was equally successful.  A bow-string
twanged at my elbow, and the turkey-girl pointed proudly to a savage
who was making off with her shaft in his arm.  But the Awataba
refused to lose courage as they had in every previous attack upon us;
and in ten minutes of rapid firing we exhausted our ammunition.

I looked behind me as I fired my last shot, and was relieved to see
that several hundred men were running up from the valley; for the
naked bowmen were now at close range, their hideous, bestial faces
bobbing betwixt the rocks, dropping from ledge to ledge in efforts to
come at us in flank.  They reached Peter first, and he surprised them
by reversing his piece and using the butt for a flail.  I imitated
him, but Tawannears preferred to trust to knife and tomahawk, after
the manner of his race.  And at intervals, when I cleared myself of
an opponent, I saw the turkey-girl, still standing undaunted in front
of her excited flock, loosing her arrows with cold precision.

Then a flood of stinking bodies submerged me.  I went down, and
struggled to my feet again.  Gap-toothed mouths yapped at my throat.
Squat fiends struck at me with stone-mauls and flint knives.  But I
smashed right and left with my musket-butt, and kept my footing until
Corlaer came to my rescue, swinging his clubbed musket in one hand,
his knife in the other, ready for the few who passed its orbit.

"Tawannears!" he grunted, his little pig-eyes gleaming joyously.

Side by side we chopped our way through the smelly mob to where the
Seneca stood with his back to a bowlder, the herd-girl crouched
beside him.  Her turkeys had taken flight at last, and she was
wielding a rock-maul one of the savages had dropped, laughing with
glee as she pecked at men who tried to attack Tawannears from the
rear.

She even shook her weapon at us, as though to ask us why we intruded.
But the fight was over, for her own people were surging into the
defile, arrows slatting on the rocks, and the squat savages fled
incontinently.

The turkey-girl tossed away the stone-maul she had used so valiantly.

"Whoever you are," she remarked, "you are good fighters--better than
Kokyan,* I think."


* The Spider.


"Who is Kokyan?" I asked.

But she ignored me, as she had once before.

"What is his name!" she demanded, pointing at Tawannears.

I told her, and Tawannears, at sound of his name, suspended cleaning
his knife-blade and gave her a long look.

"Ask the maiden who she is, brother," he said.

I did so, and she answered without hesitation--

"I am Kachina.* Is Tawannears a priest, too, or only a warrior?"


* The Sacred Dancer.


"He is a great chief, a war-captain," I answered.  "He guards the
Western Door of the Long House in which his people dwell."

She pursed her lips contemptuously.

"Anybody can be a warrior," she commented.  "The warriors must have
priests to pray for them and secure them victory."

I smiled at this naïve view.

"In my red brother's country the warrior is honored above the
priest," I said.

"They must be very ignorant people," she declared.  "Like the
Awataba.  Are you a priest?"

"I am a trader.  I buy and sell."

Her contempt for me was even more pronounced than for Tawannears.

"And the fat one?"

"He is a warrior, too."

"I am sorry," she said royally.  "I thought you might be great ones,
priests of some far people come to sit at Wiki's feet and hear Kokyan
cast spells for Yoki*--or perhaps to see me dance."


* The Rain.


"Are you a priestess?" I inquired respectfully.

"I am Kachina," she said, and her words were a rebuke.

I would have asked more, but an angry-eyed young man in a kilt of
serpent's-skins thrust himself between us and addressed her volubly,
with denunciatory gestures at us.  She replied to him as coolly as
she had to me, and finally turned away and beckoned to an older man
who was leading back the men from the fields who had pursued the
squat bowmen.  The older man issued a brief order to his followers
and walked over to our group.  Like the voluble young man, he wore a
kilt of serpent's-skins, and both of them had their lank black hair
bound with fillets of the same material.

The two were much alike, their skins a muddy reddish hue, their
figures spare and lean and rather under-sized.  In fact, they and all
the other people of Homolobi resembled in general appearance the
squat savages who had driven us into their hands, except that they
were less muscular and had much more intelligent faces.  They were
markedly inferior in stature to the Plains tribes, and equally
superior in mental development as regards their domestic life.

Kachina, the turkey-shepherdess, was entirely different from the
Homolobi people.  Her bronze skin had a tawny note in it.  Her shape
was exquisitely molded; her hands and feet were small; and her
features were of a clear-cut, aquiline cast very dissimilar from the
flat physiognomy of all the others we saw.  I may as well say here,
that from these circumstances and others which we discovered I became
convinced she had a considerable proportion of Spanish blood in her;
but we never were able to secure any definite account of her origin
from Wiki, who alone knew the truth.

The older man, after a glance of appraisal at us, engaged in a
prolonged conversation with the girl, interrupted frequently by his
younger associate; and gradually a circle of curious townsmen formed
around us.  They were all dressed in cotton kilts of varying colors,
and the vegetable-fiber sandals, and carried bows and arrows, spears,
hatchets and knives.  Their manner toward us was non-committal rather
than hostile.  The conversation terminated abruptly when the younger
man, with a savage glance at Tawannears, snapped a hot retort to
something Kachina had said and strode out of the circle, followed by
nearly half of its members.

The older man and the girl turned to us as though nothing had
happened.

"This is Wiki," said the girl.  "He is the High Priest of Massi."

I bowed.

"Tell him," I began, but Wiki himself interrupted me, speaking in
Spanish more fragmentary than Kachina's, yet understandable.

"You are not Spanish?"

"No."

"Say after me: 'Go with God, most excellent señor,'" he prescribed.

I obeyed, and took no special pains with my accent--albeit I doubt if
I had need to be more slovenly than ordinary.  However, Wiki seemed
satisfied.

"You are French?"

I was surprised.  This man, then, knew something of the outside world.

"No."

"English?"

"Yes."

He nodded thoughtfully.

"Why do you come here?" he demanded

"We were pursued by the squat bowmen the maiden calls Awataba."

"Were you seeking Homolobi?"

He eyed me sharply as he spoke.

"We had never heard of it."

"Then what are Englishmen doing here so many months' journey from
their own land?  Why do you bring this red man with you?"

"We have been traveling, partly to forget sorrows laid upon us by the
Great Spirit, partly to see new countries."

"Have you traveled far?"

"To the coast of the Western ocean."

He nodded again.

"What the Spaniards call the Pacifico?"

"Yes."

"And this red man?"

"He is a chief of the Hodenosaunee, a great nation of the Eastern
Indians, who are allied with the English.  He is my brother."

Wiki nodded a third time.  He was obviously a man of unusual
intellectual ability.  His face was thoughtful.  His forehead was
high, and his deep-set eyes were inscrutable.  There was about him
nothing of the trickster, the charlatan, the types of most Indian
priests or medicine-men.  And plainly, he was well-informed.  He had
an air of concealing more knowledge than he admitted.

"All we ask," I continued, "is permission to rest in your valley
before we continue our journey."

An enigmatic smile flickered across Wiki's face.  He waved an arm
toward the smoke-puffs that were beginning to spurt up from the rocks
bordering the defile.

"The Awataba would not let you go as easy as that," he replied.  And
after a moment: "If you went, you might lead Spaniards to Homolobi."

"We have nothing to do with the Spaniards," I denied.

"You speak their language," he observed.

"So do you.  I learned it when I was in the army of the French in
Spain."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"You seem to be all things," he remarked.  "You are an Englishman,
yet you have been a French soldier and in Spain."

I laughed.

"Why, that is true," I admitted, "but you need have no fear of our
returning here.  We have suffered too much.  Our one desire is to
return safely to our own country--and there seems little chance of
that, for our powder and lead are gone."

He tipped my powder-horn to prove my words.

"Huh!" he grunted.  "We talk too much.  Come with me to Homolobi."

"And the Awataba?" I questioned.  "Will they make trouble for you if
we go?"

"I think not," he answered calmly.  "They are children.  They cannot
harm us, and if they ravage our gardens they know that I will make a
curse against them, and they will die of hunger when the Winter
comes."

"But if we go with you will you guarantee us against treachery?" I
asked.

His eyes swept from me to Kachina, intent on our conversation, and on
to Corlaer, phlegmatically surveying the prospect of the valley, and
Tawannears, whose gaze was still riveted on the girl's face.

"All things are as Massi wills," he returned.

"That may be," I rasped, with all the ferocity I could muster.  "But
if we are to die, we will die here in the open, taking with us as
many of you as we can slay."

The girl broke in impetuously.

"What talk is this of treachery and slaying?  Wiki said only 'all
things are as Massi wills.'  Is it likely Massi wills your deaths
when you fought in defense of the sacred turkeys?"

Wiki smiled his shadowy, enigmatical smile.

"Stay here and risk the Awataba, if you choose," he offered.

I don't know what I should have answered, but Tawannears plucked my
sleeve and diverted my attention.

"Ask the chief whence came the maiden, brother," he urged.

I balked, inclined to doubt the wisdom of such personal questions.

"Ask!" he insisted.  "Tawannears has a reason."

Wiki, himself, was attracted by the Seneca's earnest mien, and
inquired the subject of his remark.  I answered reluctantly, but Wiki
evinced no displeasure.

"Say to your red brother," he answered courteously, "that the maiden
is Kachina, the Sacred Dancer, who herds the sacred turkeys of
Massi's shrine.  She came to me once with a message from Massi, when
I fasted in the desert seeking for knowledge of what was to come."

I repeated this to Tawannears, and he sighed, by an effort wrenching
his eyes from the maiden's face.

"Tawannears thought----  But Hanegoategeh bewitches me!"

"Have a care he does not bewitch us all to death," I muttered
fiercely.  "Must you, of all men, endanger our lives for idle
curiosity in a woman of a strange tribe?"

"What is death, brother?" returned the Seneca mournfully.  "There
were times when we both prayed for it.  Shall we fear it now?"

Peter bent close to me, his lips against my ear.

"She has der look of Gahano," he murmured.  "Say no more.  Idt is a
passing fancy.  He will forget."

'Twas true.  In no way identical, yet there was about this girl
Kachina a mystic semblance of that dead priestess of a renegade
Iroquois rite, for whom Tawannears had mourned so many years, whose
memory was the mainspring of our fantastic search, whose Lost Soul he
insisted was awaiting him in some dim land betwixt the worlds,
presided over by Ataentsic and Jouskeha, demi-gods of his heathen
pantheon.

"Pardon, brother," I said gently.  "I spoke unkindly.  My nerves are
on edge.  But what shall I say to these people?  They bid us come
with them or stay here and be finished by the naked savages who
hounded us hither.  And if we go with them----"

"Go with them!" exclaimed Tawannears eagerly.  "Ay, let us go!"

"Peter?"

The Dutchman yawned.

"_Ja_, we better go.  I hafe a hole in my belly."




CHAPTER XVI

IN HOMOLOBI

Wiki made no comment when I announced our acceptance of his offer of
hospitality--if that was what it was.  He merely turned on his heel
and strode off, and I was forced to extend myself to catch up with
him.  Kachina elected to accompany Tawannears and Peter.  The
remaining white-kilted men straggled back to resume the occupations
they had abandoned when the girl's whistle blew.  Nobody paid any
more attention to the Awataba, whose smokes were rising all along the
northern cliffs.  A party of young girls were rounding up the
scattered flock of sacred turkeys, and the river-bank was dotted with
women washing clothes.  The agricultural work in the fields was going
on as if there had been no interruption.

Both banks of the river for a league or more were lined with open
gardens, and immediately beneath the Breast on which Homolobi was
built were a series of fenced gardens and stone storehouses, easily
defensible.  The nearer we approached the village, the more
remarkable it became.  Access to it was had by means of ladders and a
trail which one man could hold against an army.  Its houses, solidly
constructed of stone blocks laid in mortar, were three and four
stories in height, joined together and surrounded by a wall that was
strengthened with round and square towers.  It crowded the top of the
Breast and was protected from assault from above by a bulging
protuberance in the cliff overhead.

"Have your people lived here long?" I asked Wiki.

"Since the beginning of time," he returned sententiously.

"Have you many other villages?"

He eyed me askance a moment, then answered:

"The Spaniards and others before them have destroyed all save ours.
Some of our brethren live under the tutelage of Christian priests in
the South, but they build their homes upon open rocks.  We are the
last of the Dwellers in the Cliffs."*


* This amazing statement has been corroborated by scientists of the
Smithsonian Institution, who agree it is probable some of the
cliff-dwellings were inhabited in recent historic times.--A.D.H.S.


"That is why you hate the Spaniards," I said.

"Yes, Englishman.  Wherever they have gone they have slain our
people.  But for what you said to Kachina and the fight you made to
protect her and the sacred turkeys we should have slain you
instantly.  Even the Awataba had the hardihood to pursue you, in
spite of the death you dealt them, because they supposed you were
Spaniards, and they knew that if Spaniards escaped from their
country, they would come back, bringing others with them, and in the
end slay or enslave all not of their color."

"The Spaniards have always been enemies of the English," I replied,
anxious to propitiate him.  "It was the English who first denied the
right of the Spaniards to exploit your country for themselves."

Have I said that Wiki had green eyes that sometimes sparkled and
again seemed to flame?  They stabbed at me like two daggers as he
remarked--

"The English are white; we are red."

I said no more on that score.  The man was as intelligent as I had
first imagined, and cunning, too, possessed of information you would
scarce expect to find in this isolated community in the heart of the
great rock desert.

"We are friends," I protested, recurring to my original argument.
"We have come amongst you practically without arms."

"You should not have come otherwise," he retorted.

We crossed an irrigation-ditch at this point, and I commented upon
its excellent workmanship.  He nodded his head without replying, but
his manner declared as if he had shouted it: "Fool of a white man!
Do you think your people are the only ones who can work in stone?"

I essayed once again to draw him out.

"How is it that you have no fear of the Awataba?" I asked.

"They are children," he answered in his earlier phrase.

"But they are many times your number."

"They fear us."

We had entered the walled enclosures at the base of the Breast, and
he waved his hand to the bursting storehouses.

"When they starve they ask us for food, and if we have it to spare,
we give them some.  They know that if they fight us, we would never
lift a hand to aid them, and they are too ignorant to help
themselves."

I had no opportunity for further conversation, for we had come to the
first of a series of ladders, each wide enough for two people to
climb it at once, propped in ledges of the cliff-side.  Wiki went up
them, hand over hand, with the agility of a sailor.  As I put my foot
upon the lowest rung to follow him, I heard a giggle behind me, and
Kachina pushed in front, dragging Tawannears by the hand.  She had
discovered a new game, it seemed, which consisted in her pointing to
a given object and pronouncing its name in her tongue, and then
having Tawannears christen it in the Seneca dialect.  She was going
into all the details of the ladder and the trail with him--his face a
study in rapture and sheepishness--when Wiki called down a sharp
command to her.  She sobered instantly, and raced up the ladders
after the priest, who continued beside her.

The people of Homolobi watched our ascent with grins of amusement.
The feat looked simple enough from the ground, but 'twas as
difficult, in its way, as our climbing of the Ice Mountain of
Tamanoas.  The ladders were the easiest part of it.  After them came
several sections of rock-trail over the swell of the Breast as far as
a projection which answered to the nipple, where another ladder led
to the topmost section of the trail, which ran at an angle up to the
entrance of the village walls, a door that Peter must turn sideways
to enter.

Inside we were in total darkness, and I experienced a chilling fear
of treachery.  But the worst that happened to us was to crack heads
and shins on unseen stairs, angles and doorposts as we were drawn
through a dingy warren of passages.  Wiki guided me, and strangers
conducted Tawannears and Peter.  Kachina must have skipped ahead of
us, for she was the first person we identified when we stepped
suddenly out of a gloomy vestibule into the bright, sun-smitten plaza
or central space of the village.

This space was sufficiently large to accommodate all the population
of the village, which must have numbered upwards of fifteen hundred
souls.  It was surrounded by the communal houses, in which these
people lived, houses which made the Long Houses of the Iroquois
appear as primitive as the skin teepees of the Dakota.  They rose
high above us, each story receding the depth of a room from the area
of the one below it, so as to provide a succession of unroofed
porches or verandas.  These roof-tops were crowded with people, and
several hundred men lounged in the central plaza.

Directly opposite us and situated in a notch or recess in the
cliff-side was a building of somewhat different proportions.  It had
the same peculiar recession of the upper stories, but instead of
having four floors it had only three, the first story being twice as
high as in the adjoining houses.  There was a great doorway midway of
its windowless facade, with monstrous stone figures, creatures with
the bodies of men and the heads of fabulous beasts, entwined with
snakes, on either side.

In front of this doorway stood three people, of whom Kachina was the
least remarkable.  The one in the middle of the group was a very fat
old woman, gray-haired, with dull, snaky eyes.  She was dressed like
Kachina in a white robe, bordered with crude red, and she held
herself with a certain conscious dignity that was imposing, whatever
you might think about her character and personal cleanliness.

On her left was the voluble young man, who had evinced so strongly
his disapproval of us after the fight; and not content with his kilt
of serpent's-skins he now had a rattlesnake coiled around his neck,
its head poised next his left ear.  He took a step forward as we
appeared in the plaza, and began declaiming in a harsh voice, the
snake at his ear hissing an accompaniment.  Occasionally he would
suspend his oration, and pretend to stop and listen to what the snake
was telling him.  The people heard him with awe; but I thought I
surprised a look of mild cynicism upon Wiki's face.  As for Kachina,
she made no attempt to conceal her feelings.

After the voluble young man and the snake had talked until you could
have heard the rustling of a grass-blade she interrupted them as
ruthlessly as she had me.  And she was not content with merely saying
what she thought.  She danced it, too.  That is literally what I
mean.  She would say something, lift her eyes skyward, raise her arms
in a beseeching gesture, and then dance a slow, stately measure, or
perhaps a swift, heady one.  Betwixt dances she was making demands of
something inside the temple or arguing with the fat old woman or with
Wiki.

When she ceased the voluble young man tried to continue his oration,
but Wiki stepped to the front and cut him off.  Then there was a
four-sided debate, in which the fat old woman joined, and presently,
she raised her arms in a gesture of invocation, blinked her eyes
shut, waited--whilst everyone, including ourselves, became tense--and
ejaculated a single sentence.  After which she reopened her eyes, and
waddled into the dark recesses of the temple, attended by the young
man, no longer voluble, but very sullen, and hauling the snake from
its embrace.

Wiki expressed no sentiment in his face or actions, but Kachina
showed delight as plainly as she had disapprobation of the young
man's suggestions, and she danced away by herself in the direction of
a narrow door in one corner of the temple-block.

Wiki crooked his finger.

"Come," he said, and led us through another door to a stair which
fetched us to the terrace on the roof of the fore part of the temple
proper.  We crossed this roof, eyed suspiciously by several men who
wore the serpent's-skin kilt, to a doorway opening into a room
probably twelve feet square.  It had no windows, and its walls and
floor were bare of furnishings.

"You may sleep here," Wiki announced briefly.  "Food will be brought
later."

"Are we at liberty to go out if we please?" I asked is he was leaving.

"Why not?" he returned indifferently.  "But you must be careful.
Your faces are strange to our people."

We pondered this statement until our doubts were presently set at
rest by a visit from a party of the temple priests--the wearers of
the serpent's skin kilts--headed by the voluble young man.  They
stalked in whilst I was dressing an arrow-cut in Tawannears'
shoulder, their faces bleakly scowling, gathered up our guns,
powder-horns and shot-pouches and walked out again.  Peter started to
rise, but sank to his haunches at a word from me.

"We better break dot feller's headt," he grumbled.

"That was what they wanted," I said.

"Otetiani is right," agreed Tawannears.  "The guns are useless.  If
we had resisted they would have made it an excuse to kill us."

"_Ja_, dot's maype true," admitted Peter thoughtfully.  "Andt what do
we do now, eh?"

"Nothing," I answered.  "'Tis sound strategy to hold our hands.  This
situation is still shaping.  I know not what other powers there may
be, but of the four leaders we have seen, I think Wiki has to make up
his mind about us.  The serpent priest hates us for reasons of his
own.  The old woman has given no sign.  The girl Kachina has s fancy
for Tawannears, but there is as much danger as advantage in that.
Your feet are set upon a crooked path, brother."

Tawannears smiled, as I had not seen him smile in years, with a kind
of glad expectancy.

"There is an echo calling in my heart, brother," he said.  "I do not
yet know what it is saying, but it calls louder and louder.
Perhaps----"

Kachina glided through the doorway.

"Do not heed what Kokyan does or says to you," she ordered me curtly.
"He is jealous, poor, crawling ant!  And he thinks he can spoil my
plans."

"Who is Kokyan?" I queried.

She stared at me, childishly puzzled that anyone should be no
continually ignorant.

"He who has just left."

"Oh, the young man with the snake?"

"Yes, stupid buffalo," she derided me.

"And why is he jealous!"

She dimpled like any other girl, and dug her sandal-toe in the dust
of the floor.

"Because of me, of course."

"Of course," I echoed.  "But he is not jealous of me, for instance?"

"Oh, no," she answered frankly.  "He is jealous of Tawannears."

She pronounced the Seneca's name with a delicious lisp.

"Is he your lover?"

"He wants to be."  She became confidential.  "He has been this way
since he succeeded his father as Priest of Yoki and Voice of Chua.*
He has brought rain two years running now, and everybody says how
mighty a priest and spell-master he is.  But Wiki says I must serve
him first of all as Sacred Dancer, for Massi sent me direct to him
and not to Kokyan.  Besides, I don't like Kokyan.  He is a good
warrior and a clever priest--but I don't like him."


* The Snake.


"Is Kokyan Chief Priest?"

"How ignorant you are, Englishman!  Of course not!  Wiki is chief
priest--and Angwusi is priestess of Tawa, the Sun, the Giver-of-Life.
Kokyan is only priest of Yoki.  But when a priest of Yoki is as
successful as he is, he becomes really as important as the chief
priest and the priestess.  And then Kokyan has been telling the young
men how much better things would go if he was chief priest or had
more influence in the Council."

"But what does your chief say to all this?" I questioned.

"Chief?  What chief?"

"The chief of the village!  And the war-chiefs."

She gurgled with laughter.

"You are own brother to the Awataba, Englishman!  We do not have such
chiefs.  We look down on warriors.  When we must fight, we all do;
but we make no practice of war.  The priests and the council govern
the village."

"Who are the council?" I pressed.

"Oh, the priests--and the elders--the priests select them.  But I am
tired of talking with you, Englishman.  I came here to learn
Tawannears' speech.  I told Wiki I should.  He told me I must not,
and I said if I could not I should marry Kokyan to-night.  Wiki does
not want me to marry Kokyan."

She sank down betwixt the Seneca and me, pointing a finger at Peter.

"What is that houaw's* name?"


* Bear's.


"Wait, wait!" I pleaded.  "Tell me why you left us on the ladder and
went ahead into the village."

"No, I am tired of all that," she declared mutinously.  "I shall talk
with Tawannears now."

"But 'tis he wishes to know," I lied.  "And he must learn through me."

Her face brightened.

"Oh!  Indeed, you are stupid, Englishman!  Why did you not say so
before?"

"Because I had no chance," I laughed.

"You are an Awataba," she insisted.  "You must have killed a
Spaniard, and taken his clothes.  But you asked why Wiki called me.
It was because I talked with Tawannears--and I am going to talk to
him whenever I please.  So I just told fat old Angwusi!  Wiki said
that Kokyan would make trouble, and that I must go ahead and tell
Angwusi he was bringing you up to the village because you had saved
me and the sacred turkeys and were not Spaniards."

"And then?" I prompted her.

"Why, then, I went to the kiva,* and Kokyan was talking to Angwusi
against Wiki, and I told him I would dance against him if he
continued to be foolish.  And he said that Chua the Snake had
counseled him that you three were to be the doom of Homolobi and you
must all be slain for a sacrifice to Chua."


* Ceremonial Place or Temple.


"So that was what he was talking about when Wiki brought us in?"

"Yes, he told the people what Chua had said, and that you would
probably bring heavy rain to spoil the harvest or a drought next
Summer.  And Chua prophesied to him again whilst he talked, and said
you came here plotting evil, especially the red one called Tawannears.

"Then I danced for Massi, and cried to all the Gods, and as I danced
they told me that Chua's voice had been mistaken, that men who saved
the Sacred Dancer and the sacred turkeys of Massi's shrine could not
be Massi's enemies.  Kokyan said it was not true, that you were
Chua's enemies.  But I cried into the temple, and Massi answered back
that such things were best left unsaid, that they made it seem that
Chua was divided from Massi.

"Kokyan did not know what to say to that."  She giggled
reminiscently.  "So Wiki talked to Angwusi, and she made a prayer to
Tawa for light."

"What did Tawa say!" I demanded, for she had turned again to
Tawannears.

"That it was too early to decide."

That, mark you, was the width of the margin betwixt my comrades and I
and death--what an old Indian woman chose to say that the sun had
told her to say!

"Is it left so?" I asked uneasily.

"How else!" she snapped pettishly.  "I did not come here to talk to
you."

"But for how long is it left so?"

"Until the festival at the end of this moon--the moon which precedes
the harvest.  But if you say any more, Englishman, I will go to
Angwusi and ask her to have Tawa say that the others may be saved,
but you must be cast from the cliff."




CHAPTER XVII

THE WEB OF DESTINY

For all practical purposes we were prisoners during the weeks we
spent in Homolobi, but I cannot say that we were fettered or chained.
The whole village, with its rabbit-warrens of passages, its ponderous
masses of masonry, its soaring walls and towers, its rare
rock-gardens--odd patches of dirt in angles of the cliffs around the
Breast--its plazas and hidden reservoirs, we were free to roam in.

Escorted by Kachina, we even ventured into the dim recesses of the
temple and stared at the wooden image of Massi, a sinister object of
partly human aspect presiding over a stone tank crammed with writhing
rattlesnakes, which, our guide assured us, had not had their fangs
drawn.  Yet she and all the evil priests of this forbidding place
handled the reptiles without fear, and so far as we could see were
never bitten.  Explain it how you will.

'Twas after this visit that a knife fell from the air at Tawannears'
feet, missing the opening betwixt collar-bone and shoulder-blade by
inches.  If it dropped by accident none came to reclaim it, nor did
we have sight of its owner; and we had no choice but to suppose it
had been aimed at the Seneca's life.  But we deemed it best to hold
our tongues concerning the incident--with all save Kachina; she had
become our staunch friend and ally, more through a whimsical interest
in new faces--and especially Tawannears--as I believe, than for aught
else, unless it was the opportunity to plague Kokyan and annoy Wiki
the grave.  Later--but I gallop in advance of my story.

Kachina approved our silence.

"'Twas that ant Kokyan, beyond a doubt," she glowered.  "He shall
suffer for it!  I will dance his heart out of him, and laugh at his
misery.  But it will serve no purpose to denounce him.  He would
laugh at you, and turn people against you, saying you had come
amongst us only to create discord.  And that would be bad because it
has not rained since you came, and already people are saying that you
have brought us good luck and a fair harvest.  But you must be
careful how you walk--and keep out of dark passages."

At her suggestion we took to walking daily on the floor of the valley
where no knives could fall upon us--although once, as Tawannears came
through a copse by the river to where she was explaining to us their
irrigation system, an arrow thrummed into a tree-trunk beside him.
He looked unsuccessfully for the hidden archer, then ran on and
joined us; and after that we avoided copses and groves, as well as
dark corners and places commanded by overhanging walls.  But I think
the best reason why Tawannears was not assassinated was that she
stuck so close to him.

"What chance has a warrior when he has a priest for enemy?" she said,
laughing.  "'Tis well he has me to care for him.  Do Kokyan and his
tools think I would let them slay Tawannears before I have learned
this fine, booming speech of his?"

No hindrance was placed in the way of our excursions, but there were
always men close by and--when we were in the open--a few of the
priests in serpent's-skin kilts lurked within eye-shot.  Moreover,
the smokes of the Awataba now encircled the valley.  North, south,
east and west they rose languorously in the windless air, for the
days were still, equably warm, without great heat and wondrously dry.

Twice I asked Wiki, mainly to see what he would say, if we might
leave the valley.  Each time he smiled cryptically, raised his arm
and swept the compass of the cliffs.

"If you go, you go to death," he said the first time.

And a week later:

"Shall we send you to your deaths, Englishman?  That would not be
kind."

"But I think sometimes we linger here only to await death," I
countered.

His face was solemn, but his green eyes mocked me.

"Can you see the future?" he asked.

"No, I am no miracle-worker."

"Then how can you know what Massi has in store for you?"

"Why do the naked bowmen lurk here so long?" I demanded, changing the
subject.

His brow wrinkled in what might have been perplexity.

"Who can say?" he answered, with a shrug.  "They are children.
Perhaps they have killed enough meat to feed them a while."

At times he would be more communicative, and we discussed the beliefs
of his people and their social and religious organization.  They were
in many ways the most civilized Indians I have seen, and they seemed
all the more so, meeting them, as we did, after prolonged contact
with the depraved tribes we had encountered west of the Sky Mountains
and along the coast of the Western Ocean.

Perhaps because of the inaccessible character of their situation,
they were essentially unwarlike, wrapped up in the pursuit of
agriculture and the raising of turkeys.  Certain of these birds they
bred especially for the sacred flock attending on the shrine of Massi
for the purpose of supplying feathers, with which women wove
remarkably beautiful screens and robes.  Their crops were as good as
those obtained by European husbandmen, and much better than those
ordinarily reaped by our own farmers in America, notwithstanding that
their only tools for cultivation were pointed sticks and the most
primitive kinds of rakes and hoes.

Wiki said, in one of his conversational moods, that their traditions
taught them that long ago this barren land of rocks was much richer
than it now was, and at that distant time their people were very
numerous in this locality.  But in the course of ages the climate
changed, and with it the nature of the country.  The rivers dried up;
the deposits of soil were blown away; vegetation died; the sun's heat
became so fierce as to wither growing things, except in a few favored
spots.

About the same time there was a succession of eruptions of hordes of
savages from the north, low-browed, ferocious people, akin, perhaps
to the Awataba--and on the same count to the people of Homolobi
themselves.  These were the Shunwi, or "Flesh Creatures," as they
called themselves--who overran many villages, driven mad by
starvation probably and aided by an enormous numerical superiority.
And the populations of other villages, disheartened by these
experiences, moved away into the South, where conditions were more
favorable, and gradually lost touch with those who had remained in
the home-land of the race.

The coming of the Spaniards sealed the doom of all of them.  To Wiki,
who evidently had visited the Spanish colonies, possibly had indulged
in the occasional Indian plots to regain independence and restore the
dominance of the red race under a new Montezuma, the tragedy of his
people was very apparent.  He had seen village after village on the
outskirts of the rock desert conquered and Christianized.  His life
was dedicated to an effort to protect Homolobi from the universal
fate.  This was the reason for his equivocal reception of our party.
It was the reason, too, I suspect, for his uncertain attitude toward
us after he had saved our lives.  He was not sure how best to make
use of us, whether it would more aptly serve his purpose to let us go
or to sacrifice us to the superstitious wrath and priestly politics
of Kokyan's faction.

The hub of the situation, indeed, was the factional politics that
rent the village.  As Kachina had told us, the priestly organization
was likewise the political superstructure of the social life of the
community.  The council of wise men was really a council of the
priests, with a handful of others selected by and under the control
of the priests.  They not only regulated the religious life of the
village, but exerted a general supervision over its agricultural and
industrial undertakings, adjusted inter-family or clan disputes, made
and administered laws, interpreted traditions, and in event of war
furnished the military leadership that was required.

The one-sided intellectuality which resulted was probably the cause
of the decline of the race.  This was the judgment of Tawannears, who
was best qualified to estimate their tribal characteristics,
combining in his mind, as he did, the training and outlook of red man
and white.  He took a keen interest in the problem, despite his
absorption in his own tangled thoughts and his strange infatuation
with Kachina, which was to lead to the crisis of our affairs.  And it
was largely through him and the attraction which he possessed for the
girl, with all her weird power and influence, that we were enabled to
gain a really intimate view of the drama which was centering around
our three alien lives.

Briefly, it was the old, old story of all communities.  Wiki
represented the wisdom of age.  Fifteen years before, I gathered, he
had acquired preponderating power when he went out into the desert,
as he said, "to fast and ask a message forecasting the future," and
returned with the woman-child who grew to be Kachina, and who, he
told the village, had been sent to him by Massi to serve the temple
and dance in honor of the Ruler of the Dead.  His own shrewd
intellect combined with the Latin grace of the girl and her original
personality had strengthened his position so that he ruled
practically supreme, being able to ignore, if he chose, the rival
authority of old Angwusi, who represented the women in the hierarchy.

It was, by the way, typical of the social organization of Homolobi
that the women had important representation in the priesthood.  The
women were in all ways equal to the men.  They held their share of
property, and they had the right to be consulted on all matters of
public import.  They upheld and maintained the sanctity of monogamous
marriage.  They had the right to secure punishment for any man who
neglected, abused or maltreated his wife.  And while they were barred
from the service of Chua and from membership in the priestly clan or
participation in the religious dances, they had in Angwusi a
representative who ranked next to the chief priest in authority, who
might, in some cases, compel even his acquiescence on questions of
policy.

Angwusi was as clever as a priestess-stateswoman as Wiki, but she
lacked his breadth and experience.  She had been instrumental in
building up the prestige of Kokyan, the young priest of Yoki and
suitor for Kachina's hand; but as soon as he was strong enough to
make himself felt in opposition to the chief priest, she had hastened
to redress the balance, hoping, in the conflicting ambitions of the
two men, to find the means for gaining her own ends, whatever they
were.

But the situation was complicated again by the interposition of
Kachina.  She had not, until recently, been regarded as more than an
assistant and subordinate of Wiki.  Kokyan's courtship and rivalry of
the chief priest and the politics precipitated by his rise, however,
had lifted her to an importance equal with that enjoyed by the other
three; and she was not slow to take advantage of it.  How loyal she
was to Wiki, of course, I cannot say; but from my knowledge of her
afterward I should say that she would have stood by him, after
securing such concessions as she wanted for herself, had it not been
for the arrival of Tawannears.

Love and hate, the lure of beauty, hunger for power, these were the
factors here as elsewhere.  Suppose we had gone north, instead of
south, to pass the Salt Lake, suppose we had not ventured into these
mountains!  What would have happened then to the fortunes of Wiki, of
Kachina, of Kokyan and Angwusi and the people of Homolobi--ay, and of
Tawannears, Peter and myself.  Fifteen hundred lives would have ended
differently--I say nothing of the Awataba, who perished for causes
beyond their comprehension.

So slender is the thread of destiny which weaves our lives!

But my speculation, after all, is purposeless.  We were fated to do
what we did.  It was written in the Book that we should go to
Homolobi, just as it was written that Tawannears' fantastic search
should be carried to its logical conclusion.  How else can you
explain the instant attraction he had for the girl, the light that
shone in his eyes when he first fronted her threatening arrow, the
very ease with which they two brushed aside from their path the needs
and wants and desires and wishes of fifteen hundred others?  It was
written that it should be so.  Why, even Peter's giant strength had
its rôle to play in this, as in other acts, of the drama we lived.
And I--am I not the narrator?

So I say there was no accident in what transpired.  Accident must
have slain us heedlessly a score of times before Destiny was ready
for us to work the deeds it had prepared for us.

If Wiki, priest of Massi, from whatever abode he occupies, looks over
my shoulder as I write I know that he will smile assent.  There are
some forces beyond human control.  We were caught fast in the grip of
such a force when the people of Homolobi gathered before the kiva of
Massi for the pre-harvest festival at the end of that moon in which
we had come into their valley--I cannot make the date more specific,
for we had lost all track of time in more than two years of wandering.

It was a clear, cloudless day, still not too hot, with almost no
breeze stirring, exactly like all the other days since our arrival;
and I remember the people squatting around the open space in front of
the temple made room for us readily in the front row, some of them
actually smiling, so popular had we become on account of the good
weather we had brought the village.

Weather was everything to these people.  In fear of a failed harvest
they always kept a year's store of dried crops ahead; but there had
been times when the crops had failed two years running, and they
regulated their whole lives to the one end of securing enough food.
Religion, with them, was weather.  Hence the popularity of Kokyan,
Priest of Yoki, who had twice secured them abundant early Summer
rain.  Hence, too,--and most paradoxically--our own popularity,
because we had staved off the unseasonably heavy storms which
sometimes destroyed or diminished a good planting.

Observe the irony.  We had made headway against Kokyan's enmity by
virtue of the very talent he arrogated to himself.  Hence the frowns
he bent on us as he danced from the temple, leading his snake
priests, every man a center of twisting coils of slimy reptiles.

This was the opening phase of the ceremonies.  Wiki and Angwusi sat
in front of the temple entrance upon solid blocks of wood, behind
them leering the horrid features of Massi, carried forward from his
darksome shrine into the glare of daylight for this occasion.
Kachina had not yet appeared, but grouped in a semicircle in back of
idol, priest and priestess were the masked dancers of the different
clans, arrayed in the semblance of bird, beast, reptile, vegetable or
insect.

Overhead towered the bulging brow of the cliff.  Across the housetops
reared the distant wall of the valley, crowned by the slim smokes of
the Awataba, those persistent savages who belied their
inconsequential natures by the fixity of the purpose with which they
hemmed us in.  And all around the plaza, and on the nearby
house-roofs, too, were crowded the village people, the men in their
white kilts--the red border being reserved for the highest members of
the priesthood and the Wise Men of the Council; the women in plain
white robes that folded over the right shoulder and slid under the
left breast, curving graciously to the figure and banded tight around
the waist.

Drums thudded inside the temple to herald the approach of Kokyan and
his loathsome attendants.  They pranced slowly into the light, snakes
twining about their middles, their arms and their necks, forked
tongues darting and hissing--and never a man bitten!

The snake priests sounded a low chant, as they advanced with a
jerking, undulating step, apparently designed to reproduce the
traveling motion of a snake.  Whining in a minor key, the chant
progressed in volume, the rumble of the unseen drums rising in tune
with it.

Bound the open space danced the ugly procession, the people
instinctively drawing back as the snake-ridden men came near.
Kokyan, the scowl of a fiend on his face, passed us and went on.  The
whole line passed, and I breathed freely again, for I did not like
those scores of unrestrained reptiles, any one of which in threshing
free of its bearer might carry death into the throng.

The drums thudded louder and louder as the priests circled the plaza
the second time; and the snakes were more excited than ever by the
noise, the unaccustomed sunlight and the white-garbed rows of
onlookers.  They writhed up above the heads of the priests, struck at
each other and hissed into the empty air.  'Twas a nightmare
spectacle--such a picture as the Italian Dante dreamed of the
torments of Hell.  But again Kokyan passed, and again I felt the
breath whistle from my lungs.  Then it came--what I had been
expecting!

The drumming became hurried, confused, and the priests jostled
together, as if surprised.  There was a _plop!_ on the sandy ground,
and a rattlesnake as long as Peter contorted into its fighting coils
within arm's-reach of Tawannears.  But the Seneca remained perfectly
quiet, not moving a muscle of face or body.  A gasp went up from the
people around us.  Women cried out, and children whimpered.  Wiki
rose from his stool with a single curt order, and one of the priests
stepped out of the line and retrieved the snake, calming it by a
stroking motion down its belly as he grasped it just under the
venomous head.

It all happened so quickly that few saw the incident, but Peter's big
hand gripped my arm until I thought he would tear it off.

"If he mofed he was deadt!" he gasped in my ear.  "_Ja_, if he mofed,
Tawannears was deadt!"

"Did he drop it?" I whispered fiercely to Tawannears.  "Did you see
the priest drop it?"

"Yes, brother," he answered coolly, "but who could swear he was
responsible?"

"And you stayed quiet!" I marveled.  "How could you know the snake
would not strike?"

"It was nothing," he returned.  "That snake never strikes unless it
thinks you are frightened of it.  The man bungled.  He should have
dropped it on Tawannears.  Then it would have struck instinctively.
But Hawenneyu did not will it so.  Tawannears' medicine is too strong
for the snake-priest, Kokyan."




CHAPTER XVIII

TAWANNEARS' SEARCH IS ENDED

The last of the snake priests disappeared through the temple
entrance, and old Angwusi left her stool and advanced in front of
Massi's image, prostrated her bulky figure with much difficulty and
then made invocation to the sun, riding high toward mid-afternoon.
Her words had the form of a prayer, but at intervals responses were
intoned by the masked clan dancers behind her, and at the end all the
people shouted an answer, turning their faces up to the sky.

She returned to her seat amidst a rapt silence that was broken only
when Wiki made a signal with his "paho," or prayer-stick, a painted
and befeathered baton, which was the symbol of his office.  As he
raised it the drums in the temple rumbled again, and the masked
dancers began to sing, swaying their bodies to the haunting rhythm of
the music.  After each stanza Wiki would chant an invocation of his
own, prostrating himself on the sand before Massi.  And this song
terminated, as had Angwusi's prayer, in a chorus of all the people,
the thudding of the drums running in and out of the roar of voices
that echoed against the overhanging cliff.

The singing died away.  Silence once more.  Wiki, standing now beside
the image of the Ruler of the Dead, lifted his paho in a second
gesture of command.  Tap-tap-tap! very slow, went the drums.  The
masked clan dancers sorted themselves into two files facing inward on
either side of the temple doorway.  The people around us, whose
interest in the ceremonies had been perfunctory since the snake
dance, bunched forward in attitudes of pleasurable expectancy.  A
murmur of voices bandied back and forth the one word--"Kachina!"

I saw the muscles twisting on Tawannears' jaw.  His face, that was
usually so masklike, was openly expressive.  But a look of puzzled
inquiry in his eyes changed to bewilderment, when, instead of the
Sacred Dancer, appeared the snake priests, marshaled by Kokyan and
staggering under the weight of a hurdle upon which reposed a mighty
pumpkin.  It was twice as thick as Peter in girth and half as tall
from the litter of stalks and vine-leaves upon which it was set.

The drums throbbed slowly, and to the cadence of their beat the
masked dancers struck up a new song, a wailing, minor melody,
beseeching, imploring of Massi the continued toleration of their
wants.  The snake priests and their burden passed between the two
lines from the temple doorway to the image of the Ruler of the Dead,
halted a moment facing it, turned, and then, with Wiki and Angwusi
preceding Kokyan, and the column of masked dancers following the
hurdle-bearers, solemnly paraded the circuit of the plaza; whilst all
the people sitting or crouching on the ground bent their heads and
muttered, "Kachina!" or "The Sacred Dancer comes!" or else addressed
impromptu personal prayers to Massi, Yoki, Chua and other lesser
divinities.

Tawannears' excitement had grown to an extraordinary degree.  The
breath whistled in his nostrils.  His chest rose and fell as though
he were running.  His features were drawn and haggard.  His eyes
never swerved from the enormous pumpkin.

"How could they have nourished it to such a size!" I whispered.

He did not hear me, but Peter, on my other side, made shrill reply--

"Idt is not real."

"Not real?"

"_Ja_, you vatch."

I peered at it the more closely, myself.  Certes, it had all the
outward seeming of a pumpkin magnified a score of times.  There were
the corrugations of the surface, the mottled yellow color with a hint
of pale green, the blunt-ended stalk.  But whilst I watched, the
snake priests completed the plaza's circuit, gently deposited the
hurdle in front of Massi, and took their position behind the idol in
a single rank, with Kokyan a step in advance, arms folded on their
breasts.  The masked dancers formed a ring around the image, the
giant pumpkin and the group of priests; and Wiki and Angwusi, on
either side of the hurdle, commenced the next phase of the elaborate
ritual.

Wiki seemed to be delivering an oration to the god.  He included by
his gestures the people in the plaza, the village, the priests, the
valley below the cliff, and finally the pumpkin.  Afterward we
learned that he had been summing up the tribe's case for divine
assistance, speaking from the viewpoint of the men.  Angwusi, who
followed him, described for the benefit of the deity the efforts put
forward by the women and the especial reasons they thought they had
for meriting aid.  And to cap it, both of them united in an address
drawing to Massi's notice the magnificent pumpkin which they would
sacrifice to him.

This brought from the ring of dancers a prolonged shout of applause,
the drums in the temple pulsed into a jerky, varying beat, and the
masked figures pranced crazily around the idol and the pumpkin, the
priests singing another of their weird, hesitating songs.  Faster and
faster thumped the drums.  Swifter and swifter whirled the dancers.
Wilder and wilder waxed the song.  The end came in a crescendo of
noise, color and movement.  It snapped off almost with a physical
jar.  Priests and dancers flung themselves upon their faces in the
send.  The drums were stilled.  The quiet was so intense that all
about me I could hear people's breathing, the gusty pants of
Tawannears as loud as musketry by contrast.

For a dozen breaths this quiet reigned.  Then Wiki rose, bowed low to
that monstrous idol and stepped to the vast yellow pumpkin, sitting
serenely upon its hurdle.  He extended his paho before Massi's
unseeing eyes, recited briefly a prayer--and rapped the pumpkin once.
A sigh of anticipation burst from the audience.  The pumpkin fell
apart, dividing cleanly in quarters, and from its hollow shell
stepped Kachina, a lithe bronze statue came to life, clad from breast
to thighs in a sheath of turkey-feathers that puffed out under her
arms in a mockery of wings.  Her blue-black hair floated free beneath
the confining band of serpent's-skin around her brow.

For an instant she poised in the fallen shell of the pumpkin, arms
spread as though for flight.  Then she leaped--almost, it seemed, she
flew--from the hurdle to the sand, swooped this way and that, always
with the gliding, wavy motion of a bird on the wing, hovered before
Wiki, before Angwusi, sank in a pretty pose of piety before Massi's
warped face, and so sped into the measures of a dance that was all
grace and fire and vivid emotion, a dance no Indian could have done,
and which charmed her beholders by its very exotic spell, its fierce
bursts of passion, demonstrative, seductive.

Kokyan made no secret of its effect upon him.  The gloomy face of the
young priest was lit by the unholy fires that burned within him.  He
came from his place at the head of the snake priests and stood with
Wiki and Angwusi by the wooden idol, his eyes drinking in the sinuous
loveliness of the dancer, her slender, naked feet scarcely touching
the sand as she leaped and postured from mood to mood, her own eyes
flaring through the tossing net of her hair, her lips pouting,
smiling, luring, challenging, repulsing.

But I had little chance to observe her influence upon the Priest of
Yoki.  Beside me Tawannears was risen to his knees and in his face
was the look of the damned man who sees heaven's gates opening for
him, doubting, trusting, unbelieving, paralyzed by joy, scorched by
fear.  He started to clamber to his feet and the people in back of us
volleyed low protests.  I seized his arm.

"Sit," I adjured him.  "What ails you, man?"

I think he did not even hear me.

"Use your wits," I exclaimed irritably.  "You will have us all slain.
You can see the maid anon."

'Twas Peter gave me the key to his state.

"He t'inks she is Gahano," he muttered.  "_Ja_, dot's idt."

I exerted all my strength, and dragged the Seneca back to his
haunches.

"Will you ruin us, brother?" I rasped.  "This is sacred in the eyes
of these people.  We are----"

For the first time he seemed to comprehend what I was trying to do.

"Otetiani does not know," he said mildly.  "She is my Lost Soul."

"A mist has clouded Tawannears' eyes," I answered, realizing that in
this humor I must abide by the imagery of his people.

"No, brother," he returned, still without feeling.  "You have not
seen.  You have forgotten.  But Tawannears knew--before this happened
there was a song in his heart that told him this would be."

"Of what?" I begged, conscious of the hostile looks that were
acknowledging this interruption of the scene.  "What said this song?
Was it of one maid who looked like another?"

"She does not look like another," he said with dignity.  "She is
another.  She is my Lost Soul."

"You are mad, brother," I groaned.

He smiled pityingly at me.

"No, my eyes are opened.  But Otetiani cannot see.  What said the
ancient tale of my people?  That the warrior who traveled beyond the
sunset would find the land of Lost Souls----"

"Is this land beyond the sunset?" I inquired sarcastically.

"It must be!"  His voice rang with conviction.  "Did we not see the
sun set behind the Sky Mountains?  And we crossed the Sky
Mountains--and this land must be still beyond the Sky Mountains."

"Ay, but Tawannears, you know that this is but a tale----"

"Yes, a tale of my people," he agreed steadily.  "If one warrior did
it, why could not Tawannears?  So I believed always.  Now I know it
to be so.  I have done it.  Here we sit in the valley of Lost Souls.
There is Ataentsic, brother."

He pointed to fat old Angwusi, who was eying us as balefully as
Kokyan and the snake priests, at last oblivious to the untiring grace
with which Kachina still danced before Massi's wooden grimace.

"And there is Jouskeha, her grandson."  He singled out Wiki.  "As the
tale told, when the warrior came to the valley his Lost Soul was
dancing with other souls before those two, and Jouskeha, in pity for
him, took his Lost Soul and placed her in a pumpkin, and he carried
the pumpkin back to his own country.

"See it is all here.  There is the pumpkin.  There are the Lost
Souls, who also danced.  Ataentsic, I think, is loath to give up my
Lost Soul, but Jouskeha's face is only sad.  It is all as the tale
said it would be.  All that remains, brother, is to replace the Lost
Soul in the pumpkin, and carry her back to my village."

Argument with him was impossible.  He believed implicitly in this
chain of inexplicable coincidences.  He, who was in so many ways as
cultured as an English gentleman, was the complete savage in this
matter, resting his confidence in the vague mythology of his people,
accepting for truth a familiar likeness and a sequence of parallel
incidents.

I turned to Peter with a gesture of despair.

"What can we do?" I asked.

"Nothing," replied the Dutchman phlegmatically.

Whilst my back was toward him for this fleeting exchange of words,
the Seneca wrenched loose from my grasp and strode out into the
center of the plaza toward the group of priests and masked dancers
surrounding Kachina's whirling form.  The ceremony was suspended,
stopped, as if the atrocious image of Massi had issued a direct vocal
fiat.  A growl of resentment came from the watchers on our side of
the plaza.  The faces of the snake priests were murderous.  The
leaping hate of the masked dancers was reflected in pose and
denunciations.  Angwusi frowned; Kokyan grinned with diabolical
satisfaction.  Kachina showed surprise and a certain distaste.  Wiki
alone concealed his feelings.

For us there was left no other course save audacity.  We were
committed.  The conduct of Tawannears was such as to stir the anger
of any barbarous people.  Excuses were impossible.  Our one chance
was to carry it off boldly.  And that meant we must make the first
attack.  'Twas for us to take and keep the offensive.

"Come," I said to Peter.

He reared himself erect and lumbered beside me.

"_Ja_," he squeaked through his nose, "we hafe a ---- of a time."

I caught up with Tawannears, and resumed my grip on his arm.

"Keep quiet.  'Tis for me to do the talking."

He made no answer, offered no opposition.  I do not believe he had
had any plan in rising when he did.  He simply obeyed the urge in his
heart to possess himself at once of this girl, whom he supposed to be
the incarnation of his lost love, which had torn him free of all
restraints, impelled him forward calmly to claim what he considered
nobody would dare to deny him.  But he had no means of speaking
intelligibly to anyone within the priests' circle, unless it was to
Kachina herself.  And whether he had thought of this or not, he
obeyed me now as docilely as a child.

"Do as I do," I muttered to my comrades, as we passed the circle of
the masked dancers.

And opposite Massi's image I paused and offered a low bow.
Tawannears and Peter imitated me faithfully; and that served to stall
off the first wave of indignation.  The priests were nonplussed.  We
had accepted their deity, rendered him adequate honor.  I drove home
the advantage whilst I held it.

"We are strangers in your midst," I said to Wiki, speaking in
Spanish.  "It may be we have offended against your customs, but let
our excuse be that my red brother thinks he has just seen a mighty
piece of magic performed."

This whetted their appetites and equally placated their wrath.  Wiki
was naturally pleased with the idea of having an outsider testify to
the closeness of his relations with his deity.  He and Kachina, who
had danced to his side, translated rapidly the gist of what I had
said.  Kokyan and his serpent priests scowled blackly.  Old Angwusi
looked interested.  The others were baffled.  But whatever they
secretly felt they were induced to lay aside their hostility long
enough to listen to my story, and that was everything, because it
provided the opportunity for driving in tighter than ever the
political wedges which disrupted the priesthood.

The effect of my narrative upon Kachina was comic.  She swelled with
pride, repeating with gusto Tawannears' claim that he had known her
in a previous existence, and thus arrogating to herself an undeniably
superior position.  Wiki was equally strengthened by the tale, as
bearing out his original announcement of Kachina's divine origin, but
perplexed by the possible contingencies in Tawannears' appearance.

Angwusi was flatly disdainful of the whole affair.  It helped her in
nowise, except that she was identified with a goddess of a strange
tribe.  And against this she arrayed the probable enhancement of
Kachina's position, and the certainty of increased prestige for Wiki.

But the one who foamed at the mouth at my amazing tale was Kokyan.
The Priest of Yoki literally stamped and chewed his lips with rage.
His hot eyes flickered.  The sweat beaded his forehead as he fought
for self-control.  Again and again he ripped out savage objections or
mocking comments.  He saw in acceptance of our story double defeat
for himself; Wiki's leadership impregnably fortified and another bar
thrown betwixt himself and Kachina.

"The red stranger lies," he stormed--Wiki translating his criticisms
with gleeful assistance from Kachina, who delighted in being at the
center of the debate.  "If Kachina was of his people, why can she not
talk to him in his tongue?"

"The Great Spirit took the knowledge from her--for reasons of his
own," answered Tawannears, and I translated.

"I can talk in Tawannears' tongue," snapped Kachina.  "It comes to me
easily."  She cast a sly glance at the Seneca.  "I am sure I must
have known it once."

"It is a lie," howled Kokyan.  "Has he not said that this Lost Soul
of his was a maid full-grown when she died?  And do we not know that
Kachina was a child with new teeth when Wiki brought her to Homolobi?"

"The Great Spirit's ways are not our ways," returned Tawannears
steadily.  "He may change the maid's years, but he cannot change her
face or the Soul that was lost.  What are years to Him?"

"Bah!" snarled Kokyan.  "Will wise men believe such tales?  Is it
likely the Ruler of Death or any other god would allow such wanderers
as these to have knowledge of the Heaven-sent?"

Wiki, who had said little after his habit, contenting himself with
translating the arguments back and forth, and now and then checking
Kachina when she developed a tendency to embroil still further the
irate Kokyan, now pursed his lips and sought for safe middle-ground.

"Here is no question to be judged with heat," he declared.  "There is
much that is strange in what these strangers say.  Yet how can
priests, who live their lives with what is unreal, be unwilling to
believe a tale because it denies what seems truth?  It does seem
strange to me that Massi, whose servant I am, has never been disposed
to acquaint me with what the strangers have said, although often, as
you know, he has come to me and made clear the future--to the great
good of the village."

At this there were cries of:

"Great is Wiki!"

"Favored above other priests is Wiki!"

"The Chief Priest speaks wisdom!"

"But who am I," continued Wiki, "to expect that Massi will tell me
all?  No, if he did so, then would I be as great as he, and a god.
Perhaps Massi sent these strangers here to tell me this message,
instead of summoning me into the desert to fast until wisdom came to
me.  I do not know.  But I do know that the strangers have told us a
marvelous tale.  If it is true, then, indeed, are we favored of
Massi, and Kachina, the Sacred Dancer, is twice holy.  If it is
not----"

"How can it be true!" insisted Kokyan boldly.  "Chua the Snake, as
all know, has taken Homolobi under his protection.  Have not I had
his confidence for two years past?  Has he not told me things which
Massi, busy ruling the villages of the dead, has forgotten?  Is it
likely that Chua would forbear to tell me of so wondrous an
occurrence?"

"Chua has told you some things that did not come to pass," flashed
Kachina.  "You told us he said these strangers would bring bad-luck,
and they brought good-luck."

"Yes, that is in their favor," interposed Wiki.

"There has been bickering about them since they set foot in the
valley," Angwusi thrust in spitefully.

"There was bickering before," said Wiki sternly.  "Enough has been
said.  We will examine the matter with care.  I am Massi's priest,
and I serve him in this.  Let all----"

He was interrupted by shouts of alarm on the outskirts of the throng
of village people who had clustered thickly about the group of
priests, edging closer and closer as the discussion became more
animated.  We all turned in the direction of the disturbance.  A lane
was being formed through the crowd.  Villagers with bows and arrows
were forcing back the bystanders to make room for a little knot of
squat, naked, brown-skinned men, who walked between the jostling
walls with wary glances and startled leaps to avoid contact with
those not of their kind.

A murmur rose--

"The Awataba!"

People gave ground more readily when they saw that the newcomers were
the bowmen of the rock desert, men a degree or two above the level of
the beasts, their bodies crusted with filth, their hair matted, their
weapons crudely formed, their bellies protuberant from eating dirt
when other food failed, their eyes dully stupid, but alive with
animal dread of the unknown.  These came forward until they reached
the open circle in front of Massi's image, and at first sight of that
dread countenance they cast themselves flat upon the ground and
wriggled on until their leader was able to put his hand upon Wiki's
foot.

The villagers who had attended them made brief report, and Kachina
started, bending forward betwixt Tawannears and me, her lips close to
my ear.

"This is bad," she whispered.  "The field guards say the Awataba have
left the cliffs and descended into the valley.  They are come to ask
Wiki to give you up to them.  They----"

But now the Awataba were talking for themselves in awkward guttural
clicks and clucking noises, peeping at us from under beetling brows
and hanging mats of muddy hair, prostrating themselves anew at a
wrinkle showing in Wiki's face; but withal, demonstrating a dumb
persistency, a blunt determination, that reminded me of the smoke
that swirled daily above the valley cliffs.

Kachina gasped.

"They are asking for you," she interpreted.  "They say they have
dreamed that if they sacrifice you three their wanderings will come
to an end and they will always have food."

Wiki checked her with an order which sent the snake priests to close
around us.  They herded us out of the crowd and up to the temple
roof, making signs that we were to enter the room assigned to us.  In
there we could neither see nor hear anything of what went on, and
leaving one man to watch us from the terrace, they hastened back to
take their share in the decision of our fate.




CHAPTER XIX

PETER'S BOULDER

There was no twilight in Homolobi.  Buried beneath the jutting
overhang of the Western cliff, the village was plunged in darkness
the moment the sun had sunk behind it.  One minute I looked through
the narrow doorway of our room and saw the gaunt figure of the
serpent priest, our sentinel, limned against the gray house-walls
across the temple plaza.  Then the enveloping gloom had swallowed
him.  Only upon the distant Eastern cliffs of the valley a few
crimson beams clashed harshly upon the painted rock strata, flickered
courageously--and vanished, too.

But immediately other lights flared up.  The plaza, whence rose--had
risen this hour--a continuous hum and buzz of comment, of a sudden
glared with torches.  More torches shone on the opposite house-roofs,
and from the unseen depths of the valley at the foot of the Breast
blossomed a great flower of light that grew and grew, accompanied by
a muted roar of savage voices, dissonant, unrestrained.

The voices of Homolobi were stilled--as though Wild had suppressed
all with one wave of his feathered paho.  The village became wrapped
in the silence of death.  And now our ears could hear distinctly that
gritting insanity of frenzied noise, rising and falling with the
leaping of the flames that streaked hundreds of feet into the air to
illumine the darkness beyond the village walls.  They were faint, far
away, but the savage insistency of their chorus was unescapable, even
when the hum of the village began knew.

"The Awataba," I muttered, more to myself than to the others.

"_Ja_," assented Corlaer.  "Der bowmen are madt.  Dey go crazy, eh?"

Tawannears said nothing.  He had not spoken in the hour which had
elapsed since the serpent priests had driven us from the plaza.
Until the light failed I had been able to see him sitting motionless,
with his back to the wall, his eyes staring into vacancy.  Now, I
suppose, he occupied the same position.  At any rate, I could not see
him.

"If we had but a pound of powder and ball between us," I groaned.

"What use?" replied Corlaer.  "If you kill all der people in Homolobi
we hafe still der Awataba."

"No use," I admitted.  "Yet I like not the thought of dying in a
trap."

"We will not be deadt alone," the Dutchman grunted.  "_Ha!_"

His exclamation was caused by the soft tread of a foot in the
doorway.  I jumped to one side, drawing the knife and tomahawk from
my belt.

"Into the open!" I whispered.

But Kachina's voice answered me, the sibilant Spanish just loud
enough to reach my ear.

"Quiet!  'Tis I."

I extended my arm and clutched her feather garment.

"Alone?" I whispered.

"Yes.  Let me in.  I--  Where is Tawannears?"

The Seneca's voice came from the darkness at my elbow.

"Tawannears is here, Gahano."

The throb of gladness in it sent my heart leaping into my throat.
There were tears in my eyes.

She understood him.

"Tell him," she ordered me, with a tinkle of musical laughter, "my
name is Kachina."

"She is Gahano to me," was Tawannears' answer.

I felt her press by me, and a moment later her voice reached me
again, strangely muffled.

"What I am called matters little," she said.  "I think Wiki lies when
he says I came from Massi.  I seem to remember a time many years ago
when I often saw people who were white like you.  But that does not
matter.  Tawannears is a man!  And I am tired of priests and their
ways.  Ay, a man who would travel as far as Tawannears for a woman is
a man!"

"We shall all of us go soon upon a longer journey," I returned
significantly.  "And you, too, if you stay here."

"Yes," she agreed, her voice still muffled.

I thrust out my hand and found her body in Tawannears' arms.

"What!" I gasped in astonishment.

Tawannears laughed softly--and at that note, contented, caressing,
Peter, also, indulged in a peal of low laughter.

"Dot's funny," he squeaked.  "We come all dis way, andt Tawannears
gets her, andt we die quick."

"What did the fat one say?" inquired Kachina, wrenching herself from
the Seneca's embrace.

I told her.

"Yes," she said a second time.  "Death is coming.  That is why I am
here.  The Awataba told the council they must have you to sacrifice.
They said they dreamed that your lives would appease their gods, but
I think that ant Kokyan planted the idea in their heads.  I would
have said so, but Wiki would not let me, and so I ran away."

"What will the council do?" I asked helplessly.

The hum of the village and the blurred voices of the bowmen at the
foot of the Breast rasped through the night.

"They will give you up.  Kokyan said there should be no argument.  It
was sufficient sign of your harmfulness that the Awataba were so
emboldened.  And when Wiki argued against it, the Bowmen said they
would lay waste the valley, even though they all perished for it.
Then Angwusi joined with Kokyan, and I spoke as I said."

"Hark!" said Peter.

From the plaza came a bellow of voices.

"The council is ended," exclaimed Kachina.  "They are coming."

"A few of them will die," I answered grimly.  "You had best go."

"Old fool!" she retorted contemptuously.  "You have no wits.  They
will block up the doorway, and break in upon you from above.  You
have no chance here."

"Then we will go out into the open."

"No, you shall come with me.  I know a way.  It is dangerous in
daylight, and perhaps we shall all perish; but if we gain the
cliff-top we can hold our own.  Come!  I will lead Tawannears, and do
you others follow him."

We moved softly out the door, and she guided us along the wall of the
temple's upper story.  Here was black night, unmitigated, for the
overhang of the cliff shut out even the star-shine.  We had passed
two other doorways, as I could tell by feeling with my hands, the
uproar in the plaza becoming deafening in the meantime when there was
a patter of feet and torches blazed across the terrace.  Men streamed
by us, indistinct running figures, and we flattened against the wall,
trusting to the shifting shadows to conceal us; but a group of a
dozen or more with torches made the night brilliant as day.

A yell announced our discovery.  There was a rush that we stemmed
with ready steel, and Kachina cried:

"Run!  Do not stay to fight!"

We won a brief respite by our efforts; and she dived into a nearby
doorway, and we found ourselves tumbling down a steep stair that
twisted on itself and debouched into a vast chamber which we
recognized as the temple.  Already men were pouring in from the
plaza, Kokyan at their head, a torch waving in one hand, a knife in
the other.  And behind us the restricted stair echoed the shouts of
our immediate pursuers.

Kachina ignored Kokyan, and guided us past the tank before the empty
altar of Massi, in which writhed the reptile guardians of the shrine;
but Kokyan sped around the other, and shorter, side of the temple.
The foam was dripping from his jaws; his eyeballs were staring from
their sockets.  And as he saw Kachina turn toward a doorway that
showed dimly behind the altar he shrieked with fury and hurled his
torch at her.  It would have struck her had not Tawannears reached
out and caught it as expertly as he was used to catching the
tomahawks thrown at him in practice by his warriors.

An instant Tawannears held the flaming club of resinous pine-wood.
Then he sounded the war-whoop of the Iroquois that is dreaded by
white man and red from the Great Lakes to the Ohio, and sprang
forward to meet the Priest of Yoki.  They came together beside the
tank of snakes, but Tawannears refused to close, backing away in such
fashion that the priest was poised on the very verge of the tank,
from which arose an evil tumult of hissing as the snakes responded to
the confusion above them.

Pursuit and flight were stayed for the instant by the spectacle of
this struggle.  Moreover, Peter and I guarded the space betwixt the
opposite side of the tank and the temple wall, and no man, not even
the snake priests themselves, cared to try to leap that gap.
Kachina, smiling unconcernedly, her feather raiment rising and
falling steadily with her even breathing, stood, with hands on her
hips, in the doorway behind the tank, watching the contest of the two
men for her.  If she had any feeling of concern she covered it
effectually.

Kokyan howled a curse at the Seneca.  Tawannears replied with a smile
as unconcerned as the girl's and the priest stabbed at him
desperately, with all the strength of his body behind the blow.
Never moving his feet, Tawannears swayed his shoulders to avoid the
knife, and struck sideways with the torch he held in his left hand.
It smote the priest on the thigh as he was off-balance, and Kokyan
tottered and fell--into the squirming midst of the tank of snakes.
Tawannears, without a word, tossed the torch after him, and a bedlam
of angry hisses responded.  Looking over my shoulder, I shuddered at
what I saw.

The Priest of Yoki was submerged beneath a tempest of coiling
monsters tortured by the flames of the torch and excited by the
unusual light and noise.  I had a vision of triangular heads that
darted back and forth, of fangs that dribbled venom, of slimy,
twisting lengths that coiled and uncoiled and coiled again--and under
them all a shape that quivered and jerked and called feebly and was
still.

I turned and ran, Peter at my heels.  The Dutchman's flat, impassive
face was a study in horror.  Myself, I experienced a nausea that left
me weak as I staggered behind Tawannears into the doorway before
which ordinarily stood the idol of Massi.  Kachina's figure flitted
ahead of us, unseen, but notified to our senses by the echo of her
feet and low-voiced directions as we came to turns or steps up and
down in the course of the passage.  And close after us sounded the
hue and cry of the pursuit, a confused clamoring of people driven mad
with hate.

Indeed, 'twas the stimulus of their hatred flogged me back to
self-control.  At a corner in the passage, with a glimmer of light
beyond advertising its emergence upon some opening, I gripped Peter
and bade him stop.

"We must fight them back," I panted.  "They do not expect--we shall
gain time."

He crouched next me, our bodies blocking the way, and the leaders of
the pursuers, rounding the turn at a run, crashed full upon our
knives.  We flung the two corpses into the mob that pelted after
them, slashing and hacking with knives and hatchets in the half-light
of the torches, until we had reared a barricade that gave us an
opportunity to resume our flight with a trifling lead--for men
hesitated to cross the battered heap we had left behind us.  Yet we
were no more than a dozen paces in the lead when we broke from the
passage into a courtyard deep in the cleft of the cliff.  In front
and overhead towered the peculiar bulging rock formation which
protected Homolobi from assault from above.  The cliff-top mushroomed
out so that it overhung the Breast, and leaning against its base was
a double ladder from which Kachina and Tawannears waved us on.

I could not see what use it was to climb to some rock-lodge where we
would be picked off in daylight by archers on the temple roof, but
there was no time for argument with that yelping horde on our track.
Peter and I raced across the court, and rattled up the hidebound
rungs as fast as we could go.  There were men on the lower rungs
already when we stepped upon a narrow shelf where the girl and
Tawannears awaited us.

"Come," she said nervously in Spanish, and plucked the Seneca by the
hand.

"Waidt," shrilled Peter solemnly, and he seized the ladder-ends in
his huge paws, swayed them tentatively and gave a shove.

The ladder teetered erect on end, poised as if to drop back against
the cliff--and went over backward, spilling its load of priests to an
accompaniment of fearful screams.

"Now we got a better chance, eh?" commented the Dutchman.

Kachina chuckled with amusement.  She had adopted our side
unreservedly.  The death of these people who had lately almost
worshiped her distressed her no more than the slaying of the Awataba
in the pass.

"That was a good blow for the fat one," she remarked.  "They will set
up the ladder again, but we shall have more time, and that means
everything."

"How?" I questioned, as I strove to discern a way of escape from the
scanty foothold of the rock-ledge.

"I will show you," she answered.  "This is a secret path of the
priests.  Wiki used it when he went into the desert to commune with
Massi.  But it is very dangerous, and you who are not accustomed to
climbing the rocks will have to go slowly.  That is why I say the fat
one did well to overthrow the ladder.  Before they dare to set it up
again we shall be able to climb beyond their reach."

She took Tawannears by the hand.  He led me, and Peter brought up the
rear, and we edged cautiously along the shelf, blessed by our
blindness in that we could not see how perilously near eternity we
walked.  Some twenty feet from where the ladder had rested the ledge
terminated in a series of foot- and hand-holds ascending a slope, and
these we climbed by touch.  In that pitch darkness 'twas impossible
for one to see the others ahead of him.  But we hurried, for behind
us we heard the ladder creaking back into place.

The third stage of the path was another ledge, which carried us into
a remarkable crevice in the face of the cliff, a kind of natural
chimney, evidently a fault in the rock structure caused by some
bygone disturbance of the earth's surface.  In the crevice it was
darker than it had been outside, if that was possible; but the
footing was more secure, and we were spurred on by the sounds of our
pursuers, better accustomed to such work than we and consequently
making twice as rapid progress.

The path was made easier by occasional foot-rests chopped by the
priests and by ladder-rungs braced in holes.  It trended at first
directly into the heart of the cliff, then turned at right angles and
ascended diagonally, following a layer of soft rock which I could
readily identify with my hands.  In two places it was so steep as to
demand progress by means of straddling.  Atop of the first of these
funnels it widened to become a chamber littered with rock fragments,
and a beam of moonlight filtered into the somber place revealed a
jagged crack along the side toward the valley.

Peter, following me up the second funnel, muttered he could see one
of the priests climbing the slant of the path to its beginning, and
in my energy to make way for him I deluged him with pebbles and fine
gravel.  This upper end of the crevice was very brittle, perhaps
because it had been long baked in the heat of the sun, and we slipped
and slid continually, losing a foot for every yard we scaled.  But at
last Kachina achieved the top, and helped Tawannears up, and betwixt
them, they hauled up Peter and me.

To our surprise, we discovered ourselves to be on the summit of the
cliff.  Homolobi, of course, was hidden beneath the protuberance of
rock that ran eastward many feet from where we stood.  Beyond it,
though, we could see the full sweep of the valley, dotted with the
fires of the Awataba, the silver glitter of the moonlight on the
river and the opposite wall of cliffs.  The night was very bright and
clear, the sky gemmed with a myriad stars, the moon shining full
between draperies of purple velvet.

"What now!" I asked.

Kachina shook her head.

"We must keep back the priests from following us," she said.  "If we
left the path they would soon be close to us again."

"And if we wait," I returned, "they will send back messengers to
guide the Awataba here by some other trail.  Perhaps they have
already done so."

"True," she agreed coolly.  "Well, so far I have planned for you.  It
is time you took thought to save yourselves."

I translated this to the others, and Peter strode instantly to an
enormous boulder, lying on its side in a bed of shale.

"We put a cork in der bottle," he announced.

He leaned his shoulder against the boulder, heaved and it rolled over
toward the head of the funnel.  Another heave and another, and it
rested on the funnel's lip.  Peter shoved it with his right arm,
there was a shower of gravel, a startled yelp from the bowels of the
rocks, and he turned to us, with a broad grin.

"_Ja_, dot's a goodt----"

I thought the end of the world had come.  Deep underneath there was a
heavy jar, then a sullen, sky-piercing roar that resounded and
reëchoed, pounding our ears, dazing our senses, louder, ever louder,
swelling and bursting into prodigious thunder-peals.  A dense cloud
of dust rose like a curtain around us.  The rock on which we stood
jumped as though it had been struck with the hammer of a god.  The
roar slid off into a declining repetition of earth-shocks.  The dust
settled slowly.  And we looked from a sheer precipice at our feet
upon what had been Homolobi.

Peter's boulder, bounding down the funnel in the cliff, must have
encountered a fault in the rock, possibly the jagged crack I had
noted above the first funnel, and with the momentum it had gathered
and its accompanying wave of small stones and gravel, had started
forces which had torn from the face of the cliff the overhanging
projection which had shielded Homolobi from attack for centuries.
This mass, in falling, had planed off the top of the Breast, and was
now a sloping hill of rock fragments which stretched far into the
valley.

Under it lay the people and the houses of Homolobi, their storehouses
and choicest gardens and most of the Awataba, who had gathered close
to the foot of the Breast to await the issue of their demands.  It
was the most utter, tragic ruin I have ever seen.  The dust clouds
seethed above the wreckage like the smoke of successful fires, but no
fires could have been so successful.  There were not left even ruins
or ashes.  Homolobi was abolished.  It was gone without a trace to
show where it had been.

Kachina cast herself at Tawannears' feet.

"How mighty are your gods!" she moaned.  "I am yours.  Save me from
them."

Tawannears lifted her in his arms.

"Gahano need have no fear," he said proudly.  "Tawannears' medicine
is strong.  All who oppose him shall perish.  But Gahano is safe.
Surely, Hawenneyu has us in His keeping that he should visit such
destruction upon our enemies!  He will send the Honochenokeh to guard
us.  Tharon the Sky-holder will let the clouds fall upon those who
stand in our way.  Gaoh will blow the winds against them.
Tawannears' orenda will triumph over all!"




CHAPTER XX

THE SPOTTED STALLION

We were free, but new problems arose to confront us.  Our only
weapons were the knives and tomahawks in our belts.  We were stranded
all but defenseless in a desolate, unknown country.  Without the
protection afforded by our muskets 'twas exceedingly doubtful whether
we could travel far in face of strong hostile opposition.  The
Awataba, any tribe of archers, easily could overwhelm us.  Moreover,
Winter was coming on.  Autumn was actually at hand.  There were the
twin questions of food and shelter to be answered.  And finally, we
had a fourth comrade to feed, protect and clothe.

But on this final score we had no occasion for worry, as events soon
showed.  Kachina might acclaim the superior accessibility which
Tawannears enjoyed with the high gods, but her native self-reliance,
courage and intelligence refused to acknowledge the handicap of her
sex.  At the very beginning of her association with us she claimed
and fulfilled the rôle of an equal--proving in this, as in countless
other ways, that she was of Spanish blood, no ordinary Indian maiden
to accept meekly the drab duties of a squaw.  Tawannears, somewhat to
my amusement, accepted her at her own valuation.

The Seneca possessed a streak of innate chivalry entirely different
from the normal attitude of courteous toleration which the People of
the Long House entertain for their women.  No nation anywhere that I
have read of in history give their wives and mothers greater honor
than these barbarians of the forest.  'Tis the women who select the
candidates for the high rank of Royaneh, the noble group of leaders
who form the Hoyarnagowar, the ruling body of the Great League.  They
arrange marriages, and largely control clan politics.  A warrior of
the Hodenosaunee says that he is the son of his mother, not of his
father, when you ask his name.  Beyond all other Indians, ay, and
beyond all white men they yield power and place to women.

But as a race they treat women as a sex apart.  The lives the men
live are denied to the women.  Of love, in the sense that we
entertain it, an affection transcending the arbitrary bounds of
physical affinity, they are ignorant.  Tawannears, alone, joined to
the sex courtesy of the Hodenosaunee the white man's capacity for a
flaming spiritual devotion.  He loved with all his being, he
worshiped, he felt a joyous sense of service based on an equality of
partnership.  So much, at least, of what they sought to achieve the
missionaries had wrought into his character.  Let it be said for them
that they supplied him with the mainspring of his life.

So it was that, having asserted the protection of his gods, the
superiority of his orenda over all powers which might be brought
against it, he proceeded, with the naïveté that was a cardinal point
of his character, to admit the validity of the aid she was able to
give us, aid without which, I believe, we must have perished.  Nor
did he then or ever treat her as a squaw, a woman to be honored in
the lodge and debarred from warriors' councils.  And this, I must say
clearly, has seemed most odd to me.  For the real Gahano or any other
Indian maid must naturally have adopted the habits, the ways of
thought, bred into her.  Yet never did Tawannears doubt the truth of
the miraculous exploit he credited to himself.

So sure was he that he never mentioned it thereafterward.  It had
been a gift from Hawenneyu, a recognition of human endurance and
loyalty.  Very well, then, he took what Hawenneyu gave, offered
thanks and went his way.  Why talk of the obvious?  Anyone, so
Tawannears reasoned in his blend of Christian philosophy and pagan
faith, who strove hard enough could do what he had done.  It had been
done before, he believed.  He did not even question the failure of
Jouskeha--or Wiki--to seal his Lost Soul in the pumpkin-shell in
which she had first appeared, and deliver her to him so.  The gods,
no more than men, must do a thing in the same way each time they
undertook it.  They had acted toward him as they saw fit.  He refused
to quibble over details.  He was satisfied.

I have said that without Kachina we should have perished.  Mayhap I
exaggerate, but nevertheless 'tis true that she was the means of
guiding us from the cliff-top above the grave of Homolobi down to the
valley-floor, which we had need to pass to gain the Eastern vents.
'Twas she who skirted the ragged mound the rock-slide had formed, and
solved the first of our difficulties by retrieving two bows and a
quiver of arrows which certain of the Awataba had cast aside in
flight.  As weapons these were not much, crudely made, lightly
strung, with flint-tipped arrows none too straight or dependable in
flight; but they were better than nothing.

Kachina, too, collected corn and vegetables from the standing fields
and gardens on the far side of the river, which had been undamaged by
the catastrophe, and with these she cooked us tasty stews that helped
us to fight down the pangs of hunger we experienced as meat-eaters.
And 'twas she who knocked over a turkey of one of the village flocks
and afforded us thus a more substantial meal the next evening.  And
she knew the best passes and ravines leading from the valley, and
saved us weeks of wandering, and very likely, death from starvation
or at the hand of some hostile tribe, when we resumed our journey to
the East.

She was a maid as quick in wit and devotion as in temper, scornful of
Peter's bulk whilst she respected his strength, affecting for me an
amused toleration as of one incomparably aged, an incumbrance to be
admitted for sake of Tawannears.  I think at first she was attracted
by the Seneca because of the novelty of his case, the strange part it
gave her to play, the whimsical sensation of being one reborn again,
an accepted intimate and favorite of the gods.  But there can be no
question she grew to love him with devotion akin to his own.  He was
a man amongst millions, ay, in the very words she used, a _Man_!

Both Peter and I, whom she plagued and teased like the child she was,
came to love her as a sister and a true comrade, and because of her
mingling of Indian unconsciousness and stoicism and white woman's coy
mannerisms.  'Twas Peter, for instance, insisted upon taking from her
the ridiculous costume of turkey feathers, which was all she had to
wear.  For herself, she gave it not a second's thought.  I daresay it
was fairly warm if unsubstantial, and she had as little false modesty
as might be expected in one who was convinced of her semi-divinity.
Peter fashioned for her instead a neat costume of moccasins, breeches
and coat, which he contrived from his own raiment, going afterward
almost as naked as the Awataba until good fortune threw in our way
the chance to replenish ourselves.  But I am again galloping in
advance of my story, an ill trick, and to be attributed to the
garrulity of old memories stirred afresh.

With weapons and food for the time being, our next concern was as to
shelter for the Winter, and on this point we were all agreed: we
desired to get as far as possible from this valley of death before
the cold weather and the terrible snows prevented traveling, and
inasmuch as Tawannears' search was ended there was no question but
that we should go east.  Had we been by ourselves we three would have
elected to follow the stream which flowed through the plantations of
what had been Homolobi--and we should have been led hundreds of miles
to the southward.  It was by Kachina's advice that we chose a ravine
which carried us due east into a more favorable country, where game
was abundant.

We had feared the attentions of the remnants of the Awataba, but if
any were left they gave us a wide berth, nor did we see signs of
other savages, until we came to a considerable river some four days'
journey from the edge of the rock desert, where we were attacked by a
small band of stalwart warriors, whom Kachina called Navahu.  They
came at us boldly, seeing how few we were, and we pretended to flee
behind a thicket; but as they approached us there we charged upon
them with heavy clubs of wood that Peter had cut, and at the sight of
our white, bearded faces they lost all their ardor and tried to
escape, crying that we were Naakai, by which, it seems, they meant
Spaniards.  We overtook and plundered several of them, besides
raiding their camp on the river-bank, and so became possessed of some
handsomely woven robes or blankets, which Kachina assured us were
highly prized by all the tribes in these regions.

Hitherto Peter and I had been obliged to content ourselves with clubs
to supplement our knives and tomahawks, it being manifestly the
wisest policy to award our two bows to Tawannears and Kachina, who
were more expert archers than we.  Now we acquired two more bows and
nearly two quivers full of arrows, and plucking up our courage,
deemed ourselves equipped to encounter any resistance short of
musketry.  We swam the river without difficulty, and continued east,
being halted presently by a barrier of foothills beyond a smaller
stream.  Long since we had passed the confines of Kachina's narrow
geographical knowledge, and after discussing the situation we decided
to follow this stream north.

When it turned abruptly west three days afterward we were
crestfallen, but we agreed to keep to its banks for one day more; and
our perseverance was rewarded, for we discovered that it flowed into
a larger river, apparently the one we had first crossed, which seemed
to come down from the northeast.  'Twas in this direction we felt
vaguely that we should aim, and we made the best progress the broken
ground afforded.  Several days' rough traveling brought us to a third
stream, which joined our river from the east.  Ahead loomed range
after range of rocky peaks; southeast the prospect* was also
forbidding.  We made the only decision possible, and headed east up
the course of this new river.  Of course, it might have carried us
anywhere, as in this land the streams seemed to be coming from and
flowing toward all directions; but it was our good fortune that its
head waters were high on the western slopes of the Sky Mountains, and
we were able to Winter in a glorious valley such as had been our home
the year previous.


* Ormerod's course grows increasingly difficult to trace, but I
hazard a guess he came out of some point in the Wasatch Mountains of
Utah, crossed the Grand and followed that river to the
Gunnison.--A.D.H S.


We built a comfortable cabin of two rooms, and had all the food we
needed.  Indeed, we grew fat and sleek, and Peter, with his clever
hands, made us new garments of deerskin.  The blankets we had
captured from the Navahu kept us warm.  And we whiled away the hours
when we were not hunting or working on pelts by cutting and
straightening arrow shafts, chipping and fastening stone-heads and
adjusting the feathering.  We were better armed than ever, and Peter
and I improved in our shooting, although we could never hope to rival
archers like Tawannears and Kachina, who had drawn bows since
childhood--just as they were incomparably less expert than the
marvelous bowmen of the Plains tribes, who spend their whole lives in
attaining proficiency in this weapon, thanks to their being entirely
dependent upon it and unable to secure firearms.

Spring set us afoot again.  We delayed our departure from the cabin
until we were certain the last snow storm had blanketed the
mountains, but once we started we moved rapidly, as Tawannears had
shaped snow-shoes for all of us, and the soggy crust packed firm.
Two weeks' journey fetched us across a divide of land, a
mountain-ridge running due north and south; and we descended by a
series of valleys which carried us out of the mountains through a
gateway betwixt two gigantic peaks that reared skyward many miles
apart.*


* This tends to confirm the theory that Ormerod followed the Gunnison
east, crossed the Continental Divide near Gannon City, and came down
into the valley of the Arkansas, with Pike's Peak on his left and
Spanish Peak visible in the distance.--A.D.H.S.


We encountered a river flowing east, which already was gathering size
and force from the melting snows of countless minor streams.  For
want of more accurate guidance we followed its Southern bank,
abandoning it twice, when it seemed to deviate to the north, and
striking eastward in a bee line, although in each of these instances
we picked up the river again.

On this comparatively low tableland the snow had disappeared, and the
long grass and foliage were greening out.  There was no lack of
antelope and deer, and we saw frequent herds of buffalo, the
advance-guards of the vast migrations which were shifting from the
Southern feeding-grounds.  We were now in the country of the horse
Indians, those wide-ranging tribes whose bands ride hundreds of miles
for a handful of booty or a scalp, lovers of fighting by preference,
and we were at pains to avoid all contact with them.  Twice we hid in
the grass to let gorgeously feathered parties ride past.  Once we lay
in a patch of timber by the river-bank, unable to move, and watched a
band make camp.

But we could not hope to be successful always, especially as the
country became flatter and less adaptable for concealment as we
traveled east.  There arrived a day when the river looped north, and
we abandoned it for the third time, squaring our backs to the
westering sun and entrusting ourselves to the open plains.  The grass
here was still short of its midsummer luxuriance.  Cover was
negligible, and the land rolled evenly in gigantic swells.  We were
climbing one of these, weary and anxious to reach a water-supply, as
a war-party rode over the crest, fifty painted warriors in
breech-clouts and moccasins, long hair stuck with feathers, white
shields and lance-points glistening, quivers bristling with arrows.

They howled their amazement, and swept down upon us, two of their
number racing up the swell behind us to make sure we were not the
bait of a larger band, lying in ambush.  We bunched together, and
made the peace sign, arms upthrust, palms out.  But the newcomers
rode wearily around us in a contracting circle, their lances slung,
arrows notched, ready to overwhelm us with a rain of shafts.  They
carried hornbound bows that could shoot twice as far as ours.  When
the scouts scurried back with yells of reassurance, they reduced the
circle they had strung until we were fairly within bow-shot from all
sides.  Then a chief, resplendent in eagle's feathers, hailed us in a
sonorous dialect marked by rolling r's.  Tawannears started at the
words.

"They are the Nemene, or Comanche," he exclaimed.  "We are in grave
danger, brothers.  These men are the mightiest raiders on the plains."

"Shall we fight them?" I asked.

"Yes," approved Kachina, notching an arrow.  "Let us fight them."

"What does der chief say?" asked Peter.  "Can you understand?"

"A part.  I have heard the Comanches talk when they came North to
trade with the Dakota.  I will try them in Dakota."

Tawannears shouted his answer, and the Comanche chief summoned a
warrior to interpret.

"He asks who we are," Tawannears explained swiftly after a brief
interchange of words.  "I have told him.  He says that we must come
with him to his camp."

There was another interchange of remarks.

"I have told him we are hurrying to our own land, that we mean no
harm to his people, but he will not agree to let us go.  He says we
are on his people's land, and we should have asked permission to come
here.  I will say that we were looking for him, but----"

Tawannears shrugged his shoulders.

Once more the shouted questions and answers, accompanied by signs and
gestures, and the ring of warriors commenced to weave around us
again.  The chief rode leisurely to one side, and regarded us
indifferently.  His interpreter shouted two words.

"It is no use, brothers," said Tawannears.  "We are to throw down our
weapons or they shoot."

"Is it a question of dying now or later?" I asked resentfully.

"It looks so."

"Let us die here in the open," proposed Kachina fearlessly.

"Nein," spoke up Peter.  "If we fight here, we die, Dot's sure.  If
we go with dem, we die--maype.  Berhaps not.  Not sure, eh?  We
petter go, andt wait andt see.  _Ja!_"

The Dutchman was right.  We dropped our weapons, and the ring of
Comanches swirled in upon itself.  We were suddenly in the midst of a
sweating mob of men and horses, scowling faces bent over us, rough
hands snatching at our possessions; rawhide thongs were lashed about
our waists, and the cavalcade dashed away between the swells, each of
us running fast to keep up with the horseman who had us in tow,
plenty of careless hoofs ready to beat our brains out if we stumbled.
But after the first mile they lessened the pace, and toward evening
we rode into a circle of teepees pitched on the bank of a tiny river.

On one side was a grove of trees, reaching to the high-water mark.
Opposite, the pony herd grazed in a natural meadow.  We were bound
hand and foot and suffered to lie on the grass betwixt the
easternmost of the teepees and the horse herd, the adolescents of the
herd-guard being summoned to watch us.  The chief and his warriors,
after exhibiting us to a group of several hundred people, including
women and children, shooed them all away and left us, evidently to
decide how to treat us--which, apparently, meant how to end us.

The shadows lengthened steadily, but nobody brought us food.  Now and
then a man lounged over to test our bindings or look at us.  Women
and children who sought to stare at us further were importantly
warned off by the adolescents of the herd-guard.  The light was
failing, too--so much so that I was surprised at feeling a cold
muzzle thrust against my cheek.  A delighted whinny greeted me.

I twisted my head around, and looked up into the quivering nostrils
of a mottled stallion.  He nuzzled me again, whinnying with every
appearance of recognition, his white mane ruffling in pleasure.  I
spoke to him softly, and he buried his muzzle in my neck, pawing with
his forehoof as though inviting me to rise and mount him.  Yes, there
was no doubt of it.  He was Sunkawakan-kedeshka, the spotted horse,
that I had tamed at Nadoweiswe's Teton village in the North before we
first crossed the Sky Mountains.




CHAPTER XXI

THE STAMPEDE

"What is this, brother?" whispered Tawannears beside me.

I explained, and Kachina and Peter rolled closer to listen.

"Wah!" gasped the girl, when I had finished.  "This god Hawenneyu is
a great god!  He has sent the horse to aid us to escape."

"How can that be?" I answered her peevishly.  "We lie here bound and
helpless.  If the whole herd came and waited next the stallion we
could not use them."

"Nevertheless, it is good medicine," insisted Tawannears.  "My heart
grows strong again."

"_Ja_," agreed Peter with more interest than he usually exhibited.
"We hafe der middle of an egscape.  If we get der first part----"

Sunkawakan-kedeshka's silken ears shot forward across my face.  I
heard the padding of moccasined feet.

"The herd-guard!" I exclaimed.  "Remember, I am crying out in fear.
The stallion is biting me."

And straightway I gave vent to a series of fearsome shrieks, at which
the spotted stallion drew back in amazement, unable to understand the
antics of the man he considered his friend.  The youthful herdsman
broke into a run, and Tawannears hailed him in a mixture of Dakota
and Comanche phrases:

"Come quickly!  Is this the way to treat captives?  The horse is
biting my white brother!"

The Comanche laughed, peering through the starlit darkness, and I
noted with interest that as soon as he identified the horse he
approached with marked caution.

"The spotted horse will give him an easier death than our warriors at
the torture-stake," he exulted.  "What are teeth and hoofs to the
knife and fire?  If I leave the horse he will soon make an end of the
Taivo.*  But to-morrow will tell another story.  The Taivo will
linger for hours, begging for the hatchet."


* White man.


"They say your father would dress you in women's garb and beat you
with switches if any harm came to the Taivo before the Council
decided his fate," said Tawannears sternly.  "Mount the horse and
ride him away."

"Mount the spotted horse!" returned the boy with derision.  "Never!
Not one of our warriors has been able to back him since we raided him
from the Teton."

"No, for they are Comanches," sneered Tawannears.

The boy dealt him a lusty kick in the ribs, and drove off the
stallion with thrusts of the light lance he carried.  Hoofs sawing
and teeth flashing, Sunkawakan-kedeshka gave me one look of regret,
emitted a whinny of hurt inquiry and faded into the darkness.

"What do you mean, Peter, by the middle of an escape?" I whispered
curiously as soon as the herd-guard was out of hearing.

"Der first part," answered the Dutchman, "is getting off der thongs.
Dot we hafe to do.  Der middle part is finding a way to leafe der
village.  Dot we hafe in der horse----"

"How?" demanded Tawannears.

"He is a king of horses," returned Peter placidly.  "Hafe you forgot
der lidtle band of mares he ledt at Nadoweiswe's village?  What he
does, der herd will do."

"'Tis true," I assented eagerly.  "With him to aid us we could
stampede the herd."

"But why talk of such things when we are helpless?" was Tawannears'
gloomy comment.

"We are not helpless," interrupted Kachina.

She rolled herself over and over until she lay on her stomach close
to Tawannears.

"The warrior who bound my wrists did not tie them so tight as yours,"
she explained.  "I smiled at him, and I think he means to ask the
Comanche chief to let him take me into his teepee--the ant!  If he
did I would kill him with his own knife.  If your teeth are sharp as
mine you can gnaw the knots loose.  Then I will free the rest of you."

And as Tawannears hesitated in bewilderment at her suggestion, she
continued:

"Hurry!  The eagles are singing of victory in the sky.  They say we
shall defy the Comanche."

"Yes, yes," I pleaded.  "Make haste, brother.  The herd-guards may
come again."

So Tawannears rolled himself into a position where he could bring his
strong teeth--the teeth of a barbarian, exempt from white man's
ills--to bear upon the girl's knotted wrists, triced in the small of
her back just above the hips.  And whilst he labored at the tough
hide thongs, Peter and I kept watch for the return of the adolescent.
Had he come we planned to give warning, and Kachina and Tawannears
would have resumed their customary attitudes but we saw no more of
him.  I think he and his friends were taking turns sneaking into the
village to listen outside the Council teepee to the debate of the
warriors on our fate, and this meant more work for those watching the
grazing horses.  For twice I heard the distant whinny of
Sunkawakan-kedeshka, evidently challenging my attention, and I
suspect it required one boy's vigilance to restrict his wanderings,
alone.

Time dragged slowly, and the Seneca's lips became slippery with blood
from his torn gums.  I took his place, and when I was worn out,
Peter's heavy jaws assumed the burden.  'Twas he wrenched the last
knot loose; but several moments passed before Kachina was able to
restore the circulation in her hands.  Then she unbound her ankles,
and without waiting to rub her feet back to life, fell to upon our
lashings.  In ten minutes we were all four free, crawling--we could
not have walked had we tried--toward the herd.

Our plan was simple.  It had to be.  We advanced until we could
descry the figures of two of the herd-guards against the faint
starlight, unkempt, naked striplings, lances wandlike in their right
hands.  On this, the village side, the task was easier, and so most
of the guards were on the flanks and opposite to our position.
Beyond the two guards was the restless mass of horses, some hundreds
of them, grazing, fighting, rolling, sleeping.

Tawannears and I stripped off our shirts and breeches, and so assumed
the general aspect of Comanche warriors, crawled back a short
distance and then ran forward openly, as though we were carrying a
message from the village.  The two guards heard the patter of our
moccasins and rode in to meet us, quite guileless, probably taking us
for certain of their comrades.  When they called to us, we answered
with grunts, puffing mightily.  They never suspected us.  I was
beside my man, had one hand on his thigh, before he guessed aught was
wrong, and as he opened his mouth to cry a warning I had him by the
throat and throttled the life out of him.  His cry was no more than a
gurgle in the night.  Tawannears was even more expeditious.

To our left we heard another pair of guards talking together.  They
may have detected the choked cry of the one I killed.  At any rate,
we could not afford to pause to establish a plan for meeting them.
Tawannears softly called up Kachina and Peter, and I rode into the
herd, whistling for Sunkawakan-kedeshka.  He answered me at once.  A
long-drawn-out whinny of delight, and he battered his way to my side
with flying hoofs.  I swung from the herd-guard's horse to his back,
and trotted over to my friends.

"Quick, brother!" hissed Tawannears.

He pointed at two mounted figures that loomed perilously close.  One
of them hailed at that moment, mistaking me for a brother guard.  I
growled something indistinct in my throat, and heaved Kachina up in
front of me, holding her in my arms and twisting my fingers in the
stallion's mane in place of reins.  He did not tremble under the
extra weight, only tossed his head and wickered--much to my
gratitude, for I was by no means sure how he would regard a double
load, and I could not leave the girl by herself, considering she had
never ridden before, nor to one of the others who were scarcely less
ignorant of horsemanship.

Tawannears and Peter climbed gingerly on the horses of the slain
guards, and we plunged into the center of the herd.

"_Ha-yah-yah-yaaaa-aaa-aa-ah-hhh-yeeee-eee-ee!_"

The war-whoop of the Long House split the silence of the night.  I
excited Sunkawakan-kedeshka to a frenzy.  Tawannears and Peter thrust
right and left with their captured lances.  Half-tamed at best, these
horses were restless of all restraint, and they reacted immediately
to the turmoil.  A shrill scream from the spotted stallion produced a
chorus of responses.  Mares fought to reach his side.  Other
stallions fought to keep them away.  The herd went wild.  Kicking,
biting, neighing, screaming, it smashed aside the efforts of the herd
guards to stop it and pelted southeast into the open prairie.

And in the midst of it my comrades swayed in their seats, in danger
at any instant of being knocked to the ground.  And Kachina and I
clung desperately to the bare back of the stallion, his great muscles
lifting him along at a stride which soon placed him in the fore of
the stampede.

I saw one boy go down in the path of the mad rush, he and his mount
trampled to a pulp.  Others rode wide, shouting the alarm.  The
village behind us rocked to the thunder of hoofs; a cry of dismay
rose to the stars that blinked in the dim vault overhead.  Then
teepees, herd-guards, warriors, trees and river were gone in the
darkness.  We were alone with our plunder on the prairie, all around
us tossing heads and manes, flirting hoofs, lean barrels stretched
close to the ground, tails flicking the grass-tips.

Mile after mile, the cavalcade pounded on, and I knew the discomforts
my comrades must be suffering.  But I could not stop.  Nobody could
have stopped that wild flight.  I doubt if I could have stopped the
spotted stallion in the first hour.  All I could do was to grip him
tight with my knees, cling to Kachina and pray he and his fellows
would pick fair ground in the darkness.

It was near dawn when I judged there was a chance of success to stay
the herd.  I began with the stallion, calming him, soothing his
nerves, and gradually, my influence extended to the horses
surrounding him, mostly his attendant mares, as well as a few colts.
No foals could have kept up with our rush.  In fact, we had been
dropping horses by the way for three hours or more.  Those that were
left were the hardiest, and their eyes were bloodshot, their flanks
wet with foam, their lungs bursting.  I slowed the troop to a canter,
to a trot, Tawannears and Peters seconding me as well as they could.
Finally, we pulled them to a walk, and induced them to graze.

I felt safe enough.  We had traveled at a terrible pace, and the
Comanche had no means of keeping up with us.  Also, we were all
exhausted, and I had designs for making use of our plunder which made
me unwilling to founder the herd.  So we sought shelter in a grove of
trees, driving in there the stallion's immediate following, and
permitting the other horses to graze at will, whilst we four slept
through the forenoon.

Upon awaking, we killed a colt for food, taking pains to dispatch him
in a part of the wood down-wind from his kind, and after eating I put
into effect the plan I had designed to cover our future trail.
Tawannears, Peter and I cut out of the ruck of the herd a score of
the choicest ponies, which we drove into the wood to join
Sunkawakan-kedeshka's cohort, guarded for the time being by Kachina.
And this being done, we chased the remainder south, frightening them
with bunches of burning grass.  If the Comanches or others picked up
our trail now they would be much more likely to follow the larger
body, as was evidenced by the area of hoof-prints, and we might
continue undisturbed upon our eastward journey, with a quantity of
superfluous horseflesh to trade for weapons or food, besides a
provision of mounts for ourselves to expedite our progress.

We left the grove at sunset and rode at a leisurely pace until the
stars told us it was midnight, camping in the open close to a rivulet
where there was ample grass and water for the horses.  The next day
we traveled as far as a second grove of trees on the banks of a
considerable stream, which we concluded was the river we had followed
eastward from the base of the Sky Mountains, and we made a halt of
two days here to rest the herd and determine in our minds what our
next step should be.  I was all for continuing as we were, but
Tawannears and Peter held that our wisest course was to cross the
river and head north to the Dakota country, where we should be among
friends and might be able to rely upon an escort to the Mississippi.
But, as usual, fate intervened, and relieved us of the burden of the
decision.

We were arguing back and forth on the afternoon of the second day,
the horses grazing in the confines of the grove under the supervision
of Kachina, who, with a little practice, had become as skilled a
herd-guard as a shepherdess of turkeys, when we were disturbed by a
call from her.  She beckoned us to the bluff above the river.

"Strange people over there," she said, pointing.

The stream here was not more than a hundred or two hundred yards wide
and in the clear air we could see the newcomers distinctly.  They
were plainly a returning war-party, travel-stained, badly cut-up, the
worse for their adventures.  Of sixty or more warriors within view
ten or a dozen bore evidence of wounds.  Their lances were broken.
Their buffalo-hide shields were cut and hacked.  But their horses
were in the saddest plight of all.  One lay down and died as we
looked.  Others could never move from where they stood.

Tawannears' eyes gleamed.

"Here is fresh favor from Hawenneyu," he exclaimed.

"How so!" I demanded.

"These people need horses.  We need arms.  We will make a trade with
them."

"They look like very bad people," objected Kachina.

And in all truth, they were an evil group of swart, thick-set,
cruel-visaged savages.

"No matter," asserted the Seneca.  "They are on the far side of the
stream from us.  We will see that they stay there until we have
finished our business with them.  Otetiani and Tawannears will ride
across and talk to their chief, and Gahano and Peter must move
briskly about the wood to appear a numerous band.  Lead the horses
around where they can be seen.  Call to one another.  Walk about
where they can see a part of you.  We shall fool them.  Their need is
bitter."

None of us was disposed to argue with him, for if the need of the
strange savages was bitter, ours was no less so.  We had two lances
wherewith to hunt and to defend ourselves, not even a knife amongst
the four of us.  Weapons we must have to dare traverse this
tremendous sweep of open country, roamed by the most predacious
Indians on the continent.

I whistled up the spotted stallion and one of his mares, and
Tawannears and I mounted and rose forth from the trees, making a
great play as we came into the open on the river bank of handing over
our lances and other dummy weapons to Peter, who straightway marched
back into the wood.  We also pretended to shout orders to different
points along the bank, and the Dutchman and Kachina whooped the
answers to us or responded with whistle-signals.  The band on the
opposite bank had dragged themselves to their feet, and stared
sullenly at us as we splashed into the shallows, and with upraised
arms signaling peace.

"They look much stouter than any tribe we have seen," I remarked.
"Why, they wear body-armor, cuirasses of buffalo-hide.  There is one
who has an arrow still sticking under his arm."

Tawannears frowned.

"Kachina was right," he said.  "These are bad people.  I remember
now.  They are the Tonkawa."*


* Literal meaning--"They-all-stay-together."


"Who are they!" I asked.

We were not yet within earshot of them as they clustered on the bank.

"Chatanskah often told Tawannears of them when I first dwelt with
Corlaer in his teepee years ago.  They are the scourge of the plains.
They have no home, but go wherever they please, hunting and killing.
Their hands are raised against all other people's.  They have no
allies, no brothers.  They make no treaties.  They never receive
ambassadors.  They are ravaging one year in the Spanish countries in
the South, or matching lances with the Apache; and the year after
they strike the Dakota or the Cheyenne.  They are like the wolf-pack.
They never abandon their prey, and you must kill all before they
abandon an attack.  Their favorite food is human flesh."

I shuddered, eying askance the bestial visages lowering on the bank,
faces as depraved, if more intelligent, than those of the Awataba.

"And we are to bargain with these!" I exclaimed.

"We must, brother.  They are great warriors.  If we yield to them
they will think we fear them, and they will pursue us.  Our horses
would be bait enough.  No, we have come so far, and we cannot draw
back.  We must carry it with a high hand.  Be bold.  Scowl at them.
Show contempt.  We have them at our mercy, but it is not convenient
for us to attack.  That is our position."

We kicked our horses up the slope of the bank, and drew rein in the
midst of the half-circle of Tonkawa warriors.  Not a weapon was
displayed, for that would have been a gross violation of Indian
etiquette, and even these freebooters respected the fundamental
precepts of the race to some extent.  But we were subtly made to feel
that every man there itched to twist his knife in our hearts.

I found myself drawing back my lips from my teeth in an animalistic
snarl of reciprocal hatred as Tawannears thrust out his two hands
with the forefingers crossed at right angles, the figure in the
universal sign-language for the desire to trade.  When a young
warrior tried to crowd his horse closer I touched Sunkawakan-kedeshka
with my heel, and the spotted stallion shoved the offender off the
bank.  The youngster scrambled up again, a murderous look on his
face, but the Tonkawa chief, a broad-shouldered giant of a man,
wearing the hide cuirass and a feathered helmet, spat out a guttural
order which curbed the tide of hatred.

"What do you want?" he demanded roughly in the broken jargon of
Comanche, which passed for the trade language of the plains.




CHAPTER XXII

OUR TRADE WITH THE TONKAWAS

"We hold this ford," replied Tawannears in the same dialect, speaking
with arrogant emphasis.  The two conducted their conversation after
the remarkable fashion of the Plains tribes, the basis of their
speech being such Comanche phrases as they had in common, pieced out
with Dakota, Pawnee, Arickara, Cheyenne and Siksika, and when they
were at a loss for a common vocal ground of understanding reverting
to the flexible sign-language, by which they never failed to convey
the most complicated meanings.

Occasionally one of the leading Tonkawa warriors would intervene with
a suggestion or a word if his chief seemed at a loss, but the debate
was mainly a two-man affair.

"Who are you?" returned the Tonkawa haughtily, yet impressed by our
swaggering manner.

"We are of no tribe," said Tawannears.  "We are outlaws and
fugitives.  We ravage all whom we meet."

"Not the Tonkawa," commented the chief, with what on a civilized face
I would have termed a grin of mild amusement.

"Yes, the Tonkawa, if they attempt to cross us," rejoined Tawannears.

"How many of the Taivo have you in your band?" inquired the Tonkawa,
changing the subject.

"We have many," Tawannears lied easily.  "This one you see with me is
an In-glees.  He is an exile from his people, a murderer.  We have
Franquis and Espanyas, Dakota and Shawnee, men of every tribe,
including some from beyond the Sky Mountains.  We have just raided a
Comanche village and run off their herd."

This statement created the sensation Tawannears intended it
should--for two reasons: the Comanches were enemies no tribe
despised, and the suggestion of unusual wealth in horseflesh appealed
to the special needs of the Tonkawa.

"That is well," answered the chief, with an evil smirk.  "We need
horses.  We will come over, and take yours."

Tawannears laughed.

"Come, Tonkawas," he invited.  "My young men are waiting for you
behind the trees.  They will shoot you down in the water, and those
who reach the land will be fresh meat for the axes of our women."

"You lie," said the Tonkawa.  "You are not so many as we."

"There are thirty warriors behind those trees," asserted Tawannears.
"How many of you would die before you had their scalps--or before
they fled?"

"We need horses," reiterated the chief.  "We are not afraid to die.
We are warriors.  We are Tonkawa."

A murmur of savage approval, like the growl of a wolf-pack, answered
him from his men.

"That is good hearing," said Tawannears lightly.  "But the Tonkawa do
not think straight.  There is a cloud over their eyes.  They say
their medicine is weak."

"Why?"

"The Comanche are pursuing my people.  They will be here soon,
following the tracks of our horses.  If we are here they will fight
us.  If you drive us away and capture the Comanches' horses, none the
less will they attack you.  How many of the Tonkawa would be left,
after fighting us, to meet the Comanches?"

The Tonkawa pondered.

"We need horses," he said for the third time.  "Give us what we
require, and we will go away without harming you."

Tawannears roared with laughter.

"They say the Tonkawa are men of blood," he answered, wiping the
tears from his eyes.  "But they are really men who play with mirth."

A growl of muffled rage came from the Tonkawa band.

"Why should two wolf-packs attack each other when the deer are thick
on every side?" Tawannears continued.  "It is as I say, the eyes of
the Tonkawa are filled with the blood from their wounds.  They cannot
see straight.  They do not understand that my people do not fear
them.  Do you think we should have ridden to meet you, giving warning
of our presence, if we had been in fear of you?  I tell you,
Tonkawas, you stand in more peril than we!"

This time there was no answering growl, and the Tonkawa chief
muttered briefly in council with several of his older warriors.

"Why do you come here, then?" he asked bluffly.

"To trade," was Tawannears' prompt response.

"What?  We are not traders.  You can see we carry only weapons.  We
have been on a mission of vengeance."  His voice swelled boastfully.
"The Kansas slew a small hunting-party of our people many moons ago.
Three sleeps back we burned their village, and filled our bellies
with their blood.  Their scalps hang on our lances."

It was true.  The Tonkawa lances were broidered from midway of their
shafts to the head with wisps of human hair of all lengths.

Tawannears nodded tranquilly.

"That is well," he said.  "It is the fashion of my band to slay all
who cross our trail.  If we had not something else in view we should
slay you."

The Tonkawa leaned forward in his pad-saddle, jaw menacing.

"Be careful or we test your boast!" he cried.

"You dare not," returned Tawannears casually.

And by the very gentleness with which he said it he carried
conviction.  The Tonkawa looked from him to the waving branches of
the wood on the other side of the stream.  It might conceal anything.
There were horses grazing here and there, and at frequent intervals a
figure showed between the trunks, never for long enough to supply
opportunity for identification.

"You say you come to trade," objected the Tonkawa.  "I have told you
we have nothing to trade--except scalps."

He grinned the insinuation that we were the kind of warriors who were
careless how we added to our tale of trophies.  Tawannears ignored
the gibe.

"Yet you have that which we require," replied the Seneca.

He pointed to the full quivers that hung at every warrior's back.

"Ho!" laughed the Tonkawa.  "So you are weaponless!"

"It is true," answered Tawannears as gently as he had spoken before,
"that we have shot away most of our arrows, but we have sufficient to
account for you.  Will you try us?"

"Why should we believe you?" derided the chief.  "Do the Tonkawa
trade like the Comanches?"

"What we seek is means to trade better with the Comanches," retorted
Tawannears, a shaft which drew grim chuckles from his hearers.

The Tonkawa, for all their debased habits and uncouth manners,
possessed the marked sense of humor which all Indians enjoy.

"How many horses will you trade?" asked the chief.

"How many do you need?" countered Tawannears.

The chief surveyed the depleted ranks of his band, and held up his
ten fingers and thumbs twice--twenty.

Tawannears shook his head.

"That is too many.  We do not require enough arrows to pay for them.
You would have to empty every quiver."

"You can trade us so many or we will come and take them," threatened
the chief.

Tawannears started to knee his horse around to return across the
river.

"Wait!" called the Tonkawa.  "We will give other weapons."

This was more than Tawannears really had expected--as he later
admitted--to maneuver the other side into enlarging the scope of the
trade.  He went through the form of a consultation with me, and then
asked:

"The Tonkawa make fine weapons.  That is said everywhere.  What will
you give for twenty horses?"

"Six quivers of arrows, two bows and a leather cuirass for yourself."

"It is not enough."  Tawannears rejected the offer decidedly.  "With
six quivers you must give six bows--and we will take four cuirasses
and ten knives and hatchets."

The Tonkawa scowled furiously.

"Would you leave us weaponless, too?" he howled.  "We will first come
and take what we require!"

I thought he was in earnest now, but when Tawannears repeated his
play of breaking off negotiations, it had the same effect as the
first time; and the upshot of it all was that we agreed to accept six
quivers, four bows, two cuirasses, and ten knives and eight hatchets.
This was more than we needed, of course, but we had to ask for so
much to carry out the pretense of our numbers.

After the terms of the trading had been arranged we came to the
question of the means of putting the deal into effect.  The Tonkawa
chief wanted us to drive the horses over to his side of the
river--having first suggested that his band come across and receive
their new mounts at the edge of the wood, in order to save us
trouble!--and receive the weapons there.  But Tawannears finally
engaged him to the stipulation that the trade was to be completed in
midstream, betwixt four persons on a side, the others of both sides,
as he put it, to retire out of arrow-shot from the banks.

This much accomplished we returned to our friends, rounded up twenty
head and brought them to the margin of the bank, Kachina and Peter
helping us to handle the herd.  The Tonkawa had observed the terms of
the agreement, in so far as the retirement of the main body a long
bow-shot from the bank; but the four waiting at the water's edge,
with the complement of arms, all carried their own weapons, and there
was some delay whilst Tawannears rode forward and demanded that they
throw down everything, except the goods intended for us.

This created a delay, and Kachina drew my attention to the sudden
darkening of the western sky.  The day had been murkily close, with a
sweating heat.  Now the sun was obscured by a haze, and in the west a
rampart of leaden-black clouds was heaping above the horizon, lapping
over like a series of gigantic waves that tumbled and struggled
amongst themselves, lashing out convulsively in long, inky streamers.
The air was soggy.  Not a breath was stirring.

"A storm is coming," she said.  "We must be quick."

"Yes," I agreed, "but we cannot take chances with these people.  They
are treacherous."

"The storm will be worse than the Tonkawa," she affirmed, shrugging
her shoulders.

I did not believe her, nor did I give a second thought to what she
had said.  My attention was confined to the four warriors with whom
Tawannears was arguing, and I attached far more importance to what
they did than to the approaching storm.  As a matter of fact, I was
correct in my suspicions, for subsequent events proved that they were
meditating a surprise assault upon us, planning to stampede the
horses to their side of the stream, and relying upon flight to save
them from the friends they still supposed us to have concealed in the
wood.

Tawannears spoke forcibly to the Tonkawa chief, who was one of the
four representatives of his side, and as Peter and I began to drive
the horses back toward the wood, he yielded.  The four, accompanied
by Tawannears, rode into the current, the trade-weapons wrapped in
three bundles, one carried by each of the chief's assistants.  We
turned the horses with some difficulty and met them half-way.  The
chief, I think, smelt a rat as soon as he realized Kachina to be a
woman.

"_Wah!_" he grunted.  "Cannot you send warriors to meet warriors?"

"The women who go with our band fight with our band," returned
Tawannears coolly.  "They sit with the warriors."

The Tonkawa eyed the wood behind us, and it must have occurred to him
that no other figures were in view.  But if he considered taking the
offensive at that juncture, he abandoned the idea when Peter rode up
beside him and clamped huge paws on two of the bundles of weapons.  I
took the third bundle and passed it to Kachina, intending to keep my
hands free for whatever might happen.  But the Tonkawa evidently
decided to run no unnecessary risks.  He and his men skilfully packed
the twenty horses together and herded them toward the northern bank.
We, on our part, headed south.

We had not reached the shore, when we heard the racket of hoofs and
looked back to see the remainder of the Tonkawa streaming down to the
bank, the weariest of their mounts flogged to the gallop, lances
brandished overhead.  Their chief, weaponless as he was, never
stopped to retrieve his arms from the northern bank, but put himself
at the head of his warriors as they stormed into the water.
Splashing, yelling, whooping, they shoved our herd before them, those
with failing ponies dropping off in the shallows to mount bare-backed
the first fresh horse they could catch.

"Run, brothers!" said Tawannears curtly.

With a blind thought for some such emergency, I had picked for our
mounts Sunkawakan-kedeshka and three of his mares.  The stallion
loved to run; his favorites, I knew, would exert every energy to keep
up with him.  The four fairly flew up the bank and out upon the
prairie.  We were a long mile in the lead when the first of the
Tonkawas straggled into sight.  They would capture the rest of the
herd in the wood, but we could not help that.  Our one purpose was to
place as much distance as possible betwixt us and that demon throng.

It grew darker and darker.  The afternoon was well advanced, but
sunset came late these Summer days.  The gloom was unnatural.
Objects showed distinctly in the gray light, and behind us was formed
a strangely vivid picture--a belt of open grass; then the low-lying
figures of our pursuers, their ponies stretching to the furious pace;
then the green bulwark of the trees; and over all the dense,
smoky-black canopy of the storm-clouds, arching nearer and nearer.
The sun was blanketed completely.  The last patch of blue sky
dwindled away in the east.  A low moaning sound made me wonder if the
shouts of the Tonkawa could carry so far.  Kachina turned in her
saddle and pointed.

"Look!" she cried.

We obeyed her.  The Tonkawa had stayed their pursuit.  They were
yanking their horses to a halt.  Some of them already were heading
back toward the wood.  The moaning sound grew louder.  The
cloud-curtain in the West stretched now from the prairie's floor to
the sky's zenith, sootily impenetrable.

"They fear the storm!" cried Kachina.

"It will be very wet," assented Tawannears.  "We must wrap up our new
bows."

"I tell you there is no need to think of bows," she exclaimed with
passionate eagerness.  "You have never seen one of these storms or
you would know how grave is our peril.  The wind blows the grass out
of the ground.  If it catches us in the open we shall be blown
over--horses and all.  I have seen them in the valley at Homolobi,
and out here it will be worse, much worse!"

"What are we to do?" I asked.

"We must have shelter."

Tawannears and I both laughed.

"The only shelter is in the wood we left," I exclaimed.

"We are fortunate to be out of it," she declared.  "Trees blow over.
No, we must find a hole, a depression in the ground, anything----"

"Dis way," interrupted Peter calmly.

He turned his horse clumsily to the left and led us down the steep
bank of a miniature rivulet, a tributary of the river beside which we
had been camping.  Under the bank we were out of sight of people on
the prairie, and at least partially protected from the storm.  At
Tawannears' suggestion, we wrapped our new weapons in our
clothing--what the Comanches had left us--and stowed them in a hole
in the bank.  Then, having done all that we could, we sat close
together on the ground, holding the horses' rawhide bridles.

The moaning had increased to a dull, vibrating roar, muffled and
vague.  Jagged splashes of lightning streaked the sky.  The air had
become chilly cold, and we shivered for want of the clothes we had
put aside.  There was a peculiar tension in the atmosphere.  The
horses sensed it.  They stamped nervously, jerked around at
unexpected noises.  The stallion whinnied at me, asking reassurance,
and I stroked his muzzle.

"It is long coming," said Tawannears.

"Yes," answered Kachina, "and when it is here we shall be fortunate
if we can breathe."

Suddenly, the moaning roar became a deafening scream; the blackness
mantled the earth like a garment, and we, huddled close to the
ground, felt the shock of a great arm sweeping just above our heads.
It was the wind.  There was no rain, but a shower of objects began to
fall against the opposite wall of the gulch.  Shapes, indistinct in
the mirk, crashed formless into the bed of the rivulet.  The horses
were frantic.  The stallion snatched back as something sailed past
him, and pulled me to my feet.  I felt as though a giant's hand had
clutched my neck.  I began to lift into the air, and knew I was being
sucked up.  The stallion broke free from me, but I still continued to
rise.  Then I was violently clutched by the ankles and hauled down to
earth.

Peter dragged me against the bank beside him.

"Stay down!" he bellowed in my ear.  "Der windt plows you away."

"But the stallion!"

"All der horses are gone.  Idt cannot be helped."




CHAPTER XXIII

MY ORENDA SAVES US

A lightning-bolt exploded with a crash, and a cold, purple radiance
briefly illuminated our surroundings.  The air was filled with trees,
wisps of grass, clods of earth.  The distorted bodies of a man and a
horse lay against the opposite bank of the depression--'twas they,
doubtless, had stampeded our mounts.  Apparently they had been hurled
there by some caprice of the wind.  I had a vision, too, of the
strained faces of my comrades--Peter's little eyes very wide,
Kachina's hair all tumbled about her face, Tawannears grimly
watchful.  Then darkness again, and the steady, monotonous roar of
the wind, no thing of puffs or gusts, but a stupendous, overpowering
blast of sheer strength that no living being could stand up to.

It was tricky and sly, ruthless and resourceful.  It dropped pebbles
and earth-clods on us.  It eddied in the depression and created
whirlpools which snatched at us lustfully.  And once there was a thud
overhead and a crumbling of the bank--and a large tree rolled down
upon us, the butt of the trunk missing Kachina by a hand's-breadth.
But this last attack was really a blessing in disguise, for presently
the rain came, and when the wind let up we were able to prop the tree
against the bank, and it furnished some slight shelter, stripped
though it was of leaves.

The rain was almost more terrible than the wind.  For a while,
indeed, the wind continued undiminished, lashing us with slanting
columns of water that struck like liquid lances, the drops spurting
up half a man's stature from the ground after the impact.  Then, as
the wind dropped, the rain came down perpendicularly, whipping our
naked bodies with icy rods.  A chill permeated the air.  We were so
cold that our teeth chattered.  And the cold and the rain and the
darkness continued, hour after hour.

How long it lasted I do not know, but I remember noting the lessening
of the downpour, its swishing away in the East and the frosty
twinkling of the stars.  We were all too exhausted to think of
anything except rest and we cowered beneath the tree-trunk, huddling
close for warmth, and somehow slept.  When we awoke the sun was
rising, and the air was fresh and clear.  The sky was cloudless and a
soft blue.  But all around us was strewn the wreckage of the storm.

The bodies of the man and horse the lightning-flash had revealed in
the night still lay in two heaps of broken bones and pounded flesh.
Three other horses, battered beyond recognition, were scattered along
the bank of the shallow ravine or river-bed.  Peering over the top of
the bank we discovered that broad patches of the prairie had been
denuded of grass, the underlying earth gouged up as though with a
plough.  The grove in which we had hidden was hacked and torn, an
open swath cut through it, many trees down, all more or less
mutilated.

Of the Tonkawas there was not a trace.  Whatever casualties they had
endured, plainly they had fled from so unlucky a spot; and that they
had suffered by the storm we were convinced by ascertaining that the
dead man the wind had blown into our hiding-place wore the hide
cuirass which distinguished these raiders.  Probably they had
continued upon their way south as soon as the rain abated
sufficiently.

Our horses had vanished with equal completeness.  The rain had washed
out hoof-prints, and we had no means of tracking them.  And I have
often reflected upon the oddity of circumstance in twice throwing the
spotted stallion in my path, only to separate us without warning
after he had fulfilled his mission.  I hope that Sunkawakan-kedeshka
and his mares escaped the storm, and that he lived out his life, free
and untamed, leading his herd upon the prairies.  But I do not know.
Destiny had its use for him.  He served his dumb turn--and passed on.

Yet I like to think--and it may be I have imbibed somewhat of the red
man's pagan philosophy from over-much dwelling in his society--that
in this shadowy after-world of spirits, in which both red man and
white profess belief, man shall find awaiting him the brave beasts
that loved him on earth.  There I may ride through the fields of
asphodels, gripping between my knees the spirit-form of that which
was Sunkawakan-kedeshka, feeling again the throb and strain of
willing muscles, curbing the patient, tireless energy as I used to,
watching the velvet ear that ever switched back for a kind word or
drooped at a rebuke.  But I dream--as old men must.

Consider now our plight.  We who had been lately so harried by fate
were once more exposed to its whimsies.  But recently prisoners, next
free but weaponless, we were today at liberty and armed, but the
horses upon which we had relied to expedite our passage of the plains
were gone.  Also, we required food for we had not eaten since noon of
the day previous.  Our nakedness I do not emphasize because
Tawannears was an Indian and accustomed to it, and Peter and I had
been habituated to it by years of exposure.  For Kachina we had saved
enough clothing to cover her, although she resented the distinction,
and was as ready to bear her share of hardship as any of us.

Our food problem was solved temporarily by Peter, who insisted, and
proved to our satisfaction that the flesh of the horses killed by the
storm was still perfectly good.  We ate it without avidity, tough,
stringy meat, and sodden with moisture, but it sustained us for new
efforts.

Having unburied our cache of weapons, we examined them carefully and
were able to equip ourselves anew, Peter carrying the two extra
quivers of arrows at his own insistence.  The two hide cuirasses,
cumbrous garments of the thick neck-hide of the buffalo slowly dried
by fire, we discarded as being too hot and confining and stinking of
their former wearers.  We likewise threw into the bed of the rivulet
those knives and tomahawks for which we had no use, retaining four of
each, of very fine Spanish steel, which the Tonkawas must have traded
or ravaged from the Apache or other Southern tribes.

We were none of us disposed to continue eating horse-meat and we were
all anxious to get as far as possible from a country which had been
so singularly prolific in misfortune for us.  So as soon as we had
tested our bows and drunk deep of the brown stream that foamed along
the gulch, we set out northeastward, aiming to work back to the river
we had been following ever since we quit the Eastern skirts of the
Sky Mountains.  We were governed in adopting this course by the same
reasons which had influenced us before: we were afraid to venture
away from water, we were more likely to find game near a river, and
finally, it served as a guide to us in threading this pathless
territory.  To be sure, as we had proved already, there was more
danger of meeting savages adjacent to a considerable river; but that
was a risk we had to take.  We were resolved to be doubly vigilant
after our experiences with the Comanches and Tonkawas.

For three days we paralleled the river, pitching our course several
miles to the south of it and approaching its banks only when we were
driven to do so by need of water.  During this time we fed on hares
and a small animal which lived in multitudes in burrows under the
prairies, besides a few fish which Tawannears caught in the river,
employing a bone-hook he fashioned himself and a string of rawhide
from Kachina's shirt.  We saw no other men or large animals, and the
country gave every indication of having been swept bare by the storm.

On the fourth day we began to sight buffalo, and supped to
satisfaction on the luscious hump of a young cow Tawannears shot,
overjoyed at this welcome change in our diet.  But the buffalo were
the cause of our undoing.  The small scattered herds that we first
met were the usual advance-guards of an enormous army, grazing its
way northward, and in order not to be delayed by its slow progress we
crossed the river to the North bank and hurried east, intending to
loop the front of the main herd.  This we succeeded in doing, and
then decided to remain on that side of the river, inasmuch as we knew
we must be far south of the point at which we sought to strike the
Mississippi, and ought really to be heading rather north of east.

'Twas this move which brought fresh trouble upon us, albeit conducing
in the long run to our salvation.  Had we remained on the south bank,
we might have run the gauntlet of enemies by other means, but this
story must have been shaped differently--additional evidence of the
immutable determination of Destiny to govern the issue of our lives.
And had we not been blinded by our desire for haste and the isolation
we had found in the track of the storm we should have realized that
the approach of so large a herd would be a bait for the first tribe
whose scouts marked it down.  But we were blinded--by accident or
Destiny, as you please.

As I have said, we pushed on north of the river, adhering to our
former plan of keeping out of sight of its channel, and scouting
carefully the ground ahead.  We never gave a thought to what was
behind us, and were paralyzed when Kachina, idly surveying the
country from the summit of one of the long, easy swells which broke
the monotony of the level plains, caught Tawannears by the arm and
pointed westward, too surprised for words, fear and amazement
struggling in her face.

It was the middle of the forenoon, a warm, bright Summer day, yet not
warm enough to bring up the dancing heat-haze which played strange
tricks with vision in these vast open spaces.  The next swell behind
us was some two or three miles distant, and over its crest were
galloping a string of tiny figures--horsemen with waving lances and
glaring white shields.  We were as distinct to them as they were to
us, and the fact that they gave no special sign of exultation at
seeing us was proof sufficient that they had been following us for
some time.  They were trailing us, scores of them, ay, hundreds, as
they poured over the crest of the swell in a colorful, barbaric
stream of martial vigor--and they could travel three feet to our one.
Of course, they had picked up our trail in riding down to the river
to meet the buffalo herd, and had followed it with the insatiable
curiosity and rapacious instinct of their race.

So much we reasoned in the first second of discovery.  We wasted no
time in conversation, but dodged below the crest of the swell and ran
at top-speed for the river as offering the nearest available cover
under its banks.  But the wily savages behind us divined our plan,
and when, after we had traveled a mile, Tawannears reconnoitered
their positions, it was to learn that they had detached a troop to
ride diagonally up the slope of the swell and so cut us off from our
goal.  Two hundred of them were abreast of us at that moment less
than a mile away.

Tawannears halted.

"'Tis useless," he said brusquely.  "We shall wind ourselves to no
purpose.  All that is left for us is to sell our lives dearly."

He turned his face skyward and appealed to his gods as a warrior and
an equal.

"Oh, Hawenneyu," he exclaimed, "and you, too, of the Honochenokeh,
have you permitted Tawannears to escape all these perils, to obtain
his Lost Soul, and abandoned him at the end to Hanegoategeh?  See,
Tawannears calls upon you for aid.  And upon you of the Deohako,
Three Sisters of Sustenance, Our Supporters!  Tawannears calls upon
you by right.

"Will you desert him when he has toiled and suffered so?  Will you
desert his white brothers who have been loyal through dangers no men
ever dared before?  Will you desert the Lost Soul who has been true
to him in death, who returns with him from the land beyond the
sunset, she who has traversed the Halls of Haniskaonogeh, the
Dwelling-place of Evil, she who has passed with us through the lodge
of Gaoh, lord of the winds, she who has defied Hanegoategeh?

"Oh, Tharon the Sky-holder, Tawannears calls upon you to uphold him!
But if death must come, then, oh, Hawenneyu, let Tawannears and his
Lost Soul die together!  Let the white brothers go with us to the
Halls of the Honochenokeh!  Let us take with us the spirits of many
warriors!  Grant us a good death, oh, Hawenneyu!"

I am a Christian, but I thrilled to that prayer, and I called
out--"_Yo-hay!_" after the manner of the People of the Long House.

Kachina notched an arrow, and loosed it into the air.

"Whatever the gods say, we fight!" she said.  "We fight where the
arrow falls."

It quivered into the sod a hundred yards in front of us just under
the crest of the swell.

"_Ja_, dot's as goodt a place as any," Peter agreed equably.  "Andt
now we fight, eh?"

We trotted up to the arrow and clustered around it as the flanking
party of the attackers galloped over the crest between us and the
river.  They whooped their delight upon seeing they had headed us,
and a warrior commenced to ride his pony in furious circles to signal
the main body they had us at bay, whilst the rest raced back to
engage us.  In five minutes they had strung a ring and were drawing
in closer and closer toward bowshot distance.

Of all the tribes we had seen these men were the handsomest and most
imposing.  Tall, broad-shouldered, their bronze bodies shining with
grease, they sat their pad-saddles, stirrupless, as though they were
part of the horses under them.  Their heads were shaven, except for a
narrow ridge from forehead to scalplock, which was stiffened with
paint and grease until it stood erect in semblance of a horn.  Their
faces were fierce, but intelligent.  They proved their reckless valor
by the way they overwhelmed us.

As bowmen they had no rivals.  We opened upon them as soon as we
thought we had a faint chance of driving a shaft or two home; but
they, clinging to their horses, shooting sometimes from the opposite
sides or even from under their bellies, encumbered, too, with lance
and shield, were able to send in shaft for shaft, which we avoided
only by rapidly shifting our ground.  We saw at once that in an
arrow-duel we stood no chance, and as they did not seem anxious to
force conclusions immediately, at Tawannears' suggestion we suspended
our fire.  They promptly desisted from their attack, their restless
circle hovering round and round us, ready to smother any attempt at
escape.

"Why do they wait?" cried Kachina.  "They surely do not fear us!"

"Not they!" retorted Tawannears.  "These people are great warriors."

"Who are they?" I asked.

"Tawannears never saw them before, brother."

"Here comes der chief," spoke up Peter.

With hundreds of deep voices chanting rhythmically, a mighty
cavalcade came slowly over the summit of the swell, rank on rank of
horsemen, the sunlight glinting on the white or painted surfaces of
their shields, a forest of feathered lances standing above the
horn-like headdresses.  Leading them all was a warrior taller than
the tallest, his chest arched like a demi-cask, the muscles playing
on his huge shoulders as he controlled his mettlesome white horse.
His face was as gravely handsome as Tawannears'; with a high forehead
and a jutting, beaked nose; but his eyes were the fierce, watchful
eyes of a savage, and his mouth was a cruel, thin line.

"A t'ousandt men!" gasped Peter.

The warriors in the circle around us reined in their horses, tossed
their lances aloft and joined their voices in the booming chant of
their brethren.  Two of them quirted out of the line and raced up to
the chief on the white horse to report.  We could see their animated
gestures, the frequency with which they pointed at us.  The chief
raised his hand, the chant was stilled, and he rode through the
circle, attended by the two messengers, or sub-chiefs, and halted
within hail of us.

Tawannears strode forward to meet him, and I marveled at the
assurance the Seneca conveyed in his attitude.  It was as if he were
backed by the whole force of the keepers of the Western Door.

"Who are you?" he demanded in the tone of one who holds power,
speaking in the same mingled dialect of Comanche and Dakota he had
used with the Tonkawas.

The chief on the white horse was manifestly amazed at Tawannears'
assurance, but he replied quietly in the same tongue:

"They say I am Awa, war-chief of the Chahiksichahiks.* Who are you
who walk on the ground with white men?"


* Men-of-men, the real name of the Pawnee, the latter name, meaning
Horn-wearers, being their designation by other tribes.


"They call me Tawannears, warden of the Western Door of the Long
House, war-chief of the Hodenosaunee," Tawannears shot back.

"Tawannears is many moons' journey from his teepee," rejoined Awa.
"He did not come to our village and ask permission to cross our
country."

"Why should a chief of the Long House ask permission to go on the
Great Spirit's business?" returned Tawannears.  "We have done your
people no harm."

"If that is so," said the chief on the white horse, "render up to my
people the maiden who is with you, and you may go free."

"Why?" asked Tawannears, bewildered.

"Every Summer Tirawa, the Old One in the Sky, sends my people a maid
for a sacrifice.  They say the maid with you comes to die on the
scaffold under the morning star."

"They say lies," answered Tawannears with passion.  "You shall not
have her alive.  She is holy."

Awa's reply was a gesture with his hand and a shouted order in his
own language.  A hundred warriors slipped from their horses in the
first rank of the array outside the circle, dropped lances, shields
and bows and ran toward us.

Tawannears, his face a mask of fury, ripped an arrow from his quiver
and drove it at Awa's chest; but the chief on the white horse calmly
interposed his shield and stopped it neatly, and the charge of
warriors on foot compelled the Seneca to run back to us.  We, who had
understood practically nothing of the dialogue which had passed, were
uncertain what the situation meant.  Tawannears, himself, was at a
loss.

"Fight," he shouted hoarsely.  "We must not be captured."

We loosed arrows as rapidly as we could draw from quivers and notch
them.  'Twas impossible to miss at that point-blank range, and we
killed a dozen men before they came to hand-grips.  Then we used
knife and hatchet, Kachina as remorselessly as the rest of us, our
assailants, evidently under Awa's orders, scrupulously refraining
from drawing a weapon, lest they harm the girl who was destined for
the sacrifice.

Back to back, striving to protect Kachina, we fought like wolves in
famine-time, our arms aching from slaughter, but the Pawnee would not
give in.  They dived betwixt the legs of their comrades who were
grappling barehanded against our knives, and so pulled us down.
Peter was last to go, a dozen men clinging to his limbs.  Kachina,
biting at her captors, was led struggling from the heap of bodies.
We others were jerked to our feet, arms pinioned and dragged after
her.

The Pawnee horsemen crowded around us and the men we had killed.  The
chief on the white horse stared with satisfaction at Kachina's lithe
body, hardly covered by the rags of her garments, and grinned
amusement when she spat at him, trying to plant her teeth in the arm
of one of the men who restrained her.  He turned from her to the
panting, bleeding warriors who held us, and to the pile of dead
around the arrow Kachina had shot into the air.  It stood there yet,
hub of an ill-omened wheel of corpses, its feathers ruffling in the
breeze.  It seemed to fascinate him.  His grin became a frown.

"You have made me pay a price for the girl," he said to Tawannears.
"That is well.  The Pawnee are not afraid to pay what Tirawa asks.
But you shall pay now a price to me."

He drew his own bow from its case, and selected a shaft from the
quiver at his side, notched it and aimed it at my chest.

"Awa will shoot you, one by one," he announced.  "Afterward your
hearts shall be cut out, and we will make strong medicine with them.
This white man shall die first."

I had no more than time to smile at Tawannears and Peter when he
pulled the bow-string taut and loosed.  I had braced myself for the
shock, knowing the shaft at that range must go clean through me.  And
certes, the blow was all that I had expected.  I staggered before it.
Had it not been for the warriors who held my arms I must have fallen
backward.

Involuntarily I had shut my eyes.  I opened them again, expecting to
be in another world, marveling that the pain of an arrow in my vitals
was no worse than a smart rap upon the chest.  Around me I heard a
gusty sigh, the sound made by many people expelling their breath.  I
looked down, wondering if I could still see myself, if the blood
would be spurting or trickling.

But I could find no wound.  There was no arrow, no mark, no blood.  I
felt the savage holding my left arm sag strangely and turned to him.
His face was gray, his eyes glazing.  The arrow which had struck me
was projecting from his side, buried half-way to the head.  He
collapsed as I looked at him.

There was an audible gasp from the ranks of horsemen.  I found Awa's
face in the throng, and noted that it was almost as ashen as that of
the dying man beside me.  The chief held the bow stiffly in his left
band, right arm crooked as when he had loosed.

Tawannears laughed harshly.

"Strong medicine Awa has made!" he mocked.  "He shot at my white
brother an arm's-length away, and my brother turned the arrow against
the great chief's warrior.  Will Awa try again?  Shall we make more
medicine for him?"

Awa's arm was trembling as he returned the bow to its case.

"Your white brother has strong medicine," he admitted.  "We will
carry you all to our village, and our medicine-men shall try their
magic upon you.  Awa is a war-chief, not a maker of magic."

"We are both warriors and medicine-men!" Tawannears derided him
mercilessly.  "Shall we make trial of our medicine again?"

Awa abruptly reined his horse about, shouted an order and clattered
off at the head of his cavalcade.  Our guards first bound our arms
loosely behind us, then tied strips of rawhide betwixt us and
themselves, one on either side, and mounted us upon ponies.  Thus
each of us was tied to a pair of the Pawnee.

I called to Tawannears as he was led by me.

"What happened?  My eyes were shut.  I----"

"Your Orenda is powerful, brother," he replied seriously.  "It has
spread its hand over our heads.  Hawenneyu has used it to answer the
prayer of Tawannears."

I was no less puzzled by this, but Peter cackled shrilly.

"Look adt your chest," he squeaked.

I bent my head.  My chest was bare, unscarred.  All it showed was the
little deerskin pouch Guanaea had hung around my neck by a thong the
day we left Deonundagaa, which had stayed by me through all our
adventures.  No Indian would have dreamed of taking it from me, for
it contained my medicine, and the possibilities for evil inherent in
interference with another man's medicine were boundless.

I regarded the pouch idly, my mind occupied with the thought that it
was practically the only possession with which I had started upon our
journey that was still with me--and I was startled to see a slit in
its front.  I looked at it more closely.  Yes, there was a slit, such
a slit as an arrow-head might make.

What had Tawannears said?

"Your Orenda is powerful, brother."

And what had Guanaea said in hanging it there?

"That will protect you against all evils!  A most powerful Orenda!  I
had it made by Hineogetah, the Medicine Man."

But that was ridiculous, I told myself!  I had worn it to please
Guanaea, and because her forethought had touched me.  But was that a
reason for subscribing to gross superstition?  This fetched me around
to my starting-point.  The fact remained that the bag had stopped an
arrow.  How?  My mind cast back for further aid, and memory came to
my rescue.

What had it contained?

"The fangs of a bull rattlesnake.  That is the spirit to resist evil.
The eye-tooth of a wolf.  That is the spirit to resist courage."

The eye-tooth of a wolf!  That had done it.  I wiggled my
chest-muscles and felt the protuberance under the draw-string--and
beneath it a certain soreness.  The arrow had driven head-on into the
tooth and been diverted sideways into the warrior on my left.  So
mysterious as this are the wonders of Providence--or Destiny--or an
Iroquois medicine man?




CHAPTER XXI

A PROPHET IN SPITE OF HIMSELF

During the afternoon of the fifth day of hard riding our guards
fetched us from the midst of the column to a position next to Awa.
The chief had recovered somewhat from his bedazed wonder--no doubt he
had half-expected me to continue working miracles--and regarded us
with saturnine satisfaction.

"Soon we shall enter the villages of our people," he announced,
swinging his arm toward the prairie in front of us.  "The
medicine-men of the Chahiksichahiks then will make trial of the white
man's medicine--and we will build a scaffold for the red maiden to
lie upon when she weds the morning star."

"That is to be seen," returned Tawannears with undisturbed arrogance.
"A voice has whispered in my ear that the Great Spirit has other
plans.  It says there will be misfortune for the Horn-wearers if the
red maiden is sacrificed."

Awa scowled.

"We shall see," he agreed.

Feathered lances bobbing overhead, our great escort of savage
horsemen cantered out of a shallow gulley onto the bank of a sizeable
river.  A mile or so east and well back from high-water mark began a
series of low, hump-backed mounds, which I took to be natural
features of the terrain.  But as we came nearer people popped out of
them, and we perceived that they were houses, partly dug out of the
ground and roofed and walled with sods, commodious dwellings, larger
than the largest of teepees and invariably round in shape.

The people who met us were old men and women, with an occasional
young child of toddling age or under.  Awa barked a question to the
first group, and one of the old men quavered an answer, gesturing
down-river, where the sod-covered earth-houses reached as far as we
could see.  With a nod of acknowledgment, the chief heeled his horse
to a gallop, and we rode on at speed along a rough trail that led
betwixt houses and river-bank.  Beyond the houses were simple
gardens, and in rear of these horses grazed.  Dogs ran out of many
houses and barked at us.  But nowhere did we see a man or woman in
the prime of life or a half-grown child.

The mystery of the deserted village--or, rather, succession of
villages--was settled after we had ridden another three miles, when
an enormous crowd of savages appeared in an open space in the center
of the largest collection of earth-houses.  There must have been ten
or twelve thousand people clustered together, men, women and
children, all deeply interested in some proceeding which we could not
see at first.  But the thudding of the hoofs of Awa's band attracted
their attention, and they opened their ranks for us, so that our
column passed through the outskirts of the throng and came to a halt
on the verge of a circle of hard-trodden clay, perhaps a hundred feet
across.

In the center of this space stood a fire-charred stump of wood, and
lashed to it with strips of green hide was the black-garbed figure of
a man whose dead-white face brought a gasp of astonishment from my
lips.  'Twas Black Robe, Père Hyacinthe, the Jesuit, whom we had last
seen the day he insisted upon leaving us on the western bank of the
Mississippi, striding alone into the unknown wastes ahead!

His ankles were hobbled loosely and bound to the base of the stump.
His hands, knotted behind his back, were likewise fastened to it.  He
could move a foot or so in either direction, and six feet away from
him a party of warriors were building a pile of light-wood, which had
reached the height of his knees when our arrival distracted them from
their labors.

His soutane was the same rusty, torn garment he had worn three years
before.  His sandals were patched and worn.  His gaunt figure
testified, as always, to the ceaseless toil and deprivation to which
he subjected himself.  His emaciated features shone with the
radiation of some inward light, and his face, with eyes closed, was
upturned in prayer.  Certes, no man could have been in worse case,
yet his racked body contrived to express an ecstasy of joy beyond all
words.  Indeed, his utter lack of fear, the otherworldliness of his
devotion, had already sapped the savage energy of his would-be
tormentors.  They were not used to seeing a man face the prospect of
torture without boasting or exultation, with no more than the calm
disdain of a courage higher than any emotion they knew.

I was not alone in my surprise.  Tawannears clicked his tongue.
Peter muttered--

"Der Jesuit!"

Kachina remarked with interest--

"Another white man!"

And Awa was as dumfounded as ourselves.  He shouted a question, and a
knot of gorgeously-decorated chiefs and medicine-men detached
themselves from the front rank of the onlookers and clustered about
his horse, pointing at us, their eyes fairly popping from their
heads.  Evidently, they, too, were surprised--and that was not
strange, for 'twas seldom these wild horsemen of the plains saw three
white men at once, or so I reasoned.

"The Great Spirit's ways are difficult to follow," commented
Tawannears.  "He has carried us again along Black Robe's trail."

"Awa will see in his capture an excuse for daring to disregard my
Orenda," I said pessimistically.

"_Nein, nein,_" squeaked Corlaer.  "All is not well wit' der Pawnee.
See how dey boggle andt chaw togedder."

'Twas so.  Awa's face was a mingling of baffled rage, hysterical
superstition and credulous awe.  His gaze shifted rapidly from us to
the figure of Black Robe, eyes still closed, lips murmuring in silent
prayer.  The medicine-men and chiefs who had swarmed up to the
war-chief were staring at us with expressions akin to fear.  Awa
suddenly spat out an ejaculation, and pushed his horse beside us.  We
four were now the focal object of the crowd's attention.

"Whence did you say you have come?" he demanded of Tawannears in the
polyglot trade dialect.

"From beyond the setting sun," Tawannears replied gravely.  "I have
been to the Land of Lost Souls, and there I found this maiden who
loved me once before on earth and is come back with me to reënter my
lodge."

"But this Taivo, this white man?"  Awa leveled his finger at me.

"He, too, has come with me from the land beyond the sunset."

Awa spoke rapidly in the Pawnee tongue, and one of the medicine-men,
a brightly painted, elderly man with wrinkled face, took up the
conversation in Comanche.

"It was foretold by the white man at the stake that you would come,"
he began.

"That is likely," admitted Tawannears, unperturbed.

"He told us," continued the medicine-man, with a fearful look over
his shoulder at that black figure bound to the tree-stump, "that he
served a God who would come to us from the sky, and when we asked him
if he meant Tirawa, the Old One in the Skies, he said no.  But when
we asked if this new God would come from the sunset he said it might
be, that He would come in a great blaze of glory, with power to bend
all to His will.  Is this Taivo at your side the God of whom the
first white stranger spoke?"

Tawannears turned and translated swiftly the gist of this to me.

"Say that we come to herald the coming of that God," I directed him.
"Even as the white man at the stake came to tell the Chahiksichahiks
that we should come to them from the setting sun."

The medicine-man and his fellows, even the fierce Awa, heard this
announcement with growing awe.

"For a sign," added Tawannears, "the Taivo, who permits me to call
him brother, and who is attended by the great white warrior who has
the strength of many buffalo showed Awa, the war-chief, how he could
turn aside arrows and direct them against his enemies.  Let Awa speak
for me!"

The war-chief admitted the fact, no longer surly, but agitated by a
sense of the prestige attaching to him as a principal participant in
a miracle transcending any like event his people had ever known.

"But what of the maiden?" he urged practically.  "Surely, Tirawa
directed you to bring her here for the sacrifice?"

"The maiden is holy," replied Tawannears.  "She has paid the price of
life here on earth.  She comes, as has been said, from the Land of
Lost Souls.  Would Tirawa ask for the sacrifice of one who had
descended from his own lodge?"

The medicine-man interjected fierce dissent, and Awa's arguments were
stilled.

"Make them release Black Robe," I suggested as Tawannears repeated to
me what had been said.

A hush, as complete as the quietness of universal death, had
descended upon these thousands of savages, whose glances turned from
us, bound and helpless as we were, to the equally straitened figure
of the Jesuit against the torture-stake.

"No," retorted the Seneca with a hint of humor, "but first, brother,
we must make them release us."

He fastened his eyes upon Awa.

"For many sleeps we have endured the treatment Awa's ignorance led
him to impose upon us," he declared.  "We have been loath to slay any
more of his people.  We came hither to serve the Chahiksichahiks, to
assure them of Tirawa's favor.  But the time is arrived when we must
know if we are to receive the respect due to Tirawa's messengers.
Shall we burst our bonds--and in doing so slay this multitude--or
will you do us honor?"

The medicine-man leaped forward, and slashed off our bonds.  There
were beads of perspiration on his brow.  Awa, magnificent savage that
he was, looked away from us, but I saw that his sinewy hands were
shaking as they clutched his horse's bridle.

"It is well," said Tawannears.  "Give my white brother, the
Messenger, the knife, and he will free the Fore-goer, who has stood
quietly at the torture-stake, holding back the wrath of Tirawa by the
pleas that came from his lips."

The medicine-man offered me the knife.

"But must a messenger of Tirawa have a knife to cut hide thongs?" he
inquired, curious as a child.

"No," answered Tawannears, "but if the power of Tirawa is used, the
power of the thunder and the lightning which shakes the world, who
shall say what harm may come?  The Chahiksichahiks have been fools.
Let them be satisfied with what has happened.  If they are wise they
will possess the favor of Tirawa.  If they continue to be foolish
Tirawa will wipe them out here on this spot!"

He raised his arm in a menacing gesture, and chiefs and medicine-men
cowered before him.

"No, no," pleaded the medicine-man.  "We have seen enough.  Release
the Black One with the thin face.  We did not understand him.  He
spoke to us after the manner of the Comanche and the Dakota, telling
us, as we thought, that our gods were not, that we must worship this
one he spoke of.  We did not understand him, that waft all.  We were
ignorant, but we meant no harm."

Tawannears shrugged his shoulders.

"That is to be decided," he said.  "The Taivo will consult with Black
Robe, and afterwards will speak through me.  It is for him to decide."

I strode into the empty circle of people and walked slowly, so as not
to seem undignified, up to the stake, stepping across the material
for the fire which would now be roasting the priest but for our
unexpected arrival, and the conjunction of circumstances it had set
in train.  The fire-makers had gone.  There was nobody inside the
circle except Black Robe and myself, and he stood yet, with his eyes
shut, a trickle of Latin pattering from his lips.

For a moment I was shocked by the traces of suffering in that haggard
face, the skin tight-drawn over the prominent bones, the cavernous
eye-holes so shadowed, the deep lines graven in the pallid cheeks.  I
seemed to see in retrospect the labors he must have achieved in the
years since we had parted.  Who could imagine how far he had
wandered, the hardships and suffering he had borne without the
assistance of a single comforter of his own color?  And this thought
enabled me to envision as never before the ardent flame that was the
driving force of his life, the ardent devotion to a creed which
ignored every other consideration save that of the service to which
he had dedicated himself.  I warmed to him in that moment, forgetting
ancient animus, brushing aside the barrier of hostile race and
religion.

"Père Hyacinthe!" I said softly in French.

He did not open his eyes, but his lips ceased the Latin exhortations.

"I dream!" he exclaimed to himself, in that humble tone I had
observed on a previous occasion when he forgot himself and his stern
rôle and lapsed into some gentler habitude of the past.

"Was that Gaston's voice?  So, I remember, he crept upon me as I read
in the garden at Morbouil!  Dear olden days!  Their memory comes so
seldom.  So little time left for the work to be done.  Ah, Jesus, the
task is heavy--heavy----"

He opened his eyes, peered into mine.

"You!" he gasped.

"Yes, 'tis I, Father--Henry Ormerod!"

"My enemy!  France's enemy!"

"Not your enemy!  And never France's unless she wills it.  I am come
here to save you."

"How may that be?" he asked dumbly.  "Are you alone amongst these
savages?"

"Alone with my friends whom you know--and one woman."

"Then you cannot help me," he answered decisively.  "You had best
leave me, if you can.  These people are the most independent of all
the tribes.  They fear naught save their own superstitions.  And
heretic though you be, I cannot wish you the death they plan for me."

"Yet you have not been moved by pity for me in the same case in
former years," I said curiously.

He sighed.

"The truth is hard to see.  I do not know.  I have thought----  But I
do not know."

I cut the lashings of his arms, stooped and freed his legs.  Not a
soul spoke.  Amazement dawned in his face that was somehow more
placid than I remembered having seen it.

"You see!" I said.  "They gave me the knife to cut you free."

"Marvelous!" he murmured.

And he employed his first instant of freedom to reach down stiffly
with his cramped arm and lift to his lips the crucifix which hung at
his belt.

"How have you curbed them?" he asked--and he was yet governed by that
mood of gentle humility, which was seldom of long continuance.

"I think, Father, it has been through God's mercy," I answered.  "But
judge for yourself."

And I repeated to him, briefly, what had transpired since Awa proudly
led his warriors into the circle around the torture-stake.  A frown
clouded the Jesuit's eyes, mouth formed a grim, hard line.

"What blasphemy is this?" he interrupted.  "Man, would you mock the
authority of heaven?  You are no more messengers of the divine will
than these savages themselves!"

"How can you be sure!" I asked.

"How can I----"

He paused abruptly, frowning in thought.

"Is it coincidence," I continued quickly, "that when you climbed the
Mississippi bluff I would not let my companions kill you, as they
desired--and for the matter of that, is it coincidence that once
before the time of which I speak, I saved you from them, ay, and from
the wrath of the Long House?  Is it coincidence that we were the
means of your passing the Mississippi, and that now we and you, alike
in danger of death, are saved by the interlinking facts of our
separate captivities!

"Ponder it, Père Hyacinthe!  Where does coincidence begin and
Providence end?  Are you so wise that you can say what Heaven
intends?  Can you afford to throw away the life that has been
returned to you?  Have you the right to sacrifice four other people's
lives?  How do you know that what has happened today was not for the
purpose of giving you another opportunity to preach your creed?"

He hesitated, head bowed.

"Go!" I said, honestly stirred.  "Say what you please!  I could stop
you, but I will not take the responsibility of interfering with
another man's sense of honor.  I will leave with you the lives of my
comrades."

He looked at me, puzzled, uncertain.

"I do not know," he repeated, "It seems different.  You are a
heretic, yet--I do not know.  God's wonders strange--I do not know---"

"Who does?" I asked,

He shook his head.

"I used to be sure," he said, more to himself than to me.  "But--I do
not know.  I was reconciled to death.  I had no fear of the torment.
I hoped to move these people at the end.  And now you say that they
respect me, that I am free, I may do as I will."

"Yes."

"It is too much for me to decide, Monsieur Ormerod.  Perhaps I grow
weak.  Well, we shall see.  But I think it is as you say!  I have
been given a second opportunity to woo them for Christ.  God's
wonders--how strange!  How impossible to comprehend!  And you a
heretic, the companion of a savage!  It baffles me."

He paused suddenly.

"You spoke to me first?" he questioned.  "There was--no other?"

"None."

"Strange!" he muttered to himself again.  "Gaston--I thought I
heard--the garden at Morbouil!  Ah, Maman, Maman!  So many, many
years!"




CHAPTER XXV

HOMEWARD

To my surprise, Black Robe expressed a desire to accompany us on our
continued journey East.

"I have said all that I have to say concerning what you have told
these people about me," he said simply.  "But I am sure I should lose
favor in God's sight were I to continue my mission on the strength of
the heathen superstitions you have aroused."

I pointed out to him that he would probably be exposed to additional
dangers in our company after we had crossed the Mississippi.

"Say, instead, that you will not be exposed to so many dangers if I
am with you, Monsieur Ormerod," he answered.  "'Tis necessary for my
soul's good, as I now realize, that I should return and seek the
discipline of my superiors.  I have wandered too long alone.  My
pride hath been unduly stirred.  In my heart I have flouted the rules
of my order.  It is best that I should go to Quebec, and submit to
the punishment my sins require."

"Sins?  What sins?" I exclaimed.

"There are sins of the spirit as wicked as sins of the flesh," he
returned enigmatically.  "Whoso thinks himself worthy of martyrdom
therein nourishes his own pride.  But enough hath been said on this
score.  I will go with you."

"Why?" I asked.  "'Tis not your wont to profess friendship for my
people, Père Hyacinthe?"

His grim face creased in the rare smile that told of some hidden
spring of kindliness, forgotten these many years.

"You are pertinacious--like all heretics.  Go to!  Is it forbidden
that I should return good for good, as well as for evil?"

And no more could I extract from him.  At intervals in the months
that followed he would lapse into moods of dour fanaticism, but no
matter how long they lasted the day would come when he would smile
with childlike humility, and, silent always, contrive to invest
himself with gentle friendliness.  I do not pretend to understand the
transformation of his character; but the fact remains that he was
become a different man from the bigot who had accused us on the Ohio.
He spoke to us only when occasion required; Kachina he ignored
completely, much to her disgust.  But he did his full share of the
work, and his prestige sufficed to speed us on our way once the
Mississippi was behind us.

We had many weary miles to go before we reached the Great River,
however.  Awa and his medicine-man and brother chiefs would have had
us stay on in the Pawnee villages, and opposed our departure with as
much ugliness as they dared exhibit to beings of semi-divine origin.
But Tawannears placated them by explaining that the strong medicine I
was going to present to the tribe could only wax to its full robust
proportions after I had gone.

This medicine was prepared with many attendant ceremonies and
considerable pomp under the Seneca's directions.  Kachina sewed a bag
of deerskin, and then, in the presence of all the Pawnee notables, I
solemnly removed from my neck the bag which Guanaea had hung
there--the arrow-slit having been repaired by Peter--and introduced
its open mouth into the throat of the bag Kachina had made.

A suitable interval having elapsed, I removed my bag, rehung it about
my neck, fastened the neck of the new bag and entrusted it--quite
empty--to the chief medicine-man, with strict injunctions never to
open it lest the medicine escape.  The Pawnee were satisfied.  They
felt capable of whipping any confederacy of near-by tribes, and were
convinced that they would never lack for buffalo-meat, horses or
warriors.  There was nothing they would not do for us.  When we
finally departed for the East Awa and five hundred warriors rode with
us and compelled an Osage village to supply us with a canoe for use
on the Mississippi.

We were many days paddling below the mouth of the Ohio, with the
current against us, both on the Father of Waters and after we had
turned east into the first stream; and Indian Summer had begun when
we reached the mouth of the Ouabache.  Here we expected to part with
Black Robe, but he surprised me again.

"You are yet many weeks' journey from your own country, Monsieur
Ormerod," he said.  "And if you continue by water you must paddle
against the current all the way.  Why do you not strike overland
direct?"

"Because your people and the tribes they control would certainly not
approve of it," I answered with a laugh.

"Come with me to Vincennes," he offered.  "I will secure you
safe-conduct to Jagara."

"Are you sure----" I began hesitantly.

"That I can do what I say!" he interrupted.  "I have some authority
in New France.  You may rest confidence in my pledge.  I, myself,
will attend you so far as Jagara.  'Tis on my way to Montreal and
Quebec."

I consulted with the others, anticipating Tawannears and Corlaer
would be unwilling to trust him; but both assented promptly.

"Black Robe is no longer a hater of those who do not believe in his
god," responded the Seneca to my query as to his changed attitude.
"He has learned that we are honest in what we think.  He has learned,
too, that love is the servant of truth."

"_Ja_," said Peter.  "Andt he remembers der time he was a man before
he was a bpriest."

"He is a nasty old ant," declared Kachina.  "He flaps like a raven.
_Ugh_!  I hate him!"

We paddled up the Ouabache to Vincennes, undisturbed by the savages
along the river.  The French garrison at the trading-post eyed us
with suspicion, but made no objection to our presence.  On the trip
overland to Le Detroit, the French post on the straits betwixt the
Huron Lake and the Lake of the Eries, the priest guided us past the
scowling scrutiny of tribe after tribe, to whom Tawannears' presence
was a menacing reminder of their dreaded enemies, the People of the
Long House.  Savages, traders, habitants, trappers, soldiers of the
Lilies, all bowed and stood aside at sight of that gaunt figure, the
crippled hand upraised in blessing.  Under the skirts of his
threadbare robe he carried us through the heart of the new empire
France was creating below the Lakes, saving us I know not how many
months of dangerous, roundabout traveling.  And from Le Detroit he
escorted us to the fortress at Jagara, which the great French
soldier-statesman of the wilderness, Joncaire, had built to form a
bulwark against the Iroquois.

'Twas here we said good-by, in the woods on the edge of the glacis,
sloping up to the stone walls of the fort.  In the distance we heard
the subdued roar of the mighty falls.  On the walls of the fort stood
the white-coated sentinels of France.  At our feet commenced a
tenuous trail, the Northern approach to the Western Door of the Long
House.

Black Robe gave Tawannears the Iroquois salute of parting.  He
pressed Peter's hand.  On Kachina he bestowed his blessing.

"There is a place on Christ's bosom for you, my daughter," he said in
the Seneca dialect, which she had mastered.

She scowled back at him in a way that must have compelled a man with
a sense of humor to laugh.

"We are not Christians," Tawannears stated proudly.  "The gods of our
people are good enough for us.  Have they not reunited us in the face
of death--and beyond!"

The priest sighed and drew me to one side.

"Do you ever pray, Monsieur Ormerod?" he asked.

"I have done so."

"Forget not one Louis Joseph Marie de Kerguezac.  He is dead,
Monsieur, although he lives.  I pray you, forget him not.  He needs
your prayers, ay, heretic or not, he needs them!  So, too, I fear
doth one Hyacinthe, of the Order of Jesus, a hard man, who hath
wreaked harm under cover of saintliness.  Ah, God, how little do we
know what we do!"

"Hard you have been in times past, Father," I replied, "but I bear
testimony you have redeemed yourself in my eyes--albeit I hold I, nor
any other man, may judge you after what you have suffered for your
faith."

He considered this, crucifix in hand.

"Who can say!" he said at length.  "I have lived over-much
self-centered.  Never trust yourself too far, Monsieur Ormerod.  Man
is--man!  You, too, have suffered.  Therefore you will know that
suffering is worth while--so long as you do not seek satisfaction in
it.  You, Monsieur, went forth to forget a woman--near four years
ago, was it not?  Have you--forgotten?"

'Twas my turn to think.

"Not forgotten," I decided, stirred, but not resentful.  "Yet the
pain is dead.  Say, rather, reconciled to loss."

His face was contorted with agony.

"Four years, and reconciled!  Monsieur Ormerod, I have striven to
forget for twenty years, and the pain still burns my soul!  I chose
the wrong way, the wrong way!"

He turned and stumbled from the forest, hands outthrust before him,
as he walked blindly toward the fort.

"The wrong way!  The wrong way!"

They were the last words I heard him speak.  Months later, in New
York, the news came from Quebec that the famous Père Hyacinthe,
called far and wide the Apostle to the Savages, was serving a
disciplinary sentence as scullery servant in the headquarters of the
Order of Jesus.

On the afternoon of the second day after leaving Jagara we were
challenged by an out-flung party of Seneca Wolves, Watchers of the
Door, who made the forest aisles ring with their whoops of joy when
they recognized Tawannears, clamoring for the story of our
wanderings.  But at his first question joy was turned to sadness, for
they gave us the sorry tidings that Donehogaweh, the Guardian of the
Door, lay at the point of death from a gangrened wound that had
festered about the barbed head of a Miami arrow, shot into his
shoulder during his last punitive raid.

We forgot all else in our haste to reach Deonundagaa in time to see
the Royaneh before his end; and there remained a lingering splash of
color in the Western sky as we trotted out of the forest, crossed the
gardens and entered the village streets lined by the long ganasotes
and thronged with mourning people.  They exclaimed with amazement at
sight of Corlaer's vast bulk and Tawannears' familiar figure.  An
irregular column formed at our heels, warriors who strove for a word
with members of our escort, gossiping women and children who babbled
and shrieked amongst themselves.

So we came to the open space by the council lodge.  Beside its
entrance Donehogaweh lay on a pallet of skins, in compliance with his
request to pass in the outer air.  A group of Royanehs and chiefs sat
about him, sternly watching, their sympathy unspoken, their faces
emotionless.  Guanaea hovered over him, equally silent, but unable to
restrain the sorrow that was revealed in her eyes and trembling lips.
'Twas her cry of astonishment gave him the first intimation of our
coming.  He turned his great head, with its gray-streaked scalp-lock,
and his fever-bright eyes dwelt upon us almost unbelievingly.

"Is it indeed you, oh, my sister's son?" he asked weakly.  "Do I see
with you Otetiani, the white son of my old age, and Corlaer of the
fat belly?  Or do evil dreams taunt me again?"

"We are here, oh, my uncle," answered Tawannears kneeling by the
pallet and drawing Kachina down beside him.

"And who is the maiden with you?"

"She is your daughter."

"My daughter?  Not----"

Guanaea emitted a little shriek and ran closer.

"Gahano?" questioned the dying Royaneh.

The group of chiefs bent forward, startled out of their stoical
self-control.  Guanaea knelt beside Tawannears and Kachina, her eyes
boring into the girl's face.

"Yes, she is Gahano," said Tawannears.  "Tawannears and his white
brothers have been to the Land of Lost Souls, which is beyond the
sunset.  They have passed the barriers of Haniskaonogeh.  They have
ventured upon the altar of Hawenneyu.  They have crossed the
mountains at the end of the world, where all is ice and snow.  They
have traversed Dayedadogowar, the Great Home of the Winds.  And in
the Land of Lost Souls they had speech with Ataentsic and Jouskeha,
as is told in the traditions of our people, and the Lost Soul of
Gahano came from a pumpkin shell and danced, and we took her and fled
to our own country."

"She is different from the Gahano I bore," protested Guanaea,
breaking the dead silence that ensued, whilst the blazing eyes of the
old Royaneh probed the faces of the pair beside him.

Kachina peered sideways at her a thought mutinously, but held her
peace, failing any sign from Tawannears.

Donehogaweh feebly nodded his head.

"She would look different," he announced.  "Who would not look
different after death?  Shall I look the same an hour hence?  Yes,
she is different--and yet like the Gahano who was.  And in truth did
you find the Land of Lost Souls, Tawannears?"

'Twas Corlaer who answered, speaking with a resonant ease that so
oddly became him when using an Indian dialect instead of English.

"It was all exactly as foretold in the legends," he said.  "This
maiden had come there direct from the custody of the Great Spirit.
She was delivered in charge of him who was Jouskeha.  Ataentsic was
not willing to give her up, but Jouskeha aided us and we took her by
force, the Great Spirit aiding us."

That was a long speech for the Dutchman.  I felt myself called upon
to support him.

"If that was not the Land of Lost Souls," I declared, "then the
legends of the Hodenosaunee are a mockery."

"Yo-hay!" cried Donehogaweh, and he heaved himself to his haunches.
"Welcome back to my lodge, Gahano, although you go from it to----"

He choked and fell dead.

"Woe!  Woe!" wept Guanaea.  "The pine-tree is fallen!  The light is
clouded.  In my lodge now all is darkness and despair!"

Tawannears caught her hand.

"But see, you who are almost my mother," he said.  "I have brought
back to you the daughter who was lost to you.  We will be son and
daughter to you in your loneliness."

Guanaea would not be comforted.

"Who am I to scorn the generosity of Hawenneyu?" she cried.  "Who am
I to doubt the deeds of great warriors?  I am only a woman, only a
mother whose offspring left her, only a widow whose man went ahead of
her into the land of shadows.  Yet I cannot take this new Gahano to
my breast.  She is not to me as the child I suckled or the maiden
whose waywardness I curbed.  Nay, I can only mourn.  I am an old
woman.  I have outlived my time!  I will cover my face and sit by the
ashes of the fire and weep!"

She threw her robe around her head and tottered away to the lodge she
had shared with Donehogaweh, attended by the old women of her clan.

Ganeodiyo, senior Royaneh of the Senecas, stooped over and closed the
eyes of his dead colleague, then rose.

"Tawannears has spent many moons upon a twisting trail," he said.
"He and his white brothers have made us proud of them.  They have
done what no other warriors have done.  There was a stain upon the
women of their tribe, but they have wiped it off.  It is well!  Our
eyes are dazzled by the splendor of their achievement.  Our ears do
not hear distinctly, for the cries of the enemies they vanquished.
The face of the maiden they have recovered seems strange to us, but
we shall grow accustomed to her again.  Her feet will seek out the
ways she knew of old.  All will be as it was before.  She will seem
as though she had never departed.

"_Na-ho!_"


"Peter," I said, when we were alone together in the guest-chamber of
the ganasote of the bachelors of the Wolf Clan, "have we done well to
lie?"

He regarded me with twinkling eyes.

"Lie?"

"Yes, lie," I insisted.  "Have we not lent our countenance to an
essential falsehood?"

He meditated.

"_Ja_, we liedt--maype," he admitted finally.  "Dot is, we saidt dot
what Tawannears saidt was so--andt dot's no lie."

"How?"

"You pelief dot Tawannears peliefs what he says?"

"Yes."

"He wouldt die if he fought idt was not true."  Corlaer spoke with
extraordinary vehemence for him.  "You nefer knew a man who worshiped
der trut' more than Tawannears.  What he says he saw andt didt is
true--isn't it?"

"Yes."

"Andt what you don't pelief is true is dot 'Lost Souls' pusiness, eh?"

"Yes."

"But Tawannears peliefs idt is true--don't he?"

"Yes, yes, Peter.  I've already said so."

"What is a lie, then, eh?  You t'ink der Lost Souls
is--funny-pusiness.  Tawannears t'inks idt is gospel.  Now, who is
lying--you or Tawannears?"

"But----"

"Nein, nein!  Not so quick.  Tawannears knew what he was looking for,
eh?  Andt you didt not.  Why shouldt you say dot Tawannears is lying
any more than you?  You saw what Tawannears saidt dot you wouldt see.
He was right in dot, eh?"

"Yes, but----"

"So idt is," continued Peter inexorably.  "Tawannears peliefs what he
saidt.  You do not.  If anybody lies, you lie.  Idt is your lie, not
Tawannears'.  But how can you be sure Tawannears is wrong?"

"The girl Kachina--Guanaea----"

"Kachina looks like Gahano.  Andt it is like Donehogaweh saidt--if
she has peen deadt, how can she look der same?  Nein!"

"But Guanaea!" I insisted.

"She is a woman, andt women are funny beoble.  She nefer liked Gahano
pefore."

"And what do you think, yourself, Peter?"

"I pelief what Tawannears says.  Idt is goodt for him to pelief idt.
Idt hurts nopody, eh?  So I pelief.  _Ja_, dot's goodt!"




CHAPTER XXVI

THE END OF THE TRAIL

The forest trees and the brown grass stubble of the meadow beneath
their skeleton boughs were powdered lightly with snow, except where a
tiny fire burned, its smoke floating upward into the overhanging
tree-tops.  On the far side of the field, backed by the roofs of the
village, was massed the population of Deonundagaa, men, women and
children.  Besides the fire the robes of the seven surviving Royanehs
of the Senecas, headed by Ganeodiyo, each with his assistant behind
him, made a splash of vivid color.

Dimly through the bare foliage I glimpsed the long file of the
Royanehs of the other four nations--the Mohawks, Dagoeoga, the Shield
People; the Onondagas, Hodesannogeta, the Name-Bearers; the Oneidas,
Neardeondargowar, Great Tree People; the Cayugas, Sonushogwatowar,
Great Pipe People.  The Tuscaroras, sixth nation in the great league,
had no representation in the Hoyarnagowar, because the founders had
created only so many names, or seats, and no Iroquois would have
thought of altering the framework they built; but a group of
Tuscarora chieftains followed in the train of the Royanehs, mute
witnesses by right to what should transpire.

I have seen many ceremonies in my day.  I have watched the Pope
celebrate mass in St. Peter's.  I have attended at the mummery of the
French Court, with the splendor of Versailles and the Louvre for
background.  But I have never seen aught more imposing than the rites
of the condoling council of the Iroquois, the ceremonies by which at
one and the same time they express their appreciation of a great man
who has died and install his successor, beginning with the ceremony
Deyughnyonkwarakta, "At the Wood's Edge."

Slowly, at a sign from Hoyowenato, the Keeper of the Wampum, the long
file of the Royanehs paced out from the forest and formed in a
half-circle opposite the little group of Seneca Royanehs, with the
fire betwixt them.  Then Ganeodiyo, spokesman for the Senecas,
stepped forward with arms outflung in welcome to the visitors.  His
trained orator's voice rolled in the measured cadences of the stately
ritual, opening with the sentence--

"_Onenh weghniserade wakatyerenkowa desawennawenrate ne
kenteyurhoton!_"

"Now, today, I have been greatly startled by your voices coming
through the forest to this opening."

And proceeding in the set phrases of the greeting:

"You have come with troubled minds through all obstacles.  You kept
seeing the places where they met on whom we depended, my offspring.
How then can your mind be at ease?  You kept seeing the footmarks of
our forefathers; and all but perceptible is the smoke where they used
to smoke the pipe together.  Can, then, your mind be at ease when you
are weeping on your way?

"Great thanks, therefore, that you have safely arrived.  Now let us
smoke the pipe together.  Because all around are hostile agencies,
which are each thinking--'I will frustrate their purpose.'  Here
thorny ways, and here falling trees, and here wild beasts lying in
ambush.  Either by these you might have perished, my offspring, or
here by floods you might have been destroyed, my offspring, or by the
uplifted hatchet in the dark outside the house.  Every day these are
wasting us; or deadly invisible disease might have destroyed you, my
offspring."

The echoing voice went on, flexing the emotions of the words like a
great organ.  The orator recited the rules the forefathers had laid
down.  He repeated the traditional list of the villages of the three
original clans, the Wolf, the Tortoise and the Bear.  Then the fire
was put out, and one by one the Royanehs marched from the meadow to
the council house of the village, where a new fire was kindled by
Ganeodiyo, and they sat in a wide circle on robes placed for them by
their assistants.

Hoyowennato produced the pipe of ceremony from its case; the
mystically-carven soapstone bowl was filled with tobacco and he
handed it to Ganeodiyo, who lighted it with a coal from the council
fire, blew the required puffs to the four quarters and to the earth
and the sky and passed it on to Tododaho, senior of all the Royanehs,
he who sits beside the ancient undying council fire of the League,
which has burned for ages of ages at Onondaga.  The pipe went the
rounds of the circle and was returned to Hoyowennato, who replaced it
in its case.

Tododaho rose.

"My offspring, now this day we are met together," he intoned.  "The
Great Spirit has appointed this day.  We are met together on account
of the solemn event which has befallen you.  Now into the earth he
has been conveyed to whom we have been wont to look.  Therefore in
tears we have smoked together.

"Now, then, we say, we wipe away the tears, so that in peace you may
look about you.

"And further, we suppose there is an obstruction in your ears.  Now,
then, we remove the obstruction carefully from your hearing, so that
we trust you will easily hear the words spoken.

"And also we imagine there is an obstruction in your throat.  Now,
therefore, we say, we remove the obstruction, so that you may speak
freely in our mutual greetings.

"Now again another thing, my offspring.  I have spoken of the solemn
event which has befallen you.  Every day you are losing your great
men.  They are being borne into the earth; so that in the midst of
blood you are sitting.

"Now, therefore, we say, we wash off the blood-marks from your seat,
so that it may be for a time that happily the place will be clean
where you are seated.

"And now, that our hearts may be prepared for the instructions of our
forefathers and the memory of their greatness, we sing the hymn
'Yondonghs Aihaigh.'"

Almost a hundred voices boomed out the rhythmic lines:

  "I come again to greet and thank the League;
  I come again to greet and thank the kindred;
  I come again to greet and thank the warriors;
  I come again to greet and thank the women.
  My forefathers--what they established--
  My forefathers--hearken to them!"


And after the song was ended, Tododaho walked up and down the council
house, crying out:

"Hail, my grandsires!  Now hearken while your grandchildren cry
mournfully to you--because the Great League which you established has
grown old.

"Even now, oh, my grandsires, that has become old which you
established--the Great League!  You have it as a pillow under your
heads in the ground where you are lying--this Great League which you
established; although you said that far away in the future the Great
League would endure."

A second time they sang the hymn, and then Tododaho called the roll
of the founders, commencing with Tehkarihhoken and ending with
Tyuhninhohkawenh, and after each name the Royanehs thundered the
responses:

  "This was the roll of you,
  You who were joined in the work,
  You who completed the work,
  The Great League!"


Tododaho reseated himself, and a Royaneh of the Cayugas rose to speak
for the so-called Younger Nations--the Cayugas, Oneidas and
Tuscaroras.

"Now our uncle has passed away," he recited, "he who used to work for
all, that they might see the brighter days to come--for the whole
body of warriors and also for the whole body of women, and also for
the children that were running around, and also for the little ones
creeping on the ground, and also for those that are tied to the
cradle-boards; for all these he used to work that they might see the
bright days to come.  This we say, we Three Brothers.

"Now another thing we will say, we Younger Brothers.  You are
mourning in the deep darkness.  I will make the sky clear for you, so
that you will not see a cloud.  And also I will give the sun to shine
upon you, so that you can look upon it peacefully when it goes down.

"Now, then, another thing we say, we three Younger Brothers.  If any
one should fall--it may be a principal chief will fall, a Royaneh,
and descend into the grave--as soon as possible another shall be put
in his place.  This we say, we three Younger Brothers.

"Now I have finished.  Now show me the man!"

A hush mantled the council house.  All eyes turned toward the door
where Tawannears stood with Peter and me.  Ganeodiyo and another
Seneca Royaneh rose from their places and crossed the room to us.  At
a sign Tawannears went to meet them.  They took position, one on each
side, with their hands under his elbows, and so guided him into the
center of the circle around the council fire.  Three times they
walked him around the circuit of Royanehs.  Then Ganeodiyo spoke.

"Denehogaweh is dead, oh, Royanehs!  Our eyes have been blinded with
tears.  Our hearts have been heavy.  Loudly we have cried our grief.
But the forefathers laid down rules for us to follow and we have
followed them.  A vacant place must be filled.  Work laid aside must
be completed.  The places left by the founders must be carried on
that our children may continue to have peace.

"Behold, oh, Royanehs, after the tradition of our people, as required
by the founders, the wise women of the Wolf Clan gathered in Council.
They considered deeply.  Donehogaweh was dead.  Another of his line
must succeed him.  Donehogaweh was the Guardian of the Western Door.
No foes entered the Long House after he kept watch.  Who should
endeavor to take his place?

"The wise women pondered, oh, Royanehs.  They continued to ponder.
They remembered that Donehogaweh had a nephew, Tawannears, Warden of
the Door.  He was his uncle's prop, his right hand, a tried warrior,
feared by the enemies of the Great League, respected by the subject
nations, the friend of our friends.

"Oh, Royanehs, we present him to you!  He is no longer Tawannears.
He is Donehogaweh!  He is the Guardian of the Western Door.  Give him
your favor!"

"_Aigh!  Aighhaigh!  Kwa, Kwa!_" applauded the Royanehs.

Peter and I slipped out of the door as they formed in procession and
took our station with Kachina--for I cannot bring myself to give her
the name Gahano by which Tawannears always addressed her--to watch
the formal presentation to the assemblage of Senecas gathered in the
open around the gaondote, or war-post.  A shout of approval came from
the people when Tawannears, now Donehogaweh, was led forth by
Tododaho and Ganeodiyo.

"The Guardian of the Door!" they cried.  "He is favored by Hawenneyu!
_Kwa!  Kwa!_"

Kachina clapped her hands with glee--one of many tricks that proved
to me her Caucasian origin.

"He has his uncle's place!" she exclaimed.  "I was afraid that fat
old she-ant, Guanaea, would make trouble for him.  I will put a snake
in her bed some night."

"Nonsense!" I rebuked her.  "She is your mother.  Her eyes are
clouded by grief.  Be kind, and she will learn to love you."

"Love me!  _Hai_, I care not whether she loves me.  I have
Tawannears' love, and that is enough."

Peter plucked me by the sleeve.

"Come!" he whispered.

I followed him behind the nearest ganasote, and he pointed to a
narrow opening in the wall of the forest opposite, the throat of the
great trail of the Long House.

"Here is no blace for us," he said.  "We hafe saidt goodt-by to
Tawannears--who is no longer Tawannears.  He has a new life to lif.
He must be an Indian of Indians.  He has a wife andt a
mother-in-law----"

"Who is not his mother-in-law," I gibed.

"_Ja_, berhaps.  But dot doesn't matter now.  We are white men.  He
is an Indian.  We don't do him no goodt for a time.  We petter go,
andt leafe him to himself."

"Yes," I agreed slowly.  "You are right, Peter.  'Tis strange how
tactful you can be--and how talkative.  But where shall we go?"

He gave me a curious look.

"It's petter you go home, eh?"

"Home?"

"_Ja_!  New York--der gofernor--andt----"

He left the sentence unfinished, for which I was duly grateful.  I
was conscious of no impelling urge to return to civilization.  The
zest which had attended our homeward journey was gone from me.  But I
could not argue against Peter's suggestion.  The governor expected a
report from me.  For the rest, I shrugged my shoulders.  But I did
not hunger for the house in Pearl Street.  I did not even attempt to
picture what awaited me there.

A snowstorm overtook us near the headwaters of the Mohawk, and after
securing snowshoes from an Oneida village we decided we might as well
save time by pushing straight southeast through the forest country on
the west bank of Hudson's River, avoiding Fort Orange* and the
contiguous settlement, and crossing the river at the first point we
came to where the ice would hold.  Corlaer knew every inch of this
wild land, and was never at a loss to steer a bee-line in any
direction he fancied.


* Albany.


But as a result of this we saw no other white men until we reached
the outlying villages above New York, and their residents could give
us no tidings of the town's affairs, for they had been cut off by the
great drifts since Christmas--a feast to which we had given no
thought.  We had completely lost track of days and were not even sure
of the month.  For years we had regulated ourselves by the seasons.
It was hot or cold, Winter or Summer, with us.  We let it go at that.

The burghers of the Out-ward eyed us askance for the wastrels we
seemed in our deerskin shirts and leggings, bearskin robes belted
about us, hair and beard sweeping our shoulders.  And as it chanced,
we saw none we knew until we reached the Broadway just above the
Green Lane, when honest John Allen, my clerk, turned the corner in
face of us and would have passed on, with an uneasy glance for our
ruffian pair.

"How, now!" I cried.  "Is it so you greet your master, John?"

He dropped his bundle of papers in the snow and his chin sagged to
his chest.

"'Tis never you, Master Ormerod!  Why, we had given you up two years
gone--all, that is, save Master Burnet.  But for him the magistrates
would have settled your estate."

Now, why it was I know not, but at this I was smitten with an insane
desire to laugh, and I rocked my sides so that people across the way
deemed me witless and hastened by us.

"I am glad there is one man of intelligence left," I said when I had
found my breath again.  "But I never doubted the governor, John."

"He is governor no longer, sir."

"What?"

Even Peter fetched out a shrill Dutch curse.

"Ay, sir.  But last month the Lords of Trade gave him notice
transferring him to Massachusetts.  He sailed ten days since."

"He is gone hence?"

"'Tis so, sir."

"But who has his place!"

"Master Montgomery, sir.  And oh, Master Ormerod, things are very
different from what they were.  The malcontents in the town have the
new governor's ear.  There is much ado about municipal reforms, and
small thought to the fur-trade and the alliances with the savages
that Master Burnet gave thought to."

I clapped an arm on Peter's fat shoulder.

"Then here are two shall give Master Montgomery somewhat to think
on," I proclaimed.  "We'll tell him of the Wilderness Country, eh,
Peter?  We'll acquaint him with the doings of the French!  We'll make
plain to him the empires and kingdoms that lie waiting the
Englishman, if he have but the courage of his ancestors!"

"Nein," said Peter.  "You go."

"But you?"

"I go wit' John here."

"Have it your own way," I returned cavalierly.  "Shall I find the
governor in the fort, John?"

"Ay, sir."  He hesitated.  "But sure, Master Ormerod, you'll stop in
Pearl Street.  Elspeth and----"

"Anon, anon," I said airily.  "I am not much of a home-body, John."

And I swaggered on my way, poor fool, secretly fearful of the
memories that Pearl Street might evoke.

At the fort I was recognized by an officer, and he passed me into the
governor's house with a celerity that made me fume all the more
during the hour I must cool my heels in his anteroom.  But all things
end in time, even the whims of jacks-in-office.  A liveried servant
opened the inner door, and I was ushered in my motley forest-garb
into a room which expressed in every detail the finicking niceties of
its occupant.

A small man, with a pompous carriage, insignificant features
expressing vanity and pride, Master Montgomery made no effort to
disguise his displeasure that a citizen should have ventured to
appear before him so roughly dressed.

"Master Ormerod?" he said.  "Ah, yes, I am aware who you are, sir.
The late--ah--governor was pleased to give me some account of you,
and of the--ah--ridiculous mission upon which he was pleased to
dispatch you.  Close to four years gone, was it not?  You have been
overlong, sir.  I----"

"One moment," I interrupted.  "You call my mission ridiculous.  Are
you aware, sir, that I have traveled where no Englishman has been
before?  Do you understand the value of the information I bring?
Does it mean nothing that I have news of the French dispositions in
the Wilderness Country?"

He waved me to silence.

"You attach unnecessary importance to your wanderings, Master
Ormerod," he reproved me.  "Here, sir, we have work sufficient to
occupy us for many generations.  The--ah--failures of my predecessor,
I venture to assert, may be ascribed to his unfortunate predilection
to extravagant views and policies.  The day for such delusions, I
assure you, is past.  Here in New York we are now occupied with the
important task of improving the lot of our loyal, law-abiding
citizens, and the abatement of hindrances to trade and commerce."

He selected a paper from several on the table before him.

"I have here a draft of a new charter I am issuing to the citizens!
Too little attention has been paid to such matters, and it shall be
my care to----"

"Do I understand you have no ear for my report, your Excellency?" I
broke in.

"Some other time, Master Ormerod.  At the present, I am occupied with
affairs of serious moment."

"But the French----"

"Tut, tut, sir," he remonstrated severely.  "Here is overmuch stress
upon the French.  Another fault of my--ah--distinguished predecessor
was to exaggerate the animosity of the French.  Treat the French
fairly, live and let live, so you may construe my policy.  I have no
fault to find with French expansion.  There is land enough for all on
this continent.  As for the near-by savages, we have humored them
more than is good for them.  In future----"

How I got from that room I do not remember, but in some way I dammed
the flow of pompous rhetoric and futile reasoning, brushed by all who
would have questioned me in the fort, and found my way by oft-trodden
paths into Pearl Street.  I was still seething with indignation as
the red-brick house came in view.  When I tapped at the door none
answered me, so I pushed it open and entered the wide hallway.  I
called, but no answer was returned.  And then I heard a bubbling
chuckle of mirth in the rear garden, capped by Corlaer's squeaking
laughter.

It was as if a secret hammer tapped at my heart.  I caught my breath,
and stepped softly through the corridor to the door which gave on the
garden.  On the steps below me sat stout Scots Elspeth, heedless of
the snow, and John Allen, both of them helpless with laughter; and in
the garden's center a small, lusty urchin in breeches, a wooden
scalping knife clutched in one mitten-covered fist, circled
cautiously the ponderous figure of Corlaer, who contrived a most
realistic mimicry of panic-fear.

"And now I shall scalp you!" the urchin shrieked gleefully.

But Peter gestured him towards me, and the boy turned with a glad
cry.  The knife dropped from his hand.  There was a scurry of feet,
and two arms were stretched up to me, two brown eyes--eyes that it
seemed I had looked into so many times before--shone into mine.

"You have come back!" shouted the treble voice.  "John said you
would!  And so did Master Burnet!  Do you always wear a beard!  Will
you buy me clothes like those you and Peter wear?  Will you teach me
to cast the tomahawk and shoot with the bow and arrow?  Will you take
me to live with the Indians?  Did you kill very many this time?  What
did you find beyond the sunset?"

I swept him in my arms, gray eyes beaming steadily through the mist
that veiled my sight.

"I found contentment--and love," I said.

Elspeth burst into tears.

"_Hecht_, but them's the bonny worrds," she blubbered.  "The master's
hame and richt in his mind again!"

My son's bubbling laughter stirred me afresh, and I peered over his
shoulder to perceive Corlaer waltzing like a clumsy bear, with John
Allen's sedate person clasped against his enormous belly.  And I sat
down beside the boy and laughed, too, laughed as I had laughed in
bygone years, with the joyous vigor of a happy heart.



THE END









*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 70077 ***