Part 83 (1/2)

They had been listening to every word as I walked beside them. The Mohican made answer first:

”It was hard for us to leave the Chemung, O Loskiel, my brother--with the dog-yelps at the Sinako and Mowawaks insulting our ears. But it was wiser. I, a Sagamore, say it!”

”It is G.o.d's will,” said the Yellow Moth. But his eyes were still red with his fierce excitement; and the distant cannonade steadily continued as we marched.

”I am Roya-neh!” said the Grey-Feather. ”What wisdom counsels I understand, He who would wear the scaly girdle must first know where the fangs lie buried.... But to hear the Antouhonoran scalp-yelp, and to turn one's back, is very hard, O my friend, Loskiel.”

The Night-Hawk controlled his youthful features, forcing a merry smile as my eye fell on him.

”Koue!” he exclaimed softly. ”I have made promise to my thirsty hatchet, O Loskiel! Else it might have leaped from its sheath and bitten some one.”

”A good hatchet and a good dog bite only under orders,” I said. ”My younger brother's hatchet has acquired glory; now it is acquiring wisdom.”

Boyd came up along the line, his deerskin s.h.i.+rt open to the breastbone, the green fringe blowing in the hill wind.

Far below us in the river valley sounded the uproar of the battle--a dull, confused, and distant thunder--for now we could no longer hear the musketry and rifle fire, only the boom-booming of the guns and the endless roar of echoes.

Here on a high hill's spur, with a brisk wind blowing in our faces, the heavy rumble of forest warfare became deadened; and we looked out over the naked ridge of rock, across the forests of this broken country, into a sea of green which stretched from horizon to horizon, accented only by the silver glimmer of lakes and the low mountain peaks east, west, and south of us.

Below us lay a creek, its glittering thread visible here and there. The Great Warrior trail crossed it somewhere in that ravine.

I drew the Mohican aside.

”Sagamore,” said I, ”now is your time come. Now we depend on you. If it lay with us, not one white man here, not one Indian, could take us straight to Catharines-town; for the Great Warrior trail runs not thither. Are you, then, confident that you know the way?”

”I know the way, Loskiel.”

”Is there then a trail that leads from the Great Warrior trail below?”

”There are many.”

”And you know the right one?”

”I have spoken, brother.”

”I am satisfied. But we must clearly mark the trail for our surveyors and for the army.”

”We will mark it,” he said meaningly, ”so that no Seneca dog can ever mistake which way we pa.s.sed.”

I did not exactly understand him, but I nodded to Boyd and he gave the signal, and we began the descent through the warm twilight of an open forest that sloped to the creek a thousand feet below us.

Down and down we went, partly sliding, and plowing up the moss and leaves knee-deep, careless how we left our trail, as there was none to follow, save the debris of a flying army or the flanking scouts of a victorious one.

Below us the foaming rifles of the creek showed white in the woodland gloom, and presently we heard its windy voice amid rocks and fallen trees, soughing all alone through leafy solitudes; and its cool, damp breath mounted to us as we descended.

The Indians dropped p.r.o.ne to slake their thirst; the riflemen squatted and used their cups of bark or leather, pouring the sweet, icy water over their cropped heads and wrists.

”Off packs!” said Boyd quietly, and drew a bit of bread and meat from his beaded wallet. And so the Mohican and I left them all eating by the stream, and crossed to the western bank. Here the Sagamore pointed to the opposite slope; I gave a low whistle, and Boyd looked across the water at me.

Then I drew my hatchet and notched a tree so that he saw what I did; he nodded comprehension; we went on, notching trees at intervals, and so ascended the slope ahead until we arrived at the top.