We were now penetrating that sad and devastated region laid waste so recently by Brant, Butler, and McDonald, from Cobus-Kill on the pleasant river Askalege, to Minnisink on the silvery Delaware-- a vast and mournful territory which had been populous and prosperous a twelvemonth since, and was now the very abomination of desolation.
Cherry Valley lay a sunken mass of blood-wet cinders; Wyoming had gone up in a whirlwind of smoke, and the wretched Connecticut inhabitants were dead or fled; Andrustown was now no more, Springfield, Handsome Brook, Bowmans, NewtownMartin-- all these pretty English villages were vanished; the forest seedlings already sprouted in the blackened cellars, and the spotted tree-cats squalled from the girdled orchards under the July moon.
Where horses, cows, sheep, men, women, and children had lain dead all over the trampled fields, the tall English grass now waved, yellowing to fragrant hay; horses, barns, sheds-- nay, even fences, wagons, ploughs, and haycocks had been laid in cinders. There remained not one thing that could burn which had not been burned. Only breezestirred ashes marked these silent places, with here and there a bit of iron from wagon or plough, rusting in the dew, or a steel button from some dead man's coat, or a bone gone chalky white-- dumb witnesses that the wrath of England had passed wrapped in the lightning of Divine Right.
But Great Britain's flaming glory had swept still farther westward, for German Flatts was gone except for its church and one house, which were too near the forts for the destructives to burn. But they had laid in ashes more than a hundred humble homes, barns, and mills, and driven off more than a thousand cattle, horses, sheep, and oxen, leaving the barnyard creatures dead or dying, and ten thousand skipples of grain afire.
So it was no wonder that the provisioning of our forces at Otsego had been slow, and that we now had five hundred wagons flying steadily between Canajoharie and the lake, to move our stores as they arrived by batteaux from below. And there were some foolish and impatient folk in Congress, so I heard, who cried out at our delay; and one more sinister jackass, who had said that our army would never move until a few generals had been court-martialed and shot. And our Major Parr said that he wished to God we had the Congress with us so that for once they might have their bellyful of stratagem and parched corn.
But it is ever so with those home-loving and unsurpassed butcher-generals, bakerbrigadiers, candlestick-colonels, who, yawning in bed, win for us victories while we are merely planning them-- and, rolling over, go to sleep with a consciousness of work well done, the candle snuffed, and the cat locked out for the night.
About eleven o'clock on the first night out, I halted my scout of six and lay so, fireless, until sun-up. We were not far, then, from the head of the lake; and when we marched at dawn next morning we encountered a company of Alden's men mending roads as usual; and later came upon an entire Continental regiment and a company of Irregular Rifles, who were marching down to the lake to try out their guns. Long after we quitted them we heard their heavy firing, and could distinguish between the loud and solid "Bang!" of the muskets and the sharper, whip-lash crack of the long rifles.
The territory that now lay before us was a dense and sunless wilderness, save for the forest openings made by rivers, lakes, and streams. And it was truly the enemy's own country, where he roamed unchecked except for the pickets of General Sullivan's army, which was still slowly concentrating at Tioga Point whither my scout of six was now addressed. And the last of our people that we saw was a detail of Alden's regiment demolishing beaver dams near the lake's outlet which, they informed us, the beavers rebuilt as fast as they were destroyed, to the rage and confusion of our engineers. We saw nothing of the industrious little animals, who are accustomed to labor while human beings sleep, but we saw their felled logs and cunningly devised dams, which a number of our men were attacking with pick and bar, standing in the water to their arm-pits.
Beyond them, at the Burris Farm, we passed our outlying pickets-- Irregular Riflemen from the Scoharie and Sacandaga, tall, lean, wiry men, whose leaf-brown rifle-dress so perfectly blended with the tree-trunks that we were aware of them only when they halted us. And, Lord! To see them scowl at my Indians as they let us through, so that I almost expected a volley in our backs, and was relieved when we were rid o' them.
When, later, we passed Yokam's Place, we were fairly facing that vast solitude of twilight which lay between us and the main army's outposts at the mouth of the Tioga. Except for a very few places on the Ouleout, and the Iroquois towns, the region was uninhabited. But the forest was beautiful after its own somewhat appalling fashion, which was stupendous, majestic, and awe-inspiring to the verge of apprehension.
Under these limitless lanes of enormous trees no sunlight fell, no underbrush grew. All was still and vague and dusky as in pillared aisles. There were no birds, no animals, nothing living except the giant columns which bore a woven canopy of leaves so dense that no glimmer of blue shone through. Centuries had spread the soundless carpet that we trod; eons had laid up the high-sprung arches which vanished far above us where vault and column were dimly merged, losing all form in depthless shadow.
There was an Indian path all the way from the lake, good in places, in others invisible. We did not use it, fearing an ambush.The Mohican led us; I followed him; the last Oneida marked the trees for a new and better trail, and a straighter one not following every bend in the river. And so, in silence we moved southward over gently sloping ground which our wagons and artillery might easily follow while the batteaux fell down the river and our infantry marched on either bank, using the path where it existed.
Toward ten o'clock we came within sound of the river again, its softly rushing roar filling the woods; and after a while, far through the forest dusk, we saw the thin, golden streak of sunlight marking its lonely course.
Treading in file, rifles at trail, and knife and hatchet loosened, we moved on swiftly just within that strip of dusk that divides the forest from the river shrub; and I saw the silver water flowing deep and smooth, where batteaux as well as canoes might pass with unvexed keels; and, over my right shoulder, above the trees, a baby peak, azure and amethyst in a cobalt sky; and a high eagle soaring all alone.
The Mohican had halted; an Oneida ran down to the sandy shore and waded out into midstream; another Oneida was peeling a square of bark from a towering pine. I rubbed the white square dry with my sleeve, and with a wood-coal from my pouch I wrote on it:
"Ford, three feet at low water."The Stockbridge Indian who had stepped behind a river boulder and laid his rifle in rest across the top, still stood there watching the young Oneida in midstream who, in turn, was intently examining the river bank opposite.
Nothing stirred there, save some butterflies whirling around each other over a bed of purple milkweed, but we all watched the crossing, rifles at a ready, as the youthful Oneida waded slowly out into the full sunshine, the spray glittering like beaded topazes on his yellow paint.
Presently he came to a halt, nosing the farther shore like a lean and suspicious hound at gaze; and stood so minute after minute.Mayaro, crouching beside me, slowly nodded.
"He has seen something," I whispered.
"And I, too," returned the Mohican quietly.
I looked in vain until the Sagamore, laying his naked arm along my cheek, sighted for me a patch of sand and water close inshore-- a tiny bay where the current clutched what floated, and spun it slowly around in the sunshine.
A dead fish, lying partly on the shore, partly in the water, was floating there. I saw it, and for a moment paid it no heed; then in a flash I comprehended. For the silvery river-trout lying there carried a forked willow-twig between gill and gill-cover. Nor was this all; the fish was fresh-caught, for the gills had not puffed out, nor the supple body stiffened. Every little wavelet rippled its slim and limber length; and a thread of blood trailed from the throat-latch out over the surface of the water.
Suddenly the young Oneida in mid-stream shrank aside, flattening his yellow painted body against a boulder, and almost at the same instant a rifle spoke.I heard the bullet smack against the boulder; then the Mohican leaped past me. For an instant the ford boiled under the silent rush of the Oneidas, the Stockbridge Indian, and the Mohican; then they were across; and I saw the willows sway and toss where they were chasing something human that bounded away through the thicket. I could even mark, without seeing a living soul, where they caught it and where it was fighting madly but in utter silence while they were doing it to death-- so eloquent were the feathery willow-tops of the tragedy that agitated each separate slender stem to frenzy.
Suddenly I turned and looked at the Wyandotte, squatting motionless beside me. Why he had remained when the red pack started, I could not understand, and with that confused thought in mind I rose, ran down to the water's edge, the Wyandotte following without a word.
A few yards below the ford a giant walnut tree had fallen, spanning the stream to a gravel-spit; I crossed like a squirrel on this, the burly Wyandotte padding over at my heels, sprang to the bottom sand, and ran up the willow-gully.
They were already dragging out what they had killed; and I came up to them and looked down on the slain man who had so rashly brought destruction upon his own head.He wore no paint; he was not a warrior but a hunter. "St. Regis," said the Mohican briefly.
"The poor fool," I said sadly.
The young Oneida in yellow clapped the scalp against a tree-trunk carelessly, as though we could not easily see by his blazing eyes and quivering nostrils that this was his first scalp taken in war. Then he washed the blade of his knife in the river, wiped it dry and sheathed it, and squatted down to braid the dead hair into the hunters-lock.
We found his still smouldering fire and some split fish baking in green leaves; nets, hooks, spears, and a bark shoulder-basket. And he had been a King's savage truly enough, foraging, no doubt, for Brant or Butler, who had great difficulty in maintaining themselves in a territory which they had so utterly laid waste-- for we found in his tobacco pouch a few shillings and pennies, and some pewter buttons stamped, "Butler's Rangers." Also I discovered a line of writing signed by old John Butler himself, recommending the St. Regis to one Captain Service, an uncle of Sir John Johnson, and a great villain who recently had been shot dead by David Elerson, one of my own riflemen, while attempting to brain Tim Murphy with an axe.
"The poor fool," I repeated, turning away, "Had he not meddled with war when his business lay only in hunting, he had gone free or, if we had caught him, only as a prisoner to headquarters."
Mayaro shrugged his contempt of the St. Regis hunter; the Oneida youth sat industriously braiding his first trophy; the others had rekindled the embers of the dead man's fire and were now parching his raw corn and dividing the baked river-trout into six portions.
Mayaro and I ate apart, seated together upon a knoll whence we could look down upon the river and upon the fire, which I now ordered to be covered.From where I sat I could see the burly Wyandotte, squatting with the others at his feed, and from time to time my glance returned to him. Somehow, though I knew not why, there was about this Indian an indefinable something not entirely reassuring to me; yet, just what it might be I was not able to say.
Truly enough he had a most villainous countenance, what with his native swarthiness and his broken and dented nose, so horridly embellished with a gash of red paint. He was broad and squat and fearfully powerful, being but a bulk of gristly muscle; and when he leaped a gully or a brook, he seemed to strike the earth like a ball of rubber and slightly rebound an the light impact. I have seen a sinewy panther so rebound when hurled from a high tree-top.
The Oneida youth had now braided and oiled his scalp and was stretching it on a willow hoop, very busy with the pride and importance of his work. I glanced at Mayaro and caught a gleam of faint amusement in his eyes; but his features remained expressionless enough, and it seemed to me that his covert glance rested on the Wyandotte more often than on anybody.
The Mohican, as was customary among all Indians when painted for war, had also repainted his clan ensign, although it was tatooed on his breast; and the great Ghost Bear rearing on its hind quarters was now brilliantly outlined in scarlet. But he also wore what I had never seen any other Indian wear when painted for any ceremony in North America. For, just below the scarlet bear, was drawn in sapphire blue the ensign of his strange clannation-- the Spirit Wolf, or Were-Wolf. And a double ensign worn by any priest, hunter, or warrior I had never before beheld. No Delaware wore it unless belonging to the Wolf Clan of the Lenni-Lenape, or unless he was a Siwanois Mohican and a Sagamore. For there existed nowhere at that time any social and political society among any Indian nation which combined clan and tribal, and, in a measure, national identity, except only among the Siwanois people, who were all three at the same time.
As I salted my parched corn and ate it, sitting cross-legged on my hillock, my eyes wandered from one Indian to another, reading their clan insignia; and I saw that my Oneida youth wore the little turtle, as did his comrade; that the Stockbridge Indian had painted a Christian Cross over his tattooed clan-totem-- no doubt the work of the Reverend Mr. Kirkland-- and that the squatting Wyandotte wore the Hawk in brilliant yellow.
"What is yonder fellow's name?" I asked Mayaro, dropping my voice."Black-Snake," replied the Mohican quietly.
"Oh! He seems to wear the Hawk."
The Sagamore's face grew smooth and blank, and he made no comment.
"It's a Western clan, is it not, Mayaro?"
"It is Western, Loskiel."
"That clan does not exist among the Eastern nations?"
"Clans die out, clans are born, clans are altered with the years, Loskiel."
"I never heard of the Hawk Clan at Guy Park," said I.
He said, with elaborate carelessness:
"It exists among the Senecas."
"And apparently among the Wyandottes."
"Apparently."
I said in a low voice:
"Yonder Huron differs from any Indian I ever knew. Yet, in what he differs I can not say. I have seen Senecas like him physically. But Senecas and Hurons not only fought but interbred. This Wyandotte may have Seneca blood in him."
The Sagamore made no answer, and after a moment I said:"Why not confess, Mayaro, that you also have been perplexed concerning this stranger from Fort Pitt? Why not admit that from the moment he joined us you have had your eye on him-- have been furtively studying him?"
"Mayaro has two eyes. For what are they unless to observe?""And what has my brother observed?"
"That no two people are perfectly similar," he said blandly. "Very well," I said, vexed, but quite aware that no questions of mine could force the Sagamore to speak unless he was entirely ready. "I suppose that there exist no real grounds on which to suspect this Wyandotte. But you know as well as do I that he crossed not the river with the others when they did to death that wretched St. Regis hunter. Also, that there are Wyandottes in our service at Fortress Pitt, I did not know before."
I waited a moment, but the Mohican said nothing, and I saw his eyes, veiled like a dreaming bird of prey, so immersed did he seem to be in his own and secret reflections.Presently I rose, went down to the fire, felt with my fingers among the ashes to be certain no living spark remained, chatted a moment with the Oneida youth, praising him till under all his modesty I saw he was like to burst with pride; then gave the signal for departure.
"Nevertheless," I added, addressing them all, "this is not a scalping party; it is the six eyes of an army spying out a way through this wilderness, so that our wagons, artillery, horses, and cattle may pass in safety to Tioga Point.
"Let the Sagamore strike each tree to be marked, as he leads forward. Let the Mole repeat the blow unless otherwise checked. Then shall the Oneida, Grey-Feather, mark clearly the tree so doubly designated. The Oneida, Tahoontowhee, covers our right flank, marching abreast of the Mohican; the Wyandotte, Black-Snake, covers our left flank, keeping the river bank in view. March!"
All that afternoon we moved along south and west, keeping in touch with the Susquehanna, which here is called Oak Creek, though it is the self-same stream. And we scouted the river region thoroughly, routing out nothing save startled deer that bounded from their balsam beds and went off crashing through the osiers, or a band of wild turkeys that, bewildered, ran headlong among us so that Tahoontowhee knocked over two with his rifle butt, and, slinging them to his shoulders, went forward buried in plumage like same monstrous feathered goblin of the forest.
The sun was now dropping into the West; the woods on our right had darkened; on our left a pink light netted the river ripples. Filing in perfect silence, save for the light sound of a hatchet and the slithering of sappy bark, I had noticed, or thought I noticed, that the progress of the Wyandotte was less quiet than ours, where he ranged our left flank, supposedly keeping within the forest shadow.
Once or twice I thought I heard a small stone fall to the willow gully, as though accidentally dislodged by his swiftly passing moccasins. Once, at any rate, I caught the glimmer of the sun striking some bit of metal on him, where he had incautiously ranged outside the protecting shadow belt.
That these things were purely accidental I felt sure, yet I did not care to have them repeated. And for a long while there was neither sound nor sun-glitter from him. Then, without even a glance or a word for me, the Mohican quietly dropped back from the lead, waited until the last Oneida had passed, and moved swiftly on a diagonal course to the left, which brought him in the tracks of the Wyandotte.
He continued on that course for a while, I taking his place in the lead, and the Wyandotte unconscious that he was followed. Then the Sagamore came gliding into our file again, and as he passed me to resume his lead, he whispered:
"Halt, and return along the bank. The Black-Snake has overrun a ford where there are signs for my brother to read and consider."I turned sharply and lifted my hand; and as the file halted I caught a glimpse of the Oneida, Tahoontowhee, on our right, and motioned him to cross, head the Wyandotte, and return with him. And when in a few moments he came toward us, followed by the Huron, I said, addressing them all:
"There should be a ford hereabouts, if I am not badly mistaken, and I think we have accidentally overrun it. Did you see nothing that might indicate it, Black-Snake, my brother?"
There was a furtive flicker of the Wyandotte's eyes which seemed to include everybody before him, then he said very coolly that he had seen no riffle that might indicate shallow water, but that there was a ford not far below, and we ought to strike it before sunset.
"Halt here," said I, pretending to remain still unconvinced. "Sagamore, do you come with me a rod or so upstream.""There is no ford within a rod or two," said the Wyandotte stolidly.
And, after we had left the others, the Mohican murmured, as we hastened on:
"No, not with one rod or two, but the third rod marks it."
Presently, speeding under the outer fringe of trees, I caught sight of a thin line across the water, slanting from shore to shore-- not a ripple, but as though the edge of an invisible reef slightly affected the smooth-flowing, glassy surface of the stream.
"He might have overlooked that," said I.The Sagamore's visage became very smooth; and we climbed down among the willows toward the sand below, and there the Mohican dropped on his hands and knees.
Directly under his eyes I saw the faint print of a moccasin. Startled, I said nothing; the Mohican studied the print for a few moments, then, crouching, crept forward among the sand-willows. I followed; and at long intervals I could make out the string of moccasin tracks, still visible in the loose, dry sand.
"Could it be the St. Regis?" I whispered. "He may have been here spearing fish. These tracks are not new.... And the Wyandotte might have overlooked these, too."
We had now crept nearly to the edge of the water, the dry and scarcely discernible tracks leading us. But they were no fresher in the damp sand. However, the Mohican did not seem satisfied, so we pulled off our thigh-moccasins and waded out.
Although the water looked deep enough along the unseen reef, yet we found nowhere more than four feet, and so crossed to the other side. But before I could set foot on the shelving sand the Mohican pulled me back into the water and pointed. There was no doubting the sign we looked upon. A canoe had landed here within an hour, had been pushed off again with a paddle without anybody landing. It was as plain as the nose on your face.
Which way had it gone, upstream or down? If it had gone upstream, the Wyandotte must have seen it and passed it without reporting it. In other words, he was a traitor. But if the canoe had gone downstream from this spot, or from some spot on the left bank a little above it, there was nothing to prove that the Wyandotte had seen it. In fact, there was every probability that he had not seen it at all. And I said as much to the Sagamore.
"Maybe," he replied calmly.We now cautiously recrossed the stream, scarcely liking our exposed position, but there was no help for it. After we had dressed, I marked the trees from the ford across the old path, which was visible here, and so through to our main, spotted trail; the Mohican peeled a square of bark, I wiped the white spot dry, and wrote with my wood-coal the depth of water at the crossing; then we moved swiftly forward to join the halted scouts.
Mayaro said to me: "We have discovered old moccasin tracks, but no ford and no canoe marks. It is not necessary for the Black-Snake to know.""Very well," said I calmly. "Do you suspect him!"
"Maybe. Maybe not. But-- he once wore his hair in a ridge."
"What!"
"I looked down on him while he ate fish at the St. Regis fire. He has not shaved his head since two weeks. There is a thin line dividing his head, where the hairs at their roots are bent backward. Much oil and brushing make hairs grow that way."
"But-- what Indians wear their hair that way-- like the curved ridge on a dragoon's helmet?""The Eries."
I stared at him without comprehension, for I knew an Erie scalp when I saw one.
"Not the warriors," he added quietly.
"What in heaven's name do you mean?" I demanded. But we were already within sight of the others, and I heeded the cautioning touch of his hand on my arm, and was silent.
When we came up to them I said:
"There are no riffles to indicate a ford"-- which was true enough-- "and on the sand were only moccasin tracks a week old."
"The Black-Snake saw them," said the Wyandotte, so frankly and calmly that my growing but indefinite suspicions of his loyalty were arrested for the moment.
"Why did not the Black-Snake report them?" I asked.
"They were St. Regis, and a week old, as my brother says." And he smiled at us all so confidingly that I could no longer believe ill of him.
"Nevertheless," said I, "we will range out on either flank as far as the ford which should be less than a mile down stream." And I placed the Wyandotte between both Oneidas and on the forest side; and as the valley was dry and open under its huge standing timber, I myself led, notching the trail and keeping a lively eye to the left, wherever I caught a glimpse of water sparkling.
Presently the Mohican halted in view of the river-bank, making a sign for me to join him, which I did, briefly bidding the Stockbridge Mole to notch the trees in my stead."A canoe has passed," said the Sagamore calmly.
"What! You saw it?"
"No, Loskiel. But there was spray on a boulder in a calm pool."
"Perhaps a deer crossed, or a mink or otter crawled across the stone."
"No; the drops were many, but they lay like the first drops of a rain, separate and distinct."
"A great fish leaping might have spattered it."
"There was no wash against the rock from any fish-swirl." "Then you believe that there is a canoe ahead of us going with the current?"
"An hour ahead-- less, I think."
"Why an hour?"
"The sun is low; the river boulders are not hot. Water might dry on them in an hour or less. These drops were nearly dry, save one or two where the sun made them shine."
"A careless paddle-stroke did it," I said in a low voice.
"No Indian is careless."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, Loskiel, that the boulder was splashed purposely, or that there are white men in that canoe."
"Splashed purposely?" I said, bewildered.
"Perhaps. The Black-Snake had the river watch-- until you changed our stations."
"You think it might have been a sign for him from possible confederates."
"Maybe. Maybe clumsy white men."
"What white men? No forest runners dare range these woods at such a time as this. Do you mean a scalping party of Butler's men?"
"Maybe."
We had been walking swiftly while we spoke together in low and guarded tones; now I nodded my comprehension, sheered off to the right, took the trail-lead, replacing the Stockbridge Mole, and signalled the nearest Oneida, Grey-Feather, to join Mayaro on the left flank. This made it necessary for me to call the Wyandotte into touch, which I did; and the other Oneida, the "Night-Hawk," or Tahoontowhee, closed in from the extreme outer flank.
The presence of that canoe worried me, nor could I find any explanation for it. None of our surveyors was out-- no scouts had gone in that direction. Of course I knew that we were likely to run across scouts or scalping parties of the enemy almost anywhere between the outlet to Otsego Lake and Tioga Point, yet somehow had not expected to encounter them until we had at least reached the Ouleout.
Another thing; if this phantom canoe was now within an hour of us, and going with the current, it must at one time have been very, very close to us-- in fact, just ahead and within sight of the Wyandotte, if, indeed, it had not come silently downstream from behind us and shot past us in plain view of the Black-Snake.
Was the Wyandotte a traitor? For only he could have seen this. And I own that I felt more comfortable having him on our right flank in the forest, and away from the river; and as I notched my trees I kept him in view, sideways, and pondered an the little that I knew of him, but came to no conclusion. For of all things in the world I