The Hidden Children Part 57

As I ascended the rocky pulpit, both the Grey-Feather and the Stockbridge were standing erect and wide awake, packs strapped and slung, rifles in hand.

"Senecas," I said. "Too many for us."

"Are we not to strike?" asked the Oneida wistfully, as the Mohican came swiftly up the rock followed by the Wyandotte, who seemed inclined to lag.

"Why did you quit your post?" I asked him bluntly.

"There was a better post and more to see on the rock," he said simply.

"You made a mistake. Your business is to obey your commanding officer.

Do you understand?"

"The Black-Snake understands."

"Did you discover nothing from your rock?"

"Nothing. Deer moved in the woods."

"Red deer," I said coolly.

"A July deer is in the red coat always."

"The deer you heard are red the whole year round."

"Eho! The Black-Snake understands."

"Very well. Tie your pack, sling it, and shoulder your rifle. We march immediately."

He seemed to be willing enough, and tied his points with alacrity. Nor could I, watching him as well I might in so dark a spot, see anything suspicious in any movement he made.

"The Sagamore leads," I said; "the Black-Snake follows; I follow him; after me the Mole; and the Oneidas close the rear.... Attention!...

Trail arms! File!"

And as we climbed out of our pulpit and descended over the moss to the soundless carpet of moist leaves:

"Silence," I said. "A sound may mean the death of us all. Cover your rifle-pans with your blankets. No matter what happens, no man is to fire without orders----"

I stopped abruptly and laid my hand on the Black-Snake's hatchet-sheath, feeling it all over with my finger-tips in the dark.

"d.a.m.nation!" I said. "There are tin points on the fringe! You might better wear a cow-bell! Where did you get it?"

"It was in my pack."

"You have not worn it before. Why do you wear it now?"

"It is looser in time of need."

"Very well. Stand still." I whipped out my knife and, bunching the faintly tinkling thrums in my fingers, severed the tin points and tossed them into the darkness.

"I can understand," said I, "a horse-riding Indian of the plains galloping into battle all over cow-bells, but never before have I heard of any forest Indian wearing such a fringe in time of war."

The rebuke seemed to stun the Wyandotte. He kept his face averted while I spoke, then at my brief word stepped forward into his place between myself and the Mohican.

"March!" I said in a low voice.

The Sagamore led us in a wide arc north, then west; and there was no hope of concealing or covering our trail, for in the darkness no man could see exactly where the man in front of him set foot, nor hope to avoid the wet sand of rivulets or the soft moss which took the imprint of every moccasin as warm wax yields to the seal.

That there was in the primeval woods no underbrush, save along streams or where the windfall had crashed earthward, made travelling in silence possible.

The forest giants branched high; no limbs threatened us; or, if there were any, the Sagamore truly had the sight of all night-creatures, for not once did a crested head brush the frailest twig; not once did a moccasined foot crash softly through dead and fallen wood.

The slope toward the river valley became steeper; we travelled along a heavily-wooded hillside at an angle that steadily increased. After an hour of this, we began to feel rock under foot, and our moccasins crushed patches of reindeer moss, dry as powder.

It was in such a place as this, or by wading through running water, that there could be any hope of hiding our trail; and as we began to traverse a vast, flat shoulder of naked rock, I saw that the Mohican meant to check and perplex any pursuit next morning.

What was my disgust, then, to observe that the Wyandotte's moccasins were soaking wet, and that he left at every step his mark for the morning sun to dry at leisure.

Stooping stealthily, I laid my hand flat in his wet tracks, and felt the grit of sand. Accidentally or otherwise, he had stepped into some spring brook which we had crossed in the darkness. Clearly the man was a fool, or something else.

And I was obliged to halt the file and wait until the Wyandotte had changed to spare moccasins; which I am bound to say he seemed to do willingly enough. And my belief in his cra.s.s stupidity grew, relieving me of fiercer sentiments which I had begun to harbour as I thought of all we knew or suspected concerning this man.

So it was forward once more across the naked, star-lit rock, where blueberry bushes grew from crevices, and here and there some tall evergreen, the roots of which were slowly sundering the rock into soil.

Rattlesnakes were unpleasantly numerous here--this country being notorious for them, especially where rocks abound. But so that they sprung their goblin rattles in the dark to warn us, we had less fear of them than of that slyer and no less deadly cousin of theirs, which moved abroad at night as they did, but was often too lazy or too vicious to warn us.

The Mohican sprang aside for one, and ere I could prevent him, the Wyandotte had crushed it. And how to rebuke him I scarcely knew, for what he had done seemed natural enough. Yet, though the Mohican seized the twisting thing and flung it far into the blueberry scrub, the marks of a b.l.o.o.d.y heel were now somewhere on the rocks for the rising sun to dry but not to obliterate. G.o.d alone knew whether such repeated evidence of stupidity meant anything worse. But now I was resolved to have done with this Indian at the first opportunity, and risk the chance of clearing myself of any charge concerning disobedience of orders as soon as I could report to General Sullivan with my command.

The travelling now, save for the dread of snakes, was pleasant and open. We had been gradually ascending during the last two hours, and now we found ourselves traversing the lengthening crest of a rocky and treeless ridge, with valleys on either side of us, choked with motionless lakes of mist, which seemed like vast snow fields under the splendour of the stars.

I think we all were weary enough to drop in our tracks and sleep as we fell. But I gave no order to halt, nor did I dream of interfering with the Sagamore, or even ask him a single question. It was promising to give me a ruder schooling than my regiment could offer me--this travelling with men who could outrun and outmarch the vast majority of white men.

Yet, I had been trained under Major Parr, and with such men in my command as Elerson, Mount, and Murphy; and I had run with Oneidas before and scouted far and wide with the best of them.

It was the rock-running that tired us, and I for one was grateful when we left the starlit obscurity of the ridge and began to swing downward, first through berry scrub and ground-hemlock, then through a thin belt of birches into the dense blackness of the towering forest.

Down, ever down we moved on a wide-slanting and easy circle, such as the high hawk swings when he is but a speck in the midsummer sky.

Presently the ground under our feet became level. A low, murmuring sound stole out of the darkness, pleasantly filling our ears as we advanced. A moment later, the Mohican halted; and we caught a faint gleam in the darkness.

"Sisquehanne," he said.

If, was the Susquehanna. Tired as I was I could not forbear a smile when this Mohican saluted the n.o.ble river by its Algonquin name in the presence of those haughty Iroquois who owned it. And it seemed to me as though I could hear the feathered crests stiffen on the two Oneida heads; for this was Oneida country, and they had been maliciously reminded that the Lenape had once named for them their river under circ.u.mstances in which no Iroquois took any pride. Little evidences of the subtle but ever-living friction between my Mohican and the two Oneidas were plenty, but never more maliciously playful than this. And presently I heard the Sagamore politely mention the Ouleout by its Iroquois name, Aulyoulet, which means "a voice that continues"; and while I sent the Night-Hawk down to the water to try for a crossing, Mohican and Oneida conversed very amiably, the topic being our enemies, and how it was that on the Ouleout and in Pennsylvania they had so often spared the people of that state and had directed their full fury toward New York.

The Oneida said it was because the Iroquois had no quarrel with Penn's people, who themselves disliked the intruding Yankee and New Yorker; but they were infuriated against us because we had driven the Iroquois from their New York lands and had punished them so dreadfully at Oriskany. And he further said that Cherry Valley would not have been made such a shambles except that Colonel Clyde and Colonel Campbell lived there, who had done them so much injury at Oriskany.

I myself thought that this was the truth, for no Iroquois ever forgave us Oriskany; and what we were now about to do to them must forever leave an implacable and unquenchable hatred between the Long House and the people of New York.

For on this river which we now followed, and between us and Tioga, where our main army lay, were the pretty Iroquois towns, Ingaren, Owaga, Chenang, and Owega, with their well-built and well-cellared houses, their tanneries, mills, fields of corn and potatoes, orchards, and pleasant gardens full of watermelons, muskmelons, peas, beans, squashes--in fact, everything growing that might ornament the estate of a proud man of my own colour. Thus had the Mohican described these towns to me. And now, as I sat weary, thinking, I knew that even before our army at Otsego joined the Tioga army, it would utterly destroy these towns on its way down; ruin the fields, and burn and girdle the orchards.