The Hunters of the Hills Part 16

Without further ado the three folded their blankets them and fell asleep on the leaves.

Robert, before closing his eyes, had felt a.s.sured that no harm would befall them while they were in the camp of de Courcelles, knowing that the French colonel could not permit any attack in his own camp upon those who bore an important message from the Governor of New York to the Governor General of Canada. Hence his heart was light as he was wafted away to the land of slumber, and it was light again when he awoke the next morning at the first rays of dawn.

Tayoga and Willet still slept, and he knew that they shared his confidence, else these wary rovers of the woods would have been watching rather than sleeping. Jumonville also was still rolled in his blankets, but de Courcelles was up, fully dressed, and alert. Several of the Canadians and Indians were building a fire. Robert's questing eye sought at once for the Ojibway, but he was gone, and the youth was not surprised. His departure in the night was a relief to everybody, even to the French, and Robert felt that an evil influence was removed. The air that for a s.p.a.ce the night before had been poisonous to the lungs was now pure and bracing. He took deep breaths, and his eyes sparkled as he looked at the vast green forest curving about them. Once more he felt to the full the beauty and majesty of the wilderness. Habit and use could never dull it for him.

De Courcelles turned upon him a frank and appreciative eye. Robert saw that he intended to be pleasant, even genial that morning, having no reason for not showing his better side, and the lad, who was learning not only to fence and parry with words, but also to take an intellectual pleasure in their use, was willing to meet him half way.

"I see, Mr. Lennox," said de Courcelles gayly, "that you are in a fine humor this morning. Your experience with the Ojibway has left no ill results. He departed in the night. One can never tell what strange ideas these savages will take into their heads."

"I have forgotten it," said Robert lightly. "I knew that a French gentleman could not take the word of a wild Ojibway against ours."

De Courcelles gave him a sharp glance, but the youth's face was a mask.

"At least," he said, "the matter is not one of which I could dispose.

Nor can any government take note of everything that pa.s.ses in a vast wilderness. I, too, shall forget it. Nor is it likely that it will ever be taken before the Marquis Duquesne. Come, our breakfast will soon be ready and your comrades are awakening."

Robert walked down to a small brook, bathed his face, and returned to find the food ready. He did not wholly trust either de Courcelles or Jumonville, but their manners were good, and it was quite evident that they no longer wished to interfere with the progress of the mission.

Tayoga and Willet also seemed to have forgotten the episode of the night before, and asked no questions about Tandakora. After breakfast, the three put their canoe back in the river, and thanking their hosts for the courtesy of a night in their camp, shot out into the stream. De Courcelles and Jumonville, standing on the bank, waved them farewell, and they held their paddles aloft a moment or two in salute. Then a bend shut them from view.

"I don't trust them," said Robert, after a long silence. "This is our soil, but they march over it and calmly a.s.sume that it's their own."

"King George claims it, and King Louis claims it, too," said Willet in a whimsical tone, "but I'm thinking it belongs to neither. The ownership, I dare say, will not be decided for many a year. Now, Tayoga, what do you think has become of that demon, Tandakora?"

The Onondaga looked at the walls of foliage on either side of the stream before answering.

"One cannot tell," he said in his precise language of the schools. "The mind of the Ojibway is a fitful thing, but always it is wild and lawless. He longs, night and day, for scalps, and he covets ours most.

It is because we have defeated the attempts he has made already."

"Do you think he has gone ahead with the intention of ambushing us?

Would he dare?"

"Yes, he would dare. If he were to succeed he would have little to fear.

A bullet in one of our hearts, fired from cover on the bank, and then the wilderness would swallow him up and hide him from pursuit. He could go to the country around the last and greatest of the lakes, where only the white trapper or explorer has been."

"It gives me a tremendously uncomfortable feeling, Tayoga, to think that bloodthirsty wretch may be waiting for a shot at us. How are we to guard against him?"

"We must go fast and watch as we go. Our eyes are keen, and we may see him moving among the trees. The Ojibway is no marksman, and unless we sit still it is not likely that he can hit us."

Tayoga spoke very calmly, but his words set Robert's heart to beating, understanding what an advantage Tandakora had if he sought to lie in ambush. He knew that the soul of the Ojibway was full of malice and that his craving for scalps was as strong as the Onondaga had said it was.

Had it been anyone else he would not follow them, but Robert foresaw in Tandakora a bitter and persistent enemy. Both he and Willet, feeling the wisdom of Tayoga's advice, began to paddle faster. But the hunter presently slowed down a little.

"No use to take so much out of ourselves now that we'll just creep along later on," he said.

"The temptation to go fast is very strong," said Robert. "You feel then that you're really dodging bullets."

Tayoga was looking far ahead toward a point where the stream became much narrower and both banks were densely wooded, as usual.

"If Tandakora really means to ambush us," he said, "he will be there, because it offers the best opportunity, and it is a place that the heart of a murderer would love. Suppose that Dagaeoga and I paddle, and that the Great Bear rests with his rifle across his knees ready to fire at the first flash. We know what a wonderful marksman the Great Bear is, and it may be Tandakora who will fall."

"The plan, like most of yours, is good, Tayoga," said Willet. "The Lord has given me some skill with the rifle, and I have improved it with diligent practice. I think I can watch both sides of the stream pretty well, and if the Ojibway fires I can fire back at the flash. We'll rely upon our speed to make his bullet miss, and anyway we must take the chance. You lads needn't exert yourselves until we come to the narrow part of the stream. Then use the paddles for your lives."

Robert found it hard to be slow, but his will took command of his muscles and he imitated the long easy strokes of Tayoga. As the current helped much, their speed was considerable, nevertheless. The river flowed, a silver torrent, in the clear light of the morning, a fish leaping up now and then in the waters so seldom stirred by any strange presence. The whole scene was saturated with the beauty and the majesty of the wilderness, and to the eye that did not know it suggested only peace. But Robert often lifted his gaze from the paddle and the river to search the green thickets on either side. They were only casual glances, Willet being at once their sentinel and guard.

The great hunter was never more keenly alert. His thick, powerful figure was poised evenly in the canoe, and the long-barreled rifle lay in the hollow of his arm, his hand on the lock and his finger on the trigger.

Eyes, trained by many years in the forest, searched continually among the trees for a figure that did not belong there, and, at the same time, he listened for the sound of any movement not natural to the wilderness. He felt his full responsibility as the rifleman of the fleet of one canoe, and he accepted it.

"Lads," he said, "we're approaching the narrowest part of the river. It runs straight, I can see a full mile ahead, and for all that distance it's not more than thirty yards from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. Now use the strength that you've been saving, and send the canoe forward like an arrow. Those are grand strokes, Tayoga! And yours too, Robert! Now, our speed is increasing! We fairly fly! Good lads! I knew you were both wonderful with the paddle, but I did not know you were such marvels!

Never mind the woods, Robert, I'm watching 'em! Faster! A little faster, if you can! I think I see something moving in a thicket on our right!

Bang, there goes his rifle! Just as I expected, his bullet hit the water twenty feet from us! And bang goes my own rifle! How do you like that, my good friend Tandakora?"

"Did you make an end of him?" asked Robert breathlessly.

"No," replied the hunter, although his tone was one of satisfaction. "I had to shoot when I saw the flash of his rifle, and I had only a glimpse of him. But I saw enough to know that my bullet took him in the shoulder. His rifle fell from his hand, and then he dropped down in the underbrush, thinking one of you might s.n.a.t.c.h up a weapon and fire. No, I didn't make an end of him, Robert, but I did make an end of his warfare upon us for a while. That bullet must have gone clean through his shoulder, and for the present at least he'll have to quit scalp hunting.

But how he must hate us!"

"Let him hate," said Robert. "I don't care how much his hate increases, so long as he can't lie in ambush for us. It's pretty oppressive to have an invisible death lurking around you, unable to fend it off, and never knowing when or where it will strike."

"But we did fend it off," said the big hunter, as he reloaded the rifle of which he had made such good use. "And now I can see the stream widening ahead of us, with natural meadows on either side, where no enemy can lay an ambush. Easy now, lads! The danger has pa.s.sed. That fiend is lying in the thicket binding up his wounded shoulder as best he can, and tomorrow we'll be in Canada. Draw in your paddles, and I'll take mine. You're ent.i.tled to a rest. You couldn't have done better if you had been in a race, and, after all, it was a race for life."

Robert lifted his paddle and watched the silver bubbles fall from it into the stream. Then he sank back in his seat, relaxing after his great effort, his breath coming at first in painful gasps, but gradually becoming long and easy.

"I'm glad we'll be in Canada tomorrow, Dave," he said, "because the journey has surely been most difficult."

"Pretty thick with dangers, that's true," laughed the hunter, "but we've run past most of 'em. The rest of the day will be easy, safe and pleasant."

His prediction came true, their journey on the river continuing without interruption. Two or three times they saw distant smoke rising above the forest, but they judged that it came from the camp fires of hunters, and they paid no further attention to it. That night they took the canoe from the river once more, carrying it into the woods and sleeping beside it, and the next day they entered the mighty St. Lawrence.

"This is Canada," said Willet. "Farther west we claim that our territory comes to the river and that we have a share in it. But here it's surely French by right of long occupation. We can reach Montreal by night, where we'll get a bigger boat, and then we'll go on to Quebec. It's a fine river, isn't it, Robert?"

"So it is," replied Robert, looking at the vast sheet of water, blue then under a perfectly blue sky, flowing in a mighty ma.s.s toward the sea. Tayoga's eyes sparkled also. The young warrior could feel to the full the splendors of the great forests, rivers and lakes of his native land.

"I too shall be glad to see Stadacona," he said, "the mighty rock that once belonged to a nation of the Hodenosaunee, the Mohawks, the Keepers of the Eastern Gate."

"It is the French who have pressed upon you and who have driven you from some of your old homes, but it is the English who have respected all your rights," said Robert, not wishing Tayoga to forget who were the friends of the Hodenosaunee.

"It is so," said the Onondaga.

Taking full advantage of the current, and sparing the paddles as much as they could, they went down the stream, which was not bare of life. They saw two great canoes, each containing a dozen Indians, who looked curiously at them, but who showed no hostility.

"It's likely they take us for French," said Willet. "Of what tribe are these men, Tayoga?"

"I cannot tell precisely," replied the Onondaga, "but they belong to the wild tribes that live in the regions north of the Great Lakes. They bring furs either to Montreal or Quebec, and they will carry back blankets and beads and guns and ammunition. Above the Great Lakes and running on, no man knows how far, are many other vast lakes. It is said that some in the distant north are as large as Erie or Ontario or larger, but I cannot vouch for it, as we warriors of the Hodenosaunee have never been there, hearing the tales from warriors of other tribes that have come down to trade."

"It's true, Tayoga," said Willet. "I've roamed north of the Great Lakes myself, and I've met Indians of the tribes called Cree and a.s.siniboine, and they've told me about those lakes, worlds and worlds of 'em, and some of 'em so big that you can paddle days without reaching the end. I suppose there are chains and chains of lakes running up and down a hollow in the middle of this continent of ours, though it's only a guess of mine about the middle. n.o.body knows how far it is across from sea to sea."

"We better go in closer to the sh.o.r.e," said Tayoga. "A wind is coming and on so big a river big waves will rise."

"That's so, Tayoga," said Willet. "A little bark canoe like ours wasn't made to fight with billows."