The Maid-At-Arms Part 34

"This is the end, O you wise men and sachems, told since the beginning to us People of the Morning. Hiro [I have spoken]!"

Then a startling thing occurred; up from the underbrush behind us rose a tall Indian warrior, naked to the waist, painted from belt to brow with terrific, nameless emblems and signs. I sprang to my feet, horror-struck; the savage folded his arms, quietly smiling; and I saw knife and hatchet resting in his belt and a long rifle on the moss at his feet.

"Koue! That was a true tale," he said, in good English. "It is a miracle that one among you sings the truth concerning us poor Mohawks."

"Do you come in peace?" I asked, almost stunned.

He made a gesture. "Had I come otherwise, you had known it!" He looked straight at Dorothy. "You are the patroon's daughter. Does he speak as truthfully of the Mohawks as do you?"

"Who are you?" I asked, slowly.

He smiled again. "My name is Brant," he said.

"Joseph Brant! Thayendanegea!" murmured Dorothy, aloud.

"A cousin of his," said the savage, carelessly. Then he turned sternly on me. "Tell that man who follows me that I could have slain him twice within the hour; once at the ford, once on Stoner's hill. Does he take me for a deer? Does he believe I wear war-paint? There is no war betwixt the Mohawks and the Boston people--yet! Tell that fool to go home!"

"What fool?" I asked, troubled.

"You will meet him--journeying the wrong way," said the Indian, grimly.

With a quick, guarded motion he picked up his rifle, turned short, and pa.s.sed swiftly northward straight into the forest, leaving us listening there together long after he had disappeared.

"That chief was Joseph Brant, ... but he wore no war-paint," whispered my cousin. "He was painted for the secret rites of the False-Faces."

"He could have slain us as we sat," I said, bitterly humiliated.

She looked up at me thoughtfully; there was not in her face the slightest trace of the deep emotions which had shocked me.

"A tribal fire is lighted somewhere," she mused. "Chiefs like Brant do not travel alone--unless--unless he came to consult that witch Catrine Montour, or to guide her to some national council-fire in the North."

She pondered awhile, and I stood by in silence, my heart still beating heavily from my astonishment at the hideous apparition of a moment since.

"Do you know," she said, "that I believe Brant spoke the truth. There is no war yet, as far as concerns the Mohawks. The smoke we saw was a secret signal; that hag was scuttling around to collect the False-Faces for a council. They may mean war; I'm sure they mean it, though Brant wore no war-paint. But war has not yet been declared; it is no scant ceremony when a nation of the Iroquois decides on war. And if the confederacy declares war the ceremonies may last a fortnight. The False-Faces must be heard from first. And, Heaven help us! I believe their fires are lighted now."

"What ghastly manner of folk are these False-Faces?" I asked.

"A secret clan, common to all Northern and Western Indians, celebrating secret rites among the six nations of the Iroquois. Some say the spectacle is worse than the orgies of the Dream-feast--a frightful sight, truly h.e.l.lish; and yet others say the False-Faces do no harm, but make merry in secret places. But this I know; if the False-Faces are to decide for war or peace, they will sway the entire confederacy, and perhaps every Indian in North America; for though n.o.body knows who belongs to the secret sect, two-thirds of the Mohawks are said to be numbered in its ranks; and as go the Mohawks, so goes the confederacy."

"How is it you know all this?" I asked, amazed.

"My playmate was Magdalen Brant," she said. "Her playmates were pure Mohawk."

"Do you mean to tell me that this painted savage is kin to that lovely girl who came with Sir John and the Butlers?" I demanded.

"They are related. And, cousin, this 'painted savage' is no savage if the arts of civilization which he learned at Dr. Wheelock's school count for anything. He was secretary to old Sir William. He is an educated man, spite of his naked body and paint, and the more to be dreaded, it appears to me.... Hark! See those branches moving beside the trail!

There is a man yonder. Follow me."

On the sandy bank our shoes made little sound, yet the unseen man heard us and threw up a glittering rifle, calling out: "Halt! or I fire."

Dorothy stopped short, and her hand fell on my arm, pressing it significantly. Out into the middle of the trail stepped a tall fellow clad from throat to ankle in deer-skin. On his curly head rested a little, round cap of silvery mole-skin, light as a feather; his leggings' fringe was dyed green; baldrick, knife-sheath, bullet-pouch, powder-horn, and hatchet-holster were deeply beaded in scarlet, white, and black, and bands of purple porcupine-quills edged shoulder-cape and moccasins, around which were painted orange-colored flowers, each centred with a golden bead.

"A forest-runner," she motioned with her lips, "and, if I'm not blind, he should answer to the name of Mount--and many crimes, they say."

The forest-runner stood alert, rifle resting easily in the hollow of his left arm.

"Who pa.s.ses?" he called out.

"White folk," replied Dorothy, laughing. Then we stepped out.

"Well, well," said the forest-runner, lifting his mole-skin cap with a grin; "if this is not the pleasantest sight that has soothed my eyes since we hung that Tory whelp last Friday--and no disrespect to Mistress Varick, whose father is more patriot than many another I might name!"

"I bid you good-even, Jack Mount," said Dorothy, smiling.

"To you, Mistress Varick," he said, bowing the deeper; then glanced keenly at me and recognized me at the same moment. "Has my prophecy come true, sir?" he asked, instantly.

"G.o.d save our country," I said, significantly.

"Then I was right!" he said, and flushed with pleasure when I offered him my hand.

"If I am not too free," he muttered, taking my hand in his great, hard paw, almost affectionately.

"You may walk with us if you journey our way," said Dorothy; and the great fellow shuffled up beside her, cap in hand, and it amused me to see him strive to shorten his strides to hers, so that he presently fell into a strange gait, half-skip, half-toddle.

"Pray cover yourself," said Dorothy, encouragingly, and Mount did so, dumb as a Matanzas oyster and crimson as a boiled sea-crab. Then, doubtless, deeming that gentility required some polite observation, he spoke in a high-pitched voice of the balmy weather and the sweet profusion of birds and flowers, when there was more like to be a "sweet profusion" of Indians; and I nigh stifled with laughter to see this lumbering, free-voiced forest-runner transformed to a mincing, anxious, backwoods macaroni at the smile of a pretty woman.

"Do you bring no other news save of the birds and blossoms?" asked Dorothy, mischievously. "Tell us what we all are fearful of. Have the Senecas and Cayugas risen to join the British?"

Mount stole a glance at me.

"I wish I knew," he muttered.

"We will know soon, now," I said, soberly.

"Sooner, perhaps, than you expect, sir," he said. "I am summoned to the manor to confer with General Schuyler on this very matter of the Iroquois."

"Is it true that the Mohawks are in their war-paint?" asked Dorothy, maliciously.

"Stoner and Timothy Murphy say so," replied Mount. "Sir John and the Butlers are busy with the Onondagas and Oneidas; Dominic Kirkland is doing his best to keep them peaceable; and our General played his last cards at their national council. We can only wait and see, Mistress Varick."

He hesitated, glancing at me askance.

"The fact is," he said, "I've been sniffing at moccasin tracks for the last hour, up hill, down dale, over the ford, where I lost them, then circled and picked them up again on the moss a mile below the bridge. If I read them right, they were Mohawk tracks and made within the hour, and how that skulking brute got away from me I cannot think."

He looked at us in an injured manner, for we were striving not to smile.

"I'm counted a good tracker," he muttered. "I'm as good as Walter Butler or Tim Murphy, and my friend, the Weasel, now with Morgan's riflemen, is no keener forest-runner than am I. Oh, I do not mean to brag, or say I can match my cunning against such a human bloodhound as Joseph Brant."