The Masters of the Peaks Part 19

"I admit that, too. He's gone like the wind on his snowshoes. It seems queer that you and he should be here in the mountain wilderness so far north of your lines, in the very height of a fierce winter."

"It's just as queer that you should be here."

"Perhaps so, from your point of view, though it's lucky that I should have been present with these dark warriors of mine when you were taken. They suffered heavily in the battle by Andiatarocte, and but for me they might now be using you as fuel. Don't wince, you know their ways and I only tell a fact. In truth, I can't make you any promise in regard to your ultimate fate, but, at present, I need you alive more than I need you dead."

"You won't get any military information out of me."

"I don't know. We shall wait and see."

"Do you know the Chevalier de St. Luc?"

"Of course. All Frenchmen and all Canadians know him, or know of him, but he is far from here, and we shall not tell him that we have a young American prisoner. The chevalier is a great soldier and the bravest of men, but he has one fault. He does not hate the English and the Bostonnais enough."

Robert was not bound, but his arms and snowshoes had been taken and the Indians were all about him. There was no earthly chance of escape.

With the wisdom of the wise he resigned himself at once to his situation, awaiting a better moment.

"I'm at your command," he said politely to Langlade.

The French leader laughed, partly in appreciation.

"You show intelligence," he said. "You do not resist, when you see that resistance is impossible."

Robert settled himself into a more comfortable position by the fire.

His head still ached, but it was growing easier. He knew that it was best to a.s.sume a careless and indifferent tone.

"I'm not ready to leave you now," he said, "but I shall go later."

Langlade laughed again, and then directed two of the Indians to hunt more wood. They obeyed. Robert saw that they never questioned his leadership, and he saw anew how the French partisans established themselves so thoroughly in the Indian confidence. The others threw away more snow, making a comparatively large area of cleared ground, and, when the wood was brought, they built a great fire, around which all of them sat and ate heartily from their packs.

Langlade gave Robert food which he forced himself to eat, although he was not hungry. He judged that the French partisan, who could be cruel enough on occasion, had some object in treating him well for the present, and he was not one to disturb such a welcome frame of mind.

His weapons and the extra rifle of Garay that they had brought with them, had already been divided among the warriors, who, pleased with the reward, were content to wait.

The night was spent at the captured camp, and in the morning the entire party, Robert included, started on snowshoes almost due north.

The young prisoner felt a sinking of the heart, when his face was turned away from his own people, and he began an unknown captivity. He had been certain at first of escape, but it did not seem so sure now.

In former wars many prisoners taken on raids into Canada had never been heard of again, and when he reflected in cold blood he knew that the odds were heavy against a successful flight. Yet there was Tayoga.

His warning shot had enabled the Onondaga to evade the band, and his comrade would never desert him. All his surpa.s.sing skill and tenacity would be devoted to his aid. In that lay his hope.

They pressed on toward the north as fast as they could go, and when night came they were all exhausted, but they ate heavily again and Robert received his share. Langlade continued to treat him kindly, though he still had the feeling that the partisan, if it served him, would be fully as cruel as the Indians. At night, although they built big fires, Langlade invariably posted a strong watch, and Robert noticed also that he usually shared it, or a part of it, from which habit he surmised that the partisan had received the name of the Owl.

He had hoped that Tayoga might have a chance to rescue him in the dark, but he saw now that the vigilance was too great.

He hid his intense disappointment and kept as cheerful a face as he could. Langlade, the only white man in the Indian band, was drawn to him somewhat by the mere fact of racial kinship, and the two frequently talked together in the evenings in what was a sort of compulsory friendliness, Robert in this manner picking up sc.r.a.ps of information which when welded together amounted to considerable, being thus confirmed in his belief that Willet with the letter had reached the lake in time. St. Luc with a formidable force had undertaken a swift march on Albany, but the town had been put in a position of defense, and St. Luc's vanguard had been forced to retreat by a large body of rangers after a severe conflict. As the success of the chevalier's daring enterprise had depended wholly on surprise, he had then withdrawn northward.

But Robert could not find out by any kind of questions where St. Luc was, although he learned that Garay had never returned to Albany and that Hendrik Martinus had made an opportune flight. Langlade, who was thoroughly a wilderness rover, talked freely and quite boastfully of the French power, which he deemed all pervading and invincible.

Despite the battle at Lake George the fortunes of war had gone so far in favor of France and Canada and against Britain and the Bostonnais.

When the great campaign was renewed in the spring more and bigger victories would crown French valor. The Owl grew expansive as he talked to the youth, his prisoner.

"The Marquis de Montcalm is coming to lead all our armies," he said, "and he is a far abler soldier than Dieskau. You really did us a great service when you captured the Saxon. Only a Frenchman is fit to lead Frenchmen, and under a mighty captain we will crush you. The Bostonnais are not the equal of the French in the forest. Save a few like Willet, and Rogers, the English and Americans do not learn the ways of woods warfare, nor do you make friends with the Indians as we do."

"That is true in the main," responded Robert, "but we shall win despite it. Both the English and the English Colonials have the power to survive defeat. Can the French and the Canadians do as well?"

Langlade could not be shaken in his faith. He saw nothing but the most brilliant victories, and not only did he boast of French power, but he gloried even more in the strength of the Indian hordes, that had come and that were coming in ever increasing numbers to the help of France.

Only the Hodenosaunee stood aloof from Quebec, and he believed the Great League even yet would be brought over to his side.

Robert argued with the Owl, but he made no impression upon him.

Meanwhile they continued to march north by west.

CHAPTER VIII

BEFORE MONTCALM

The Owl, with his warriors and captive, descended in time into the low country in the northwest. They, too, had been on snowshoes, but now they discarded them, since they were entering a region in which little snow had fallen, the severity of the weather abating greatly. Robert was still treated well, though guarded with the utmost care. The Indians, who seemed to be from some tribe about the Great Lakes, did not speak any dialect he knew, and, if they understood English, they did not use it. He was compelled to do all his talking with the Owl who, however, was not at all taciturn. Robert saw early that while a wonderful woodsman and a born partisan leader, he was also a Gascon, vain, boastful and full of words. He tried to learn from him something about his possible fate, but he could obtain no hint, until they had been traveling more than three weeks, and Langlade had been mellowed by an uncommonly good supper of tender game, which the Indians had cooked for him.

"You've been trying to draw that information out of me ever since you were captured," he said. "You were indirect and clever about it, but I noticed it. I, Charles Langlade, have perceptions, you must understand. If I do live in the woods I can read the minds of white men."

"I know you can," said Robert, smilingly. "I observed from the first that you had an acute intellect."

"Your judgment does you credit, my young friend. I did not tell you what I was going to do with you, because I did not know myself. I know more about you than you think I do. One of my warriors was with Tandakora in several of his battles with you and Willet, that mighty hunter whom the Indians call the Great Bear, and Tayoga, the Onondaga, who is probably following on our trail in the hope of rescuing you. I have also heard of you from others. Oh, as I tell you, I, Charles Langlade, take note of all things.

You are a prisoner of importance. I would not give you to Tandakora, because he would burn you, and a man does not burn valuable goods. I would not send you to St. Luc, because, being a generous man, he might take some foolish notion to exchange you, or even parole you. I would not give you to the Marquis Duquesne at Quebec, because then I might lose my p.a.w.n in the game, and, in any event, the Marquis Duquesne is retiring as Governor General of New France."

"Is that true? I have met him. He seemed to me to be a great man."

"Perhaps he is, but he was too haughty and proud for the powerful men who dwelt at Quebec, and who control New France. I have heard something of your appearance at the capital with the Great Bear and the Onondaga, and of what chanced at Bigot's ball, and elsewhere. Ah, you see, as I told you, I, Charles Langlade, know all things! But to return, the Marquis Duquesne gives way to the Marquis de Vaudreuil. Oh, that was accomplished some time ago, and perhaps you know of it. So, I do not wish to give you to the Marquis de Vaudreuil. I might wait and present you to the Marquis de Montcalm when he comes, but that does not please me, either, and thus I have about decided to present you to the Dove."

"The Dove! Who is the Dove?"

Langlade laughed with intense enjoyment.

"The Dove," he replied, "is a woman, none other than Madame de Langlade herself, a Huron. You English do not marry Indian women often--and yet Colonel William Johnson has taken a Mohawk to wife--but we French know them and value them. Do not think to have an easy and careless jailer when you are put in the hands of the Dove. She will guard you even more zealously than I, Charles Langlade, and you will notice that I have neither given you any opportunity to escape nor your friend, Tayoga, the slightest chance to rescue you."

"It is true, Monsieur Langlade. I've abandoned any such hope on the march, although I may elude you later."

"The Dove, as I told you, will attend to that. But it will be a pretty play of wits, and I don't mind the test. I'm aware that you have intelligence and skill, but the Dove, though a woman, possesses the wit of a great chief, and I'll match her against you."

There was a further abatement of the weather, and they reached a region where there was no snow at all. Warm winds blew from the direction of the Great Lakes and the band traveled fast through a land in which the game almost walked up to their rifles to be killed, such plenty causing the Indians, as usual, now that they were not on the war path, to feast prodigiously before huge fires, Langlade often joining them, and showing that he was an adept in Indian customs.

One evening, just as they were about to light the fire, the warrior who had been posted as sentinel at the edge of the forest gave a signal and a few moments later a tall, spare figure in a black robe with a belt about the waist appeared. Robert's heart gave a great leap. The wearer of the black robe was an elderly man with a thin face, ascetic and high. The captive recognized him at once. It was Father Philibert Drouillard, the priest, whose life had already crossed his more than once, and it was not strange to see him there, as the French priests roamed far through the great wilderness of North America, seeking to save the souls of the savages.

Langlade, when he beheld Father Drouillard, sprang at once to his feet, and Robert also arose quickly. The priest saw young Lennox, but he did not speak to him just yet, accepting the food that the Owl offered him, and sitting down with his weary feet to the fire that had now been lighted.

"You have traveled far, Father?" said Langlade, solicitously.

"From the sh.o.r.es of Lake Huron. I have converts there, and I must see that they do not grow weak in the faith."

"All men, red and white, respect Philibert Drouillard. Why are you alone, Father?"