With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga Part 16

"Suppose we should fight the red-coats?"

"Umph! Me hear Long-guns" (the Virginians) "talk fight to Six Nations.

No. Yenghese send too many big chiefs over water."

"Those big chiefs aren't always good," returned Enoch, quickly. "Your people remember General Abercrombie. He did not know how to fight in these forests. And there was Braddock; he was no good at all. He wouldn't have been beaten if he'd taken Colonel Washington's advice. I'd give a lot more when it comes to a fight for our Major Putnam, Mr.

Washington, and Ethan Allen."

The Indian's face was gloomy. He had finished eating now and leaned back against a tree while he puffed the tobacco in the little copper pipe which was his constant companion. Not until the pipe was smoked out did he speak. "Harding my friend," he finally said, in his grave tone, repeating a formula which he had used so many times since the night Nuck had saved him from the wolves. "Harding my friend. Crow Wing know what is in his mind. He thinks to fight the red-coats--to take their great stockades; he is not afraid of their many guns. But he is foolish; he is as a child; he does not understand. Let him open his ears and listen to his friend."

The young chief had a.s.sumed that oracular tone and manner so dear to the red man in his counsels. His earnestness, however, impressed Enoch. "The white youth and his friends are angry with the great King across the water; they would kill his red-coats. But the red-coats are like leaves when the frost comes; they fall to the ground and so cover the earth; and it is thus with the red-coats for numbers. And the Six Nations will be with the red-coats; Crow Wing's people will be with them. If there is war we will take many scalps; we will come here," with a gesture, sweeping in the Bennington country, "and then Crow Wing and Harding not be friends. So Crow Wing come now to say to Harding, 'Good-bye.'"

"But why do not the Indians help us instead of the red-coats?" demanded Enoch, striving to speak calmly.

"The great King give us blankets; he give us powder for scalp; he give us gun. The red-coats let Injin fight his own way. And Crow Wing be great war chief!" he exclaimed, with some emphasis. It was plain that he expected to make his position with his tribe secure by his valor in battle, should the settlers and the British come to a rupture. He refrained from speaking longer, however, rising soon and covering the fire which he had kindled. Then, seizing a bundle of torches and his rifle, he motioned Enoch to follow and they set off through the forest toward the deer-lick.

Although he felt the utmost confidence in the fact that Crow Wing had not come clear from Lake George simply to give him this warning and to bid him good-bye, Enoch still remained silent upon that subject which the Indian's appearance had brought so forcibly to his mind. Through the darkened forest, in which the owls now hooted mournfully, the white youth followed the red without a word; every step was taking them nearer to that place where his father had been found dead so long ago. Crow Wing had spoken with some confidence the year before of being able to find, even at this late day, some sign which should disprove the generally accepted belief in the manner of Jonas Harding's death.

The brave soon reached the deeply worn runway which Enoch, on the morning he was introduced to the reader, followed to the creek, and soon the two came upon the little glade where the saline deposits in the earth had attracted the deer and other animals since such creatures inhabited the forest. Dark as it was Enoch could even distinguish the very tree out of which the catamount had sprung at him, and the murmur of the hurrying waters down the rocky bed reached his ear. Here 'Siah Bolderwood and the other neighbors had found the dead body of the elder Harding, apparently trampled and gored to death by the huge buck whose hoofprints marked the ground all about. Enoch had seldom pa.s.sed the spot without a shudder--especially since he had so nearly lost his own life there.

Still the Indian made no comment, nor mentioned the real reason for which they had come to the lick. He wet his finger and held it up so as to get the direction of the wind. Then circling the lick and getting between it and the creek-bank, he flung down the bundle of torches and motioned Enoch back into the deeper shadow. With his own flint and steel, and using a bit of tinder from the leather pouch he carried, he lit one of the resinous torches. This he stood upright some little distance away, yet not too near the piece of ground where the creatures of the forest were accustomed to obtain their salt. Then, crouching beside his white friend, the Indian remained motionless and speechless for the next three hours. Once Enoch crept out and renewed the torch which had burned low; then he returned to Crow Wing's side.

All the sounds of the forest at night are not to be distinguished with ease. Even Enoch, bred in the wilderness and possessing much knowledge of wood-ranging, heard only the coa.r.s.er sounds. Therefore he lay half dreaming for some moments after the Indian raised his head and lent an attentive ear to some noise which came from far away. The night-owl's hoot was intermittent; a lone wolf howled mournfully on the hillside; in the swamp a catamount screamed as it pounced upon its prey. But it was none of these sounds which had attracted the Indian's attention. Enoch suddenly roused to see Crow Wing softly reach for his gun and bring the weapon slowly to his shoulder.

The white youth already had his own weapon in hand. He tried to pierce the darkness beyond the flickering torch with his eyes, seeing naught at first but shapeless shadows. At length, however, the sound that had warned Crow Wing of the approach of their game, was audible to Enoch's much less acute ear. It was that of a steady grinding of a ruminant animal feeding. The creature was coming slowly nearer and soon the hunters could plainly hear it cropping the leaves and twigs along the path; then, having gained a choice mouthful, the grinding of the molars recommenced.

Suddenly the thick brush across the glade parted and the animal halted with a surprised snuff--one might almost say gasp of astonishment. The crash in the bushes betrayed that the creature had flung itself half around in its contemplated flight; then it hesitated; the flaming torch spurred its curiosity and, there being no movement in the glade, except of the shadows caused by the dancing flame from the fragrant pine, the startled creature was tempted.

And being tempted to the point of hesitation, it was lost! Slowly, blowing as it came yet drawing nearer and nearer to the light, the beast moved out of the brush into the open. Suddenly Enoch saw it--the branching antlers, the fawn-colored breast, the pointed, outstretched, eager muzzle, the great eyes in which the torch reflected a glint of fire. It was a magnificent buck, the largest specimen of the deer tribe the youth had ever seen. Suddenly Crow Wing jogged his elbow. A glance pa.s.sed between them. Each understood the other's intention. The Indian fired, his ball entering just above the buck's breast and ploughing slantingly upward through the throat. With a snort of terror the buck swerved to one side and might have gotten away had not Enoch's shot found a more vulnerable spot behind the foreleg. The heart of the great deer was punctured, and it fell in the agony of death.

"Umph! Now Crow Wing have new moccasins," the Indian grunted, without emotion. But Enoch went forward, lighting a second torch the better to view the great buck. It was still now and outstretched on the earth looked even larger than when in life. The thought flashed through his mind: "Ah! perhaps this was the very brute--this enormous fellow with his hoofs bigger than those of a steer and his terrible horns--that killed my father here. Could it be possible?"

Looking upon this huge buck, noting its power and its fierce aspect, though the brute's eye was glazed by death, he wondered if, by any chance, he had been accusing an innocent person? This brute would have been perfectly able to kill a man. Naught but the hoof-marks of the deer were found about the body of his father. How, then, could Simon Halpen be in any wise guilty of his enemy's death?

But Crow Wing brought the white youth to a realization of present things. The Indian knew that their hunting was over for that night. No other deer would approach the lick, for the smell of the blood from the slain buck would warn its mates away. Only the creatures of prey would be attracted now. So he was down on his knees and had already begun to flay the dead carca.s.s, and Enoch, seeing this, began to help him. It was near midnight, and when the hide was off, the tongue and the most tasty parts removed, Crow Wing built another fire, wrapped his blanket about him, and lay down to sleep.

But Enoch could not sleep. He had cut off and hung up near the camp a haunch of the venison to take back with him in the morning. They had removed so far from the lick that certain preying beasts dared quarrel over the remains of the n.o.ble buck until daylight; but the youth sat with his back against a tree and his rifle across his knees until the dimpling water of the creek was kissed by the first beams of the sun which shot over the distant range of hills. His thoughts were sufficient to keep him wide awake.

Enoch was not the first to stir; but Crow Wing, possessing the hunter's faculty of awaking at any desired hour, sat up and threw back his blanket. "My brother did not sleep," he said, looking upon the white youth with gloomy brow.

"No; I couldn't do that, Crow Wing," Enoch returned, sadly.

The Indian got upon his feet, threw wood upon the fire, and prepared to cook the deer meat he had reserved. They ate in silence as they had the night before. Never had young Harding seen the redskin act so strangely, for during the winter Crow Wing had spent with Enoch and Lot on the Otter, he had by no means been silent or morose. The white youth could not fail to see that something--something beside what troubled Enoch--bore heavily upon Crow Wing's mind.

After eating the Indian scattered and covered the embers of the fire and prepared to leave the spot. He went toward the lick where the deer had been torn to pieces by the prowling animals Enoch had heard. At the edge of the clearing he halted and attracted his companion's attention by a commanding gesture. "Harding's father found here by the tall white man,"

he said, simply.

"Yes. 'Siah Bolderwood found him," Enoch sadly admitted.

"Then we look--see how Hawknose kill him."

"But Crow Wing, it was four years ago----"

The Indian stopped him with a gesture of disdain. "Does my brother think we look for trail? No, no! The white man not find trail?"

"Of course not. There were only marks of the buck's hoofs."

Crow Wing pointed to the spoor of the dead buck made the night before.

"Trail big as that?" he asked.

"Yes. It might have been this buck."

"No buck," declared the other, emphatically and then began to move about the open glade, examining each tree trunk as he went. Enoch did not understand his actions but he followed him. The Indian gazed upon each tree scrutinizingly, and no knothole in the rough boles escaped his attention.

When the tree proved to be hollow at its base the searcher experimented with his gun barrel, poking it into the farther extremity of the cavity and rattling out the decayed wood and the debris of squirrel nests and owl lairs. In several cases these creatures themselves were disturbed, the lively squirrels to run chattering up the higher branches, the owls lumbering away into the forest, b.u.mping against the trees in their blindness, and hooting mournfully at the disturbers of their peace. All this time Crow Wing continued with an unmoved face. Not an interstice in the roots of the trees escaped his eye and to Enoch, who could not imagine what he was looking for, his actions seemed without reason. But he knew better than to ask him the nature of his search.

For two hours Crow Wing circled about the little glade. There was not a tree which escaped him, nor did any hollow go unexamined which was within reach of the tallest man. Crow Wing's face betrayed neither hope nor disappointment and therefore his companion could not tell how important this search was. The patience displayed by the Indian was all that suggested the object of his examination to be of any moment.

At length, in poking the barrel of his gun into the hollow at the base of a big tree Crow Wing disturbed some object which fell out upon the ground. Enoch, who looked over his shoulder could not at first imagine what it was. He saw several rotting straps attached to the thing, however, and as his companion with a grunt of evident satisfaction, began poking into the hollow still further, the white boy picked the object up and knocked the dirt and decayed wood off it. It was so strange an object that at first Enoch saw no connection between it and the matter which he and Crow Wing had discussed--Jonas Harding's death.

It was the dry and broken hoof of some ruminant animal--an ox, perhaps, for it was too large for any deer that Enoch had ever seen. It was even larger than the hoof of the buck he and Crow Wing had recently shot. And when the boy thought of that he was reminded of the hoof prints which had been found all about the lick when his father's body was discovered lying there. He uttered a stifled exclamation and drawing up one foot fitted the cloven hoof against the sole of his moccasin. The rotten straps or thongs would once have bound the thing to a man's foot. He might have stood upon it--walked upon it, indeed; and the impression left by this cloven hoof would naturally lead one to suppose that a big deer had been that way!

Enoch turned with sweating brow and shaking hands toward the Indian.

Crow Wing stood upright again and now held a second hoof, likewise supplied with thongs, in his hand. They looked at each other.

"Umph!" grunted Crow Wing. "Now Harding know? See moose hoofs. Crow Wing know where moose killed--see moose killed. Hawknose kill much that winter; Hawknose hunt with Injins up north; then come back to crick.

Harding 'member what Crow Wing tell him when trapping on Otter Crick?

See Hawknose running; blood on clothes; blood on hands and on gun. Now Harding know how father be killed."

Enoch's eyes blazed with wrath. "I know, Crow Wing. I believe what you tell me. I see no other explanation of the affair. Give me those hoofs, Crow Wing."

"Harding keep them till he punish Hawknose?" queried the Indian.

"Yes."

The young brave pulled his belt tighter and prepared to depart.

"Hawknose never Crow Wing's brother," he said. "Harding been brother.

But now the hatchet will be dug up. The Long-guns cannot get the Six Nations to fight the red-coats. And the friends of my white brother will be beaten. They will become the squaws of the red-coats and of the great King across the sea. So my people will go north and join the red-coats."

He shook Enoch's hand gravely. "Crow Wing and Harding been brothers; but when they meet again be enemies. Umph?"

"I hope we'll never meet again, then, Crow Wing," declared the white youth. "I hope there will be no war. More than that, I hope your people will not join the British if there is war."

But without further speech, or a glance behind him, the Indian brave strode away into the forest and was quickly lost to view.

CHAPTER XVIII

"THE CROSS OF FIRE"