"Now, speed, brothers," said Tawannears. "The next effort tells."
We ran as I had seldom run before, not fast and slow, but faster and ever faster, with every ounce of strength and wind. The yelps of the Shawnees died away behind us again, and I think we had distanced them when we emerged from the forest gloom into a belt of sunshine several miles wide. One of those awful wind-storms, to which the New World is exposed, had come this way, and wreaked its curious spite by striking down everything in its immediate front. As clean as a knife-blade it had hewed its path, leaving miles of prostrate timber where formerly had been a lordly forest. And across this natural abattis we must make our way in the open!
There was nothing else for it, and we plunged in, climbing in and out of the wreckage, seldom able to go faster than a walk. We were a scant musket-shot from the forest edge when the Shawnees appeared and howled their glee. They could not gain on us, but they were uncomfortably close as we entered the standing timber on the far side of the dead-fall; and we knew that we could not run much farther. My eyes were starting from my head as we dipped into a shallow glade that was threaded by a deep and narrow stream. Boulders dotted its course. Ten yards away an immense tulip-tree overhung it.
I flung myself down for a quick drink, thinking to hurry on. But on regaining my feet I saw Tawannears in close debate with Corlaer. The Dutchman nodded his head, and dropped into the water, which was up to his middle. I made to follow him, but Tawannears motioned me to hold my position, peering the while at our back-trail, alert for a sign of our enemies. I stared from him to Corlaer in growing amazement. The Dutchman clambered up the opposite bank and tramped heavily to a series of stones and small boulders. He planted his wet, muddy moccasins on the first stones, then carefully walked backward in his own footsteps into the river and recrossed to our side.
"Come," said Tawannears, and he dropped into the river-bed besides Corlaer.
Perforce, I followed suit, wondering what mad scheme they were up to.
The Seneca led us downstream into the shadow of the tulip-tree. Here the creek overran a flat stone, which came just to water-level. Tawannears stepped onto it, handed his musket to me, caught hold of a low tree-branch and in a trice had swung himself onto the limb. I reached him our three guns, and whilst he worked back toward the trunk, holding them under one arm, I scrambled up beside him. Corlaer came after me, his weight bearing the limb down almost to the water's surface, so that for an instant I thought it must break. But the resilient wood upheld him, and we all three gained the crotch of the fifteen-foot bole. There was ample room, and the thick leafage gave us cover as we settled ourselves to see what the Shawnees would make of the lure we had set for them.
Nothing happened for so long that I wondered whether they had seen through the ruse, and were plotting to catch us in our lair. But presently a feathered head was advanced from the low-growing foliage of the bank and studied the footprints Corlaer had trampled on the farther bank. A fierce painted face was turned toward us momentarily. Then the lean body, clad only in breachclout and moccasins, slipped into the water without a ripple and waded across. The Shawnee crept up the bank until he came to the prints of the Dutchman's wet feet on the stones. At that he turned, with a quick gesture of command, and a string of savage figures dodged after him. We counted thirty-one, most of them armed with muskets. They disappeared into the woods on the opposite bank at a fast dog-trot.
Tawannears dropped from the tulip-tree without a word.
"Where now?" I asked.
He smiled. Never let anyone tell you the Indian has no sense of humor.
"Why, we need a new canoe, brother; and the Shawnees have left two waiting for us on the river-shore."
Behind us Corlaer gave vent to a squeak of laughter.
"Ja, we put der choke on dem deer-hunters! Haw!"
We retraced our steps as rapidly as we had come, and because we now knew the way, we were able to cross the area of fallen timber in half the time we had taken formerly. But we were still within musket-shot of the forest-edge when the war-whoop resounded behind us, and a dozen Shawnees broke from cover.
"They are good warriors," approved Tawannears. "When they failed to pick up our trail again beyond the boulders they turned back."
"Shall we wait to welcome them?" I suggested.
"No, brother. We have nothing to gain by killing them. We need a canoe, not scalps."
So we ran on toward the river, although how Tawannears so unerringly picked his way I cannot say. 'Twas not so much that he knew the direction of the river. I could have done as much. But rather that he knew by instinct the shortest, most direct route to follow. We burst from the forest's edge a half-musket shot from where the canoes of the Shawnees were beached. Two men who had been left on guard over them, one the warrior Tawannears had shot in the leg in our first brush, rose to welcome us, at first, no doubt, thinking us to be their friends. But when they saw who we were they raised their bows and loosed a brace of arrows at us. Corlaer shot the wounded man offhand, and Tawannears bounded in to close quarters and brained the other with his tomahawk.
"Ha-yah-yak-eeeee-eeee-eee-ee-e!"
The scalp-yell of the Iroquois rolled from shore to shore with the dreadful, shrill vehemence of the catamount's bawl. A defiant answer came from our Shawnee pursuers not so far behind us. Tawannears stuffed his victim's scalp into his waist-belt, and flailed the bottom out of one of the canoes with his bloody tomahawk, then shoved the ruined craft out into the stream to sink.
"Ready, brothers," he called, pushing the undamaged canoe afloat. "We must be beyond musket-shot when the Shawnees reach here. Ha, their hearts will be very sad. There will be sorrow in their lodges. But they have learned that a band of deer-hunters cannot overcome three warriors who are wily in the chase."
We bent to the paddles, and drove the clumsy craft—'twas much heavier than the one we had lost—out into the current, where we might have the benefit of the river's drift. And, fortunately, we were a long shot distant when the first Shawnees reached the bank. Several of their bullets splashed close to us, but they soon abandoned the waste of powder, and we could hear the ululating howls by which they sought to recall their absent warriors and announce our escape.
Nightfall found us many miles downstream, but Tawannears would not suffer us to halt. Wet to the bone with sweat and river-water, we paddled on with weary arms that ached, eyes straining into the darkness to ward against rock or floating tree-branch. Near midnight the moon rose, and we could see the channel distinctly; but this was another reason for haste, and we did not rest until the gray dawn light revealed a sandy, brush-covered islet in midstream. Here we beached the canoe, hauled it out of sight, and lay down beside it to sleep like dead men under the warmth of the sun.
Summer blew up from the South and wrapped the Wilderness Country in a misty languor. Our arms lagged at the paddling. We were prone to idling back against the thwarts and watching the vast flocks of birds that flew northward, and especially the incalculable myriads of the pigeons, flights of such monstrous proportions that they darkened the sky. Ay, they shut out the light of the sun, for an hour at a time, the whirring of their wings and their sharp cries like the faint echoes of fairy drums and fifes.
The forest trees hung heavy with foliage, vividly green, and the occasional meadows and savannahs were gemmed with wild-flowers, white and red and yellow and blue and pink and purple. The scent of the growing things was borne to us by the gusty breeze that puffed and died and puffed again, heavy as the humid air, uncertain, indeterminate. At intervals storm-clouds tore down upon us, black, towering galleons of wrath; there would be thunder in the heavens; lightning-bolts streaked earthward to devastate the forest monarchs; and the rain would spill upon us like the torrents of the Thunder Waters at Jagara.*
* Niagara.
For two weeks we traversed this paradise without evidence of other men. Alone we surveyed the area of a kingdom. All France, I say, might have been rooted up and transplanted to this neglected wonderland to which her King laid inconsequential claim. Here were timber, ready for the axe; splendid grazing grounds where only the deer wandered; endless fields of rich black loam, awaiting the husbandman. And the very savages seemed to have abandoned it. If any watched us pass, they contrived to remain unseen. From horizon to horizon there was not a curl of smoke to show a human habitation.
But there were others besides ourselves on the bosom of the Ohio, as we soon discovered. We had slipped by the mouth of the Ouabache in the night, thinking thus to elude the observation of a possible picket thrown out from the French post of Vincennes, although, to say truth, we saw no trace of such an outpost. After a few hours' sleep we were paddling on, encouraged by Tawannears' assertion that two or three days more should bring us to the Mississippi, which we regard as the barrier of that ulterior Wilderness where our real search began, when we rounded one of the river's frequent bends to face at short range a fleet of canoes that thronged the stream from shore to shore.
Hard luck could not have dealt us a shrewder stroke. In my first glance I spied the trappings of the French Marine Infantry, the regular troops of the Canadian garrisons, the glitter of an officer's gorget, and worst of all, the flutter of the black robe of a priest. Interspersed with these were habitants in buckskin and painted Ouabaches, Miamis and Potawatomis to man the paddles. There were fifteen or twenty canoes, varying from slender craft smaller than ours to larger ones that accommodated six or eight men.
We all three backed water instinctively as we appreciated the situation, but Tawannears redipped his paddle and drove forward again almost without a check.
"It is useless to flee, brothers," he murmured. "We must stand firm."
There were several shouts from the fleet ahead, and two of the smaller craft sped out from their irregular formation. Tawannears ceased paddling for an instant and raised his right arm, palm out, in the signal for peace. A French officer, in laced coat and cocked hat, in one of the large canoes answered him in kind, and the Indians who occupied the two small canoes sheered off as soon as they descried the wolf's head on his chest. No ordinary wood-ranging savages cared to encounter a chief of the Long House in peace time, even with the backing of French troops. They knew their betters, had learned to know them through many a bloody foray.
The French flotilla drifted idly, awaiting us as we paddled slowly between the leading canoes toward the one in which was seated the officer who had acknowledged Tawannears' greeting.
"Who is he?" I asked, when we came close enough to identify his corpulent form and massive face.
"Charles Le Moyne."
"The Chevalier de Longueuil?" I exclaimed.
"Yes, brother."
I stared at the man with increased interest. He was one of the four greatest men in Canada, the eldest son and heir of that Baron de Longueuil who was Lieutenant Governor. He ranked next after the Governor-General, himself, the Intendant and his father. 'Twas no slight mission had brought him so far from home.
I was about to speak again when I noticed a certain tense rigidity in the muscles that lay in beautiful coils and ridges along Tawannears' spine. Simultaneously came a gasp from Corlaer, behind me in the stern of the canoe.
"'Black Robe!'"
I craned my neck to peer over the Seneca's head. Ay, 'twas so. Behind Le Moyne, sitting as motionless as an image upon the hard, narrow thwart, his death's-head of a face turned full upon us was the famous Jesuit, Père Hyacinthe. His gnarled tortured fingers were telling the beads of the rosary that lay across his bony knees. His black soutane fell in straight, severe lines to his sandaled feet. I knew, though I could not see, the terrible scars that the torture-stake had left upon his body for once in the past he had shown them to me. I knew, too, the man's indomitable hatred of all things English, his overweening ambition, fortified by iron will and intense religious conviction, to win the whole Continent for Louis of France and the Church of Rome.
Of all those who labored with tireless devotion to substitute Latin civilization for Anglo-Saxon in the New World, there was none whose aims were more ardently or unselfishly served. Up and down the Wilderness Country he went, always toiling, reckless of hunger, of thirst, of cold, of physical peril. And the savages, with their instinct for the appropriate, had named him Black Robe. By it he was known to many thousands who had never seen him.
A strange man! A man whose mentality had been a little warped by suffering and hardship and over-much concentration upon ecstatic devotion. Fasting and contemplation, loneliness and self-flagellation, abnegation of all things physical, fire torment and knife torment—these had left their mark upon him. If he did harm, he also did good. He was of those fearless ones who carried the Christian faith to recesses of the Wilderness which will not be known to others until our sons' sons push the frontier a thousand leagues nearer to the sunset. He believed that he had no occasion to bother unduly for food, because God would feed him at need, and certes 'tis true he never died of starvation. A strange man! One to be judged without thought to creed or politics.
His face betrayed no emotion as our canoe drew alongside Le Moyne's, and a Marine corporal clutched the gunwale, but his eyes blazed with fanatical intelligence in the deep recesses of their bony sockets. He leaned forward and tapped Le Moyne's shoulder.
"Anti-Christ is come among us," he announced in sepulchral tones. "Here are sons of the English harlot."
Le Moyne frowned slightly. He was a plain soldier-statesman, and no doubt he found it sometimes difficult to accept the priest's high ways. Yet it speaks for Black Robe's influence that he dared not show resentment.
"What mean you, my father?" he asked curtly.
The Jesuit pointed an accusing finger at us.
"Do you not know them, my son?"
"Ay, Tawannears I know. 'Tis the Warden of the Western Door of the Long House. And Corlaer, too, I know. But not the other."
"'Tis Henry Ormerod, of the Council of the Governor of New York, one of the wiliest minions of the English. He is a renegade from the service of his rightful sovereign King James, and through him hath held commission from the Regent Orleans."
Of our party I was the only one who could understand this conversation, for Tawannears and Corlaer had no French. It came glibly enough to my tongue, however, after five years service under the Duke of Berwick on the frontiers of the Low Countries and Italy and in Spain. I struck back, therefore, without waiting to consult my comrades.
"'Tis true, Chevalier," I said, "that my name is Ormerod and Governor Burnet hath honored me with membership of his Council. True, too, that in my youth I was mistaken enough to espouse the cause of the exiled Stuarts, and thus passed some time in France. But that is a page long turned. Whilst I served James I was faithful, and I left him because I came to know that he would never be more than a puppet to serve the ends of a foreign court. Since then I have striven to serve my country as you serve yours. Is there dishonor and hostility in that?"
Le Moyne started to answer me, but Black Robe took the words from his mouth.
"Never heed the Englishman," exclaimed the priest. "He is a servant of evil, a foresworn heretic, an enemy of France."
"There is peace betwixt France and England," I answered boldly. "What talk is this of enemies?"
The priest tossed his arms aloft.
"They talk of peace, peace," he cried. "And there is no peace! Can there ever be peace betwixt anti-Christ and God? Nay, my son. But ask the Englishman what he does, journeying secretly through the territories of France hundreds of leagues from English soil. Why does he travel with the Iroquois chief who is known as the principal friend of the English? Why do we see with him Corlaer, who is the emissary of the English in seducing the savages from trading at our posts? What is his mission here? Has he a passport from Quebec?"
Le Moyne nodded his head.
"There you are correct, father. Monsieur Ormerod, these questions I must have you answer. Where is your passport?"
"I have none," I returned. "Nor do I admit I should have one. I have not traveled territory under the control of France. Since we left Deonundagaa more than a month ago we have not seen a single Frenchman or a sign of French occupation. More, it is not my purpose to enter French territory. I am bound to the farther Wilderness Country, beyond the Great River."
"That, too, is French territory," proclaimed Black Robe. "All this region God hath set aside for the sons of France. No Englishman hath put foot beyond the Great River."
"For that reason, I propose to," I said. "Surely, there is no harm in seeking to know what it is like."
Le Moyne squared his jaw.
"I am not so certain of that, Monsieur Ormerod. But 'tis useless to debate the point here. I fear I must ask you to accompany us to our camping place. There we will discuss your case more fully, and endeavor to arrive at a composition of our differences. At the worst, I must send you back to New York under escort. No harm shall be done you."
There was nothing else for it. Our plight was hopeless. We were three against near an hundred Frenchmen and Indians, and resistance was as unthinkable as flight.
So much I reasoned for myself, and Tawannears and Corlaer agreed with me when I repeated the substance of the conversation as we fell into line behind the French commander's canoe, and wearily retraced our course. We were too disheartened to say much, for we reckoned it probable we should have to do over again what we had already accomplished, and that would mean losing the Summer—and very likely, having to wait over the next Winter. Ahead, I could see Black Robe leaning forward now and then to speak to Le Moyne. A bad omen!
At dusk the flotilla drew inshore to the northern bank a few miles below the mouth of the Ouabache, and we beached our canoe with the others. A file of the regular infantry busied themselves to help us collect wood, and although they did not touch our arms they made us feel that we were prisoners. I tried to draw out the corporal, but gleaned little for my pains. Yes, they had left Le Detroit whilst the snow was still on the ground. They had been to the mouth of the Great River or very near it, to the French post at New Orleans, where the Sieur de Bienville, the Chevalier de Longueuil's brother, was stationed. Now, they were returning by way of Vincennes, Le Detroit, Jagara and Fort Cadaraqui* to Montreal.
* Afterward Fort Frontenac.
It had been a trip of inspection, I gathered typical of the nervous energy of the French Government, not content, as were the rulers of the English colonies, to rest satisfied with a strip of seacoast or the valley of a tidal river, but forever reaching out for new lands to develop and acquire and hold in fee as a heritage for the future—a trip of thousands of leagues by river and forest, under all extremes of heat and cold. And if the humble corporal knew nothing of such high policies, nonetheless I was sure that one of Le Moyne's objects must have been the selection of suitable points for a chain of trading stations and military posts along the line of the Ohio and the Mississippi to link up the New Orleans settlement with Canada, and so bar England once for all from the untapped resources of the Far West beyond the Great River.
Somewhat of these reflections I communicated to my comrades as we ate our evening meal, and we were still discussing the significance of our chance encounter when an ensign came to summon us to Le Moyne. The French Commander was sitting by a fire in a deep glade that ran back from the river's brink toward the forest. Black Robe was standing beside him when we arrived, hot eyes shining uncannily in the glare of the leaping flames, distorted fingers twitching his rosary beads.
"Be seated," said Le Moyne briefly. And then falteringly, in the Seneca dialect: "Tawannears, and you, Corlaer, pardon me if I speak in French to your friend. My tongue has not the knack of the Iroquois speech."
Tawannears bowed with the gracious assent of a prince. Corlaer squeaked "Ja."
Le Moyne turned to me, his manner hostile, his accent crisp.
"I have been hearing bad things about you, Monsieur Ormerod. The reverend father tells me you are a secret envoy of the English, a spy, in other words, one they send abroad to sow trouble betwixt us and the savages. He charges that you are the favorite emissary of Monsieur Burnet and that it is largely due to you the Six Nations have latterly turned against us."
"But, Chevalier——"
"I will have no buts, Monsieur Ormerod. It is beyond reason that I should permit such a person as you to travel undisturbed in French territory."
"But is it French territory?" I demanded.
"If the Peace of Utrecht means aught."
"I have heard it said that no two minds were alike on that point," I commented dryly.
He laughed.
"There you are right," he agreed. "Yet it is beside the point. You are a trouble-maker, Monsieur. I must expel you. Wherever I found you I should expel you."
"Are the French at war with the English?" I asked hotly.
"Not that I have heard. You are later from civilization than I, Monsieur."
"Then why——"
He brushed the objection aside.
"We deal with realities, Monsieur Ormerod. 'Tis not a question of war but of peace—for France. As I have said, you are a trouble-maker. If I let you wander free, the next time I came this way you might have all the tribes by the ears, united by alliances with the English Crown. Heed me now when I say that France came first into this country, and France shall stay first here."
"But I say I have no interest in this country. I——"
Black Robe bent forward sternly.
"Do not relent, my son," he said to Le Moyne. "The man is dangerous—his companions, too."
"You have heard my decision, father," answered the officer.
I regarded the priest curiously.
"Why do you dislike me?" I asked. "We are on opposite sides, 'tis true, but I have always fought you fair—and once I saved your life."
This was no less than truth, for on a certain occasion, which has nothing to do with this story, the Iroquois would cheerfully have burned Père Hyacinthe but for my strenuous objection. He was in no ways grateful at the time, I am bound to admit, and he did not exhibit gratitude now, as he towered over the camp-fire.
"Poor worm that squirms itself into the path of destiny!" he said harshly. "There is no question of fair fighting or foul fighting betwixt us, nor of gratitude or ingratitude. You serve Anti-Christ. I serve the Heavenly Father. At no place do we touch. We have no interests in common. If you did well, doubt not Holy Peter has recorded the deed for you in his record book. But who are you to prate of good deeds when your soul is steeped in the darkness of heresy, and your eyes are clouded by English lies? Think, rather, on your sins, and it may be you will see light before it is too late."
He turned to Le Moyne.
"My son, I am leaving you now. There is a village of the Ouabaches some miles hence where I have preached the Word. I visit them and will rejoin you at Vincennes."
He turned on his heel and strode off.
"Hold, father," called the officer. "Will you not rest and eat? An escort, surely——"
The answer came from the shadows.
"I do not need an escort when I go upon my Father's business. I have rested all day and I have broken my fast."
"Peste!" ejaculated Le Moyne. "'Tis an uncomfortably holy person, Monsieur Ormerod."
"Do I not know it!" I retorted. "This is not the first time, either."
The Frenchman chuckled.
"So I gathered. But come, now, tell me truthfully what is your object; 'twill do you no good to deceive. My hands are bound, as you must know. This wood-ranging is a tedious business, and I have heard naught of politics since I left New Orleans. What bee is buzzing in Burnet's hat?"
I gave him a desperate look. He was a man of good countenance, kindly in reason, iron-willed, pugnacious, intelligent. So I read him. He lounged by the fire obviously bored. There were no others close by save Tawannears and Corlaer, and they were smoking and exchanging small-talk on their own account.
"The truth?" I said. "You shall have it—although 'tis not a story for general telling. You, Chevalier, I can see, are a gentleman."
He bowed courteously.
"And for that reason," I went on, "I give you my confidence. 'Tis true, of course, that in my travels I am keeping my eyes open for information useful to my people. If, for instance, you sent me back to New York I should have to tell at once of meeting this expedition and the deductions I had drawn from it."
"Hah!" said Le Moyne. "I don't know that I shall! I hadn't thought of that."
"Then I should not like to be in your dilemma," I replied. "After all, as Père Hyacinthe told you, I am a member of the Provincial Council. You can't very well incarcerate me without trial in time of peace."
"Get on with your story, Monsieur," he adjured impatiently.
"I am hoping," I pursued, "to learn much of value. No Englishman that I know of hath traversed the Wilderness Country across the Mississippi. I would learn to what extent our people and the French are known to its tribes, and what is their disposition to the English, as also, the value of the land and its geographic condition."
"My faith, Monsieur, but you are frank!" protested the Frenchman.
"I am trying to be," I said. "But you may believe me or not, Chevalier. I should not be here for that reason alone, nor would my comrades yonder."
And I described to him as simply as possible the combination of circumstances which had brought Tawannears, Corlaer and myself upon this venture. 'Twas not a story easily to be compressed, and again and again he drove me off the main trail into byways, for bits of it had come to him in the past—as, for instance, the matter of Gahano's death and the grief of Tawannears—so it was very late when I finished. My comrades were asleep, and over the brow of the shallow glen I could see the groups of sleepers around the dying fires. By the shore where the canoes were beached and at intervals along the edge of the encampment stood the sentinels. Except ourselves, they were the only souls awake.
I looked at them because my eyes were wet. In repeating my story I had resurrected painful memories that the recent weeks had buried. The old wound had reopened. I did not like to think of the house in Pearl Street. At that moment I thought I never wanted to enter it again. I loathed the idea of returning to New York. And I did not want the Frenchman to see my grief.
I was brought back to the present by a crash of sparks as he withdrew a heavy log from the fire, and the flames flared lower.
"Monsieur Ormerod," he said abruptly, "you were good enough to call me a gentleman."
I met his eyes fully—and scarcely dared to believe what I read there.
"I am also," he continued, "a soldier of France. I trust I place my country's interests above my personal vanity, above friendship, above all. But I should not be a Frenchman if I did not recognize courage and the love which spans the worlds. I have learned a lesson from you and your comrades to-night, Monsieur. I thank you for it. You have made me a better Frenchman, a better soldier, a better Christian."
He made a wry face at this last word.
"Although I shall have trouble convincing Père Hyacinthe on that count," he admitted.
"You mean, Chevalier?" I queried breathlessly.
"I mean, Monsieur Ormerod, that I am unable to see how an adventure such as yours can do anything save good. It is an inspiration for brave men of all races. Has it not made me a better Frenchman to hear of it? That sleeping savage there, he is a better Frenchman than I, even so, he, who doubtless hates my race."
He rose.
"But I am not a sufficiently better Frenchman to dare to seem to flout Père Hyacinthe. Oh no! Therefore, Monsieur Ormerod, I am going for a walk to inspect the sentries. I shall draw their attention to something by the shore of the river over to the left. In the meantime, the fire dies. This glen leads into the forest. Your friends are here. I see you have your arms with you. Monsieur, I have the honor to tell you it has been a pleasure to meet you.Adieu!"
He was gone whilst I was still mumbling my thanks, I heard his hearty voice blustering at the nearest sentries, a running chain of comment along the outskirts of the camp; and I was recalled to my senses. A hand over the mouth of each, and my comrades awoke. Another minute, and crouched double, we were stealing up the glen into the welcome depths of the forest. Five minutes later, and our feet were spurning the leaf-mold as we ran between the trunks, left arms outstretched before our faces to ward off hanging boughs or vines.
We heard no whooping of aroused savages, as must have attended discovery of our escape; but we dared not trust unduly in Le Moyne's generosity, and we ran throughout the night, steering in a northwesterly direction by the stars, in order to avoid the Ouabache villages and the French post at Vincennes. We came to a halt only when the sunrise showed us to be approaching the verge of the forest country. Beyond the thinning tree trunks a perspective of rolling savannahs stretched to the horizon's rim. Not a single tree broke the monotonous outline, and the tall grass rippled under a gentle breeze like the green billows of the ocean.
"We have gone far enough, brothers," said Tawannears. "Out there a man is visible for miles. Let us rest now and make sure we are not followed."
We swung by a pendant grape-vine into the center of a thorny patch of wild berry-bushes, chopped out a space to recline in, arranged the bushes we had demolished in the fashion of a roof so as to preserve the contour of the patch, and abandoned ourselves to sleep. It was noon when we awakened again. Indeed, Tawannears swung himself out of our hidey-hole as I opened my eyes. He was gone for half an hour and returned to announce that he had been unable to find any trace of pursuit along our trail.
"That means we are safe," I exclaimed jubilantly. "To-night we can steal back to the river and take a canoe from one of the Ouabache villages."
"My brother's wits are clouded," returned Tawannears. "Our enemies will be watching for us to do that very thing."
"Ja," agreed Peter, yawning awake. "Andt if we got away they would follow us."
"True talk," said the Seneca. "They would follow us and they would catch us. That way we should lose our scalps."
"Then what can we do?" I demanded.
He pointed to the expanse of the savannahs—or prairies, as the French call them—which we could just see over the tree-tops.
"From here to the Father of Waters, brother, most of the country is like that. Corlaer and Tawannears know, because when we made this journey before, we came all the way by land from the Door of the Long House. The open country begins even farther to the east as you go north toward the Lakes. Over such country we can travel almost as rapidly as in the canoe, and also, brother, we can travel in a straight line. The Ohio twists like a snake and it bears away to the south, so that after it carried us to the Great River we should have to paddle north again against the current, for it is my purpose to make for the country of the Dakota, above the other great river, the Missouri, which pours into the Father of Waters on its west side. Corlaer and Tawannears dwelt a while with the Dakota, before the message came summoning us to return to the Long House, and it is my thought that they might help us farther upon this journey, where other peoples would seek to plunder us or take our scalps."
"You are right, as always, brother," I said. "If Peter agrees, let us start."
Peter heaved himself ponderously to his feet, seized his musket and stood ready for Tawannears to lead the way.
"Ja," he squeaked placidly. "Now we get some buffalo-hump."
"What?" I asked, as Tawannears started down the hillock.
"He means the wild cattle of the plains, brother," explained the Seneca. "You have seen their skins in the lodges of my people, and once, the forefathers tell us through the Keeper of the Wampum, the buffalo ranged up to the Doors of the Long House; but now they are seldom seen east of the Ouabache. Their meat is sweet and tender at this time of the year, especially the hump of a young cow. It will be a welcome change after jerked deerflesh."
"Ja," affirmed Corlaer, licking his lips.
And I was amused to notice the display of vigilance with which he surveyed the country around us as we left the protection of the forest for the open sweep of the savannahs. To be sure, the fat Dutchman was never as dull as he allowed himself to seem, and he had developed the faculties of seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling to a pitch as acute as the savages' which is the highest praise I can offer. But he usually employed his ability without ostentation. Now, he was as palpably interested in his surroundings as I was, and his growing disappointment, as the afternoon waned and we had no sight of a living creature, was comical. Indeed, he was much put out when I rallied him upon it, and his silence when we halted at evening was gloomily expressive.
Our camp that night was beside a tiny rill of water that tickled along a fold in the rolling waves of earth. There was no underbrush available, let alone trees, and the long prairie grass that grew waist-high was too green to burn readily, so we had no fire. But we did not feel the want of it, for the heat was terrible on the unshaded savannahs. All day the sun had been beating down upon the earth, and all day the earth had been drinking in the heat—to exude it through the night like a dry sweat.
Peter and I came to envy Tawannears his nakedness, and in the morning we stripped off our leathern shirts and rolled them in bundles to sling from the thongs of our food-pouches, suffering the Seneca to coat us with bear's-grease which he carried in a horn-box, a precaution which diminished notably the ardency of the sun's rays. Without its aid my unweathered shoulders must have been broiled pink, whereas under the layer of grease they baked gradually until in days to come they turned a warm brown not unlike the dusky bronze hue of Tawannears himself.
We had not pushed far this morning when we came upon a broad swath of trampled grass leading from south to north. Hoof-marks showed in the pulverized earth, and Peter's little eyes glistened.
"Buffalo!" he shrilled, excited as a boy. "Oof, now we get some nice hump for supper."
Eyes fixed on the horizon, he set off northward at a jog-trot, and Tawannears and I followed him, really as anxious as he to vary the monotony of our diet. Most of our burnt corn and maple-sugar was gone, and we had had scarcely anything but jerked deer-flesh for three days.
"How does he know the buffalo went north?" I questioned. "The trail leads in both directions."
"They always travel north at this season," rejoined Tawannears. "In the fall of the year they will turn south again. Yes, Peter is right. This grass was trampled only yesterday. They must be near us."
A yelp came from the Dutchman at that moment, and his enormous body crouched forward.
"See!" he cried.
We joined him on the summit of a slight rise. Several miles across the grassy sea moved a desultory procession of brown objects, hundreds of them.
"A large herd," I commented.
Peter gave me a scornful look, and Tawannears laughed.
"Beyond the Father of Waters, brother," said the Seneca, "you will see the buffalo in such myriads as the wild pigeons that flew over the Ohio. The thundering of their hoofs will shake the ground. They will cover the prairie for two days' fast marching."
Peter plucked a blade of grass and tossed it in the air. There was very little wind but what there was wafted it over our heads.
"Goodt!" he grunted. "Dey are upwindt."
"Will Corlaer stalk the buffalo without assistance?" inquired Tawannears with his customary courtesy.
"One shot is enough," returned Peter, and he lumbered away through the grass, his body huddled over until he was wholly concealed.
I started to sit down to watch the Dutchman's exploit, but Tawannears, with a light of mischief in his eyes, prodded me off to the right, and broke into a run as soon as we had placed one of the deceptive swells of the prairie between us and our comrade.
"What ploy is this?" I panted.
"We will surprise Peter," he answered, laughing. "He thinks to stalk the buffalo, Otetiani, and instead we will make the buffalo stalk him."
We fetched a wide semicircle northeastward, and came up on the flank of the herd. But before we approached closely Tawannears halted, and we picked bunches of grass which he arranged on our heads, so that at even a short distance we were indistinguishable from our grassy background. Then we continued, working slowly around the flank of the herd until we were in its rear. Corlaer was nowhere to be seen.
"Now, brother!" said Tawannears.
He cast off his head-dress, and advanced openly upon the animals. I imitated him, and an old bull gave a bellow of warning. A medley of noises answered the alarm, mooing of cows and bleating of frightened calves and over all the bellowing of other bulls. The herd milled around and gave ground before us. Tawannears waved his arms, and it broke into a run.
"They will go over Peter!" I exclaimed.
"No," answered Tawannears. "If it were a large herd, perhaps. But we have only made it easier for Peter, who said he needed no help. He will shoot into the herd when it approaches him, and the buffalo will split right and left on either side of him."
The herd topped the first swell to the south, and a shot boomed suddenly.
"Watch!" said Tawannears.
The frenzied mass of huge, shaggy creatures divided as if a giant sword had sliced down from the blazing sky overhead. I ran up the slope behind them and reached its brow in time to see the halves reunite a quarter of a mile farther on. Directly beneath me lay the body of a fat cow, and Peter already was at work upon it with his knife. Tawannears raised the war-whoop, but Peter carved stolidly on.
"Ja," he remarked when we joined him, "you think you put der choke on Peter, eh? Well, you don't. I look back once andt I don't see you. Andt den der herd begins to mofe, andt it stampedes. 'Ho,' I said to myself. 'Funny tricks!Ja, funny tricks.' But I shoot me der best cow in der lot, yust der same. We hafe some nice hump for supper.Ja."
Fortunately for Peter's appetite, we were able to camp that night in a grove of dwarf trees that bordered a small river, and the broiled buffalo hump was all that he had anticipated. We seized the opportunity afforded by a plentiful supply of firewood to jerk the balance of the choice cuts, about four stone in weight, which detained us in the grove all of the next day. Of course, we could not make a thorough job of it, but it sufficed to preserve the meat untainted in that searing heat for three or four days longer, and at the end of that time we had worked into a different kind of country where game was more plentiful.
Here lush meadows alternated with dense patches of low timber and swamps and bottomlands, these latter backwaters of the river, which were forest-covered, yet never completely drained. The increasing natural difficulties slowed our pace, and we were three days in traversing this broken country; but Tawannears encouraged us with the assurance that it indicated our nearness to the Great River, which always in the Spring inundated the lands along its course, sometimes for many miles.
This country was neither pleasant nor healthful by contrast with the cool forests and open savannahs we had known, and we were pestered unmercifully by a plague of gnats. But on the other hand we were never at a loss for fresh meat. We knocked over squirrels with sticks and dragged the wild turkeys from their roosts at night. There was a kind of partridge, too, that plumped up under our feet, a stupid bird easily to be slain with the tomahawk. And one time a black bear barred our path and stood growling at us. We let him go, for we needed no meat and we must husband our powder.
The third day we waded knee-deep through a flooded forest-tract and came without warning upon the margin of a wide, brown stream. I hailed it for the Mississippi, at last; but Tawannears asserted it to be the Illinois, a tributary, which flowed down from the vicinity of the Lake of the Michigans and entered the Mississippi opposite to and a short distance above the Missouri. This knowledge was valuable, inasmuch as it told us approximately where we were, and we turned back to nominally dry ground and headed southwest, following the general trend of the Illinois. But our progress was slower than ever, for the luxuriance of the undergrowth in those moist lowlands baffles description. Briars tore our skin; creepers tripped us; bushes grew so thickly that we had to hack our way step by step, taking turns at trail-breaking.
The next day we won to higher ground, a ridge from which we caught occasional glimpses of the Illinois; and in mid-afternoon we stumbled unawares upon a trail that led from the northeast and straddled the saddle of the ridge.
"Back!" hissed Tawannears, as we smashed carelessly through the brushwood into the grooved slot.
Ostensibly, the trail was deserted. A lightning glance revealed it a vacant, green-walled tunnel. But appearances meant nothing in the Wilderness, and we slid behind a fallen trunk, straining our ears for sounds of other men. Bees buzzed over us in the soft yellow light. We heard water running somewhere. Birds sang in the tree-tops. That was all. Minute by minute, we waited for the purr of an arrow, the crash of a shot, the yell of the war-whoop. But nothing happened, and at last Tawannears motioned for us to crawl after him to a position offering ready access to the choked lands on the river side of the ridge. There he left us, to scout the neighborhood alone. An hour passed, as Peter and I knelt back to back in the underbrush, our eyes roaming the woods on every side. Another hour, and I became restless. Evening was darkening when the hoot of an owl announced Tawannears' approach. He crawled into our lair, and dropped a worn moccasin in Peter's lap.
"Chippewa," he murmured.
Peter nodded confirmation, slowly turning the footgear in his pudgy hands.
"A war-party," continued Tawannears. "They were going across the Father of Waters. Their footprints all point toward the river."
"Der trail is fresh?" queried Corlaer.
"I found the ashes of a fire two days old," returned the Seneca. "It is my counsel that we lie here until morning. I think the Chippewas are planning to cross the Great River to hunt for Dakota scalps and buffalo robes. The Dakota are my brothers. They are brave warriors, but they have no muskets. The Chippewas are allies of the French. They have muskets, and it is easier for them to steal furs from the Dakota than to hunt the wild creatures themselves. Let us give them time to cross the river. Afterward we will follow them and carry a warning to the Dakota."
Morning brought rain, and we were afoot with the light, avoiding the trail itself, slinking by preference through the woods parallel with it. It was a weary day of physical discomfort and cautious progress, but we had our reward. In the late afternoon we splashed out of a backwater to emerge upon a shelving bluff, grassy and well-timbered. From its western edge we stared at a vast yellow sea, its farther shore dim under driving sheets of rain.
"The Father of Waters," said Tawannears.
I gasped. Miles wide the yellow waters rolled as far as the eye could see. Sullen, threatening, overpowering in its surge and breadth, the river pulsed along with a majestic rhythm almost like a living thing.
"But how shall we cross it?" I stammered.
Tawannears waved a hand toward the saplings that crowded the bluff.
"We have our hatchets. We must build a raft."
We chose for our camp the site the Chippewas had occupied, a recess under the bluff that had been dug by the Spring freshets when the water was higher even than now, and the débris of their raft-building told my comrades that they had not numbered more than twenty or thirty, an ordinary raiding party of young warriors. It was too late to begin work then on the raft, but in the morning, with sunshine to hearten us, we fell to with our hatchets and chopped down a score or two of sturdy young trees, dragged them to a point just above water-level, and left them there, whilst we invaded the backwaters to collect grape-vines and other creepers, which we carried back to the bluff by the armload.
These were Tawannears' materials, and under his direction we formed them into a remarkably buoyant raft. His theory was to take a number of saplings and bind them one to another. On these transversely he placed a second layer, which were first bound together and then staunchly fastened to the bottom layer. Two additional layers were superimposed upon these, with the result that he had a high-riding, practically water-tight conveyance, ample to float the three of us. The one difficulty we foresaw was in forcing our way across the current, and we met this as well as we could by whittling crude paddles and poles for pushing in shallow water. We were vastly proud of our achievement when we wiped the sweat from our eyes after two days of labor and admired the raft as it rode to a withe cable hitched to a convenient stump.
"She floats as grandly as a frigate," I exclaimed.
"And no snag can sink Her," added Tawannears. "The Father of Waters is conscious of his might. He is jealous of those who would travel him. He has knives hidden in his bosom to wreck the unwary, but we——"
"Hark!" interrupted Corlaer, hand upraised.
From inland came the crashing noise made by a heavy body moving carelessly through the undergrowth, the mutter of a voice unrestrained. We snatched up our rifles and ran to cover. It was useless to think of flight on the raft. An enemy could riddle us as we strove to force its unwieldy bulk out into the stream. No, our only chance was to stand to it, conscious that we had our backs to the river and therefore could not be surrounded. Perhaps night would furnish an opportunity for us to escape by dropping down with the current—if we were not overwhelmed by numbers before that. Only a strong force, unafraid, would crash towards us in that reckless way. It was like white men, not Indians. The thought sent a shiver down my spine. I rolled over beside Tawannears.
"Is it the French, brother?" I asked.
"We shall soon see," he answered grimly. "Someone is walking there between the trees—to your right."
A dark object showed in the sun-flecked greenery of the woods. Tawannears thrust forward his musket, and sighted along the barrel.
"He is alone," murmured Peter.
"Then there will be none to tell his story," remarked Tawannears grimly. "But Corlaer must not be too sure. He may be the bait to a trap."
The strange figure strode into an opening bathed in the warm sunlight, and I had a brief vision of a fluttering black habit and a white blob of a face.
"It is Black Robe!" I cried softly.
Tawannears cuddled his gun to his cheek.
"Hawenneyu has delivered him into our hands," he commented. "If I miss, Corlaer must shoot before he can run."
"Ja," grunted Peter.
"No, no," I exclaimed, "There must be no shooting."
"He is an enemy," answered Tawannears, unmoved. "He hates us. Why should my brother care whether he lives or dies?"
"But he has done nothing to us that advantaged him," I argued. "He does not even know that we are here."
"Perhaps he does," said Tawannears. "Perhaps he has followed us, when Le Moyne refused to do so. Perhaps his Ouabaches and Miamis lurk behind him."
"He is alone," repeated Peter. "But just der same we better shoot him. He is no goodt."
"It would be murder," I insisted. "We shall serve no object by killing him. What harm can he do us? In a few hours we shall have passed the river where his Indians cannot reach us."
The Jesuit was in full view, advancing almost directly toward us, his eyes on the blue horizon. He was chanting to himself in a deep, sonorous voice, and as he drew nearer I identified the words of the Vesper Hymn:
"mens gravata crimine,Vitae sit exul munere,Dum nil perenne cogitat,Seseque culpis illigat."
"I am going to speak to him," I said. "It can do no harm. He does not know we are here. Why, Tawannears, the man is fearless. He would walk straight into your musket, and defy you to shoot. Moreover, he has withstood the torture more than once, and I do not think he is right in his head. Would you be proud of killing one whose mind the Great Spirit had wrapped in a cloud?"
Tawannears was all Indian, despite his perfect English and the erudition he had absorbed from his missionary teachers. Corlaer, after a life among the red men, had imbibed many of their prejudices. My last remark turned the scale. A man whose mentality had been touched was sacred to any tribe.
The Seneca smiled unwillingly.
"Otetiani is a strong pleader. Very well. Let Black Robe live. But if he meditates treachery we must kill him, even though Hawenneyu has set him aside among men."
"He is alone," declared Peter for the third time. "Always he trafels alone. I know it. But he is no friend to us. We watch him, eh?"
"Surely," I agreed. "He is a Frenchman and our enemy. That I do not deny. But he cannot harm us. Come, we will ask him his business here. Afterwards, if necessary, we will keep watch on him."
Black Robe had halted some thirty yards south of our hiding place, and stood now on the edge of the bluff, surveying the wonderful prospect of the unbridled river, its yellow waters glistening in the sunlight, the opposite bank a low green wall two miles or more away. His lips moved in words I could not hear, and he dropped to his knees in the attitude of prayer, head bowed, and remained so many minutes, his body rigid with the ecstasy of devotion.
I waited until he had risen again, then stepped from our hiding-place and walked toward him. Tawannears and Corlaer followed me. He saw us almost at once, but he made no sign of surprise. He simply stood, facing us, his terribly maimed hands locked in front of him, his spare frame vibrant with the suppressed energy of the indomitable spirit within him.
"So you came this way," he said harshly. "I thought as much, but they would not listen to me."
"And you, Père Hyacinthe?" I asked. "Where do you go?"
"I go upon my Father's business," he answered in the phrase I had heard him use more than once before.
"Alone?"
His pallid, riven face cracked in what I suppose he intended for a smile of sarcasm.
"Shall I take with me such guards as attend the Holy Father when he rides in state? No, but I am guarded, Englishman. Cohorts of angels attend me. The cherubim chant me on my way. It suffices."
"I do not seek to probe your affairs," I replied as politely as I could, "but you are our enemy. We do not wish to harm you, yet we must protect ourselves."
"You cannot harm me," he said without irritation. "Enemy? No, my erring son, I am not your enemy—or, rather say I am enemy only to the evil that hath possession of you. But content yourself. I have come many miles this day and I saw no living thing, save the beasts of the forest."
I was satisfied, for I knew it was not in the priest to lie.
"Have you food?" I asked.
"Food?" he repeated doubtfully, almost as if he had not understood me. "No, but I shall eat."
"If a heretic's food——" I began.
"Heaven's grace is vouchsafed in divers ways," he cut me off curtly. "It may be this opportunity has been given you to find an escape from sin. I will eat your food, Englishman."
Tawannears and Peter listened sullenly to my invitation, and their faces expressed neither welcome nor toleration as the Jesuit walked back with us to the recess under the bluff.
His hollow eyes lighted with unusual interest when he spied our raft.
"You are crossing the Great River, Monsieur Ormerod?"
He seemed tricked out of his dour mannerisms for the moment. His voice took on the casual courtesy of one gentleman to another. But it was a fleeting manifestation, no doubt an echo from some long-buried past.
"Yes," I said, "as I told the Chevalier——"
"Strange," he interrupted me abruptly, his old manner returning, "that you of all men should be appointed to aid in the fulfilling of my mission. How inscrutable are God's ways! Yet there must be a meaning in this. Blessed Virgin aid me!"
My comrades would have nothing to do with him. They took their food and removed out of ear-shot, leaving me to do the honors, which was only fair, inasmuch as I had foisted him upon them. But it insured an ill evening for me, for Black Robe utilized the opportunity to examine me at length upon my religious convictions—sketchy, at best, I fear, after a lifetime of wandering—and read me a lecture upon the errors of my creed. I marvel much as I look back upon that incident. In many ways I hold he was wrong, but of all men I have known as well I must account him the most holy. He knew not the meaning of the word self-interest. Life for him was service of the Word of God, as he understood it. He wasted no time in the search of Truth, for he held that it was ready to hand, ay, inscribed in letters of fire across the skies for all men to see.
He talked to me for hours after the others slept, and I listened with undiminished interest to the end. The man's stern conviction was an inspiration, whether you agreed with him or not. And if some hold me religiously a weakling because I grant him the merit of believing what he preached, my answer is that such as he was, he—and many others like him—was one of the most potent forces in carrying the rule of the white man into the Wilderness Country. If he and his fellows did not convert the savages, at least they taught them the strength of the white man's will, and by their pioneering endeavor they taught their own people the worth of the unknown lands that always lie beyond the horizon's rim.
In the night the weather shifted, and the morning was overcast and blustery, with a changeable wind. We debated whether we should trust ourselves to the raft under such conditions, and Tawannears and Peter advised against it until Black Robe derided their fears.
"What?" he cried in the Seneca dialect, which came readily to him, he having been long a missionary to the People of the Long House. "Is the Warden of the Western Door afraid to go upon the waters? Is Corlaer, whose fat belly is dreaded by every squaw from Jagara to the mouth of the Mohawk, fearful lest he wet his moccasins? You have dared all manner of perils over hundreds of leagues, and now you wince at a few leagues of water! Pluck up your courage! I am the wreck of what was a man, yet I am not afraid. Will you let me daunt you?"
"Black Robe does not know what he says," replied Tawannears stiffly. "A silly little bird has whistled idle thoughts in his ear. He knows well that Tawannears does not fear even the Master of Evil, Hanegoategeh, whom Black Robe serves."
Peter said nothing, after his fashion, but his little eyes squinted thoughtfully, and presently he drew us aside.
"If Black Robe is touched in der head we might be safe," he proposed.
"Nonsense," I retorted impatiently, "what has that to do with whether the wind blows or the waters rise? It is dangerous out there on the raft or it is not. Black Robe has nothing to do with it."
"My brother Otetiani may be right," said Tawannears, "yet he has said that the Great Spirit has taken Black Robe under his protection. If that is true, will Hawenneyu allow him to drown?"
"Perhaps not," I admitted, "but we might drown whilst he escaped."
"Otetiani speaks with a straight tongue," affirmed the Seneca. "Nevertheless I say that we cannot let Black Robe put a slight upon us. There is danger on the bosom of the Father of Waters. But if we do not venture forth Black Robe will laugh at us, and perhaps some day he will tell the story to his people. Let us go."
I shrugged my shoulders. I did not like the look of the river. It was roughening every minute. But neither could I resist the quaint logic of Tawannears, and of course, no man enjoys being told he is afraid.
"Have it your own way," I said at last.
Tawannears walked up to the priest.
"We go," he said quietly. "If we die, remember that you urged us forth."
One of those rare reflections of a personality long submerged shone in the Jesuit's face. He dropped his hand upon the Seneca's bare shoulder.
"There is naught to fear," he said gently. "God watches over us on the water as on the land. If He has ordained for you to die, you will die. The good warrior thinks not upon death, but upon his mission."
His manner changed. His hand dropped by his side. His voice became harsh.
"Heathen, would you blame me for your wickedness? As well do so as charge me with your death! You and I have no power over life! Look up! Look up, I say! There is the Power that decides all. Ha, you fear—you fear what you know not!"
His face a study in masked fury, Tawannears strode to the side of the raft, drew his knife and laid the keen edge against the mooring withe.
"Tawannears waits," he said.
Black Robe stepped aboard without a word. Peter and I climbed after him, and the Seneca severed the withe with a single slash. We piled our muskets, powder-horns and pouches upon a raised framework in the center of the unwieldy craft, where they would be out of the reach of the water, and took to the pushing poles, the Jesuit lending a hand, and shoved out into the current.
The raft rode high, as we had expected, but its heavy weight made it drag fearfully in the slack water under the bank. We bent all our strength on the poles, yet the headway we achieved was trifling. Sagging, lurching, its component trees rustling and squelching, it crawled forward a foot or two at a time. A sandbar held us up for an hour, and after an unsuccessful effort to push across, we finally contrived to float around it. Then we resumed the battle, and half-naked as we were, the sweat poured from us and our muscles ached. How Black Robe endured it I do not know. Of us all he alone did not sweat, but he worked unflinchingly until the moment, when, without warning, a monstrous force seemed to seize upon the raft.
There was a swirl, a peculiar sucking noise—and the shore began to recede. The raft wavered crazily, twirled about, started across the current and as abruptly was spun back downstream. We stood stupidly, leaning on our poles, scarcely realizing what had happened.
"The river does our work for us, it seems," I remarked.
Tawannears shook his head, a worried expression in his eyes.
"No, brother, the worst is ahead of us. The river is like a wild beast to-day."
"Ja," squeaked Corlaer, striking his pole down in a futile effort to find bottom.
Black Robe remained by himself on the forepart of the raft, his gaze on the mirky distance where he appeared to be able to see landscapes that were denied to our earth-bound spirits.
"We can work across the current," I suggested. "It may take time, but——"
A yellow-brown wave, its crest tipped with scum, slapped against the side of the raft and spattered our feet. Another rolled in from the opposite quarter and lapped over the side. The structure of the raft groaned and shifted.
"It will take many hours," answered Tawannears. "Our work has just begun."
We got out the rough paddles we had carved and undertook to steer diagonally with the current, but experience proved that a consistent course was impossible of attainment. We made distance in the desired direction—and were promptly picked up by an eddy and tossed back again, or else the vagrant wind set in to toy with us. The waves rolled higher constantly, and we were wet to the waist. But we fought on, and the longer we fought the more intelligent our efforts became.
There was a trick to this work, a trick entirely different from navigating a light, amenable, birchen canoe. Our raft had a will of its own, and a certain sense of decency. Handled as it desired to be, it would even accomplish a measure of our desires, and gradually we came to learn its ways. This aided us in winning ground—or, I should say, water; but nothing could aid us in conflicting the capricious moods of wind and current. Sometimes we had both behind us, and then we were driven rapidly downstream. Again, the wind would come from the quarter and mitigate somewhat the effect of the current. Mid-afternoon found us with nothing gained beyond a hazardous mid-stream course that was varied by occasional wild lurches in the direction of one shore or the other.
When the current discharged us towards the eastern bank we battled desperately against it. When, in one of its incomprehensible moments of beneficence, it started us in the desired direction we labored with gritting teeth to assist it. And every time this happened it ended by spinning us around and starting us back the way we had come. Night shut down upon us miles from our starting place, but less than half-way across.
Sleep, of course, was unthinkable. We were wet. We had little edible food. But tired as we were, we were still unwilling to suspend for a minute our struggle against the river. Moreover, we now required all our vigilance, for the waters were laden with other floating objects, sinister, half-sunken projectiles that had been trees and were now the instruments of the river's wrath. One of these, a giant hulk of wood, careened against us in the faint star-light and partially demolished the structure upon which we had placed our arms and superfluous clothing. We narrowly escaped losing all our store of powder in this misadventure, and the shock had noticeable effect in loosening the fabric of the raft. It developed an increasing sluggishness, a more frequent tendency to lurch uncertainly, and our attempts to direct its progress became ridiculously inept.
But we did not desist. The night was cool, but we sweated as we had on the broiling savannahs, and tapped unknown reservoirs of strength to maintain our fight. We seldom spoke to one another. There was little occasion for words, except once in a while to shout a warning. And Black Robe paddled and poled beside us, hour by hour. I do not remember that he ever spoke that night. We were afraid, frankly, openly afraid, admitting it tacitly one to another. But I am sure that he was as serenely indifferent to fate as he had been in prodding us to start. He was the only one who did not croak hoarse exultation when the river played its last trick upon us.
This came just after sunrise. We had felt for the past hour an erratic swirl in the eddying current. Now we sighted a mile or so ahead of us to the right the mouth of another river, little narrower than the Mississippi.
"That is the Missouri, brothers!" exclaimed Tawannears. "We are far downstream. If we are carried beyond this we shall land in the country of the Mandans, who are enemies of the Dakota and eaters of human flesh. Hawenneyu has veiled his face from us!"
But at that instant Hawenneyu withdrew the veil and smiled upon us. What happened, I think, was that the incoming stream of the Missouri, meeting the torrent of the Mississippi, combined with the Great River to form a whirlpool of eddies, with a backshoot toward the western bank. At any rate, we were suddenly spun about like a chip in a kennel, so rapidly that it was dizzying. Nothing that we could do had any influence upon the course of the raft. We tried to work against the eddies for several moments, and finally gave it up in disgust, determined to meet whatever doom was in store for us without flinching.
Our reward was to be impelled at most amazing speed toward the west bank. Twice on our way we were caught and torn at by opposing eddies, but each time the raft worked free of its own volition, and the rising sun saw us floating, water-logged and bedraggled, in a backwater under the western bank, perhaps half a mile above the mouth of the Missouri.
We were still a long way from shore, of course, and it required two hours of steady poling to work us through the sandbars to within wading distance of the river's edge; but we made it. We shouldered our muskets and staggered ashore to collapse upon the bank just above the water-level—all except Black Robe. Without a glance at us or the sodden remnants of the raft that had carried him here, without even a casual inspection of the country before him, he climbed the bank and strode westward. He had not slept through the night; he had eaten a bare handful of food since morning; he had labored as hard as we had.
I called after him, but he dismissed me with an impatient wave of the hand. The last I saw of him his black figure was outlined sparsely against a low wood. There was an uncompromising air to his back I did not like, but I could not have pursued him to save myself. Tawannears and Peter were stretched inert upon the bank beside me, their eyes closed in sleep. I hesitated—and sank beside them.