It happened the following afternoon that, having written in my journal, and dressed me in my best, I left the Mohican in the hut a-painting and shining up his weapons, and walked abroad to watch the remaining troops and the artillery start for Otsego Lake.
A foot regiment--Colonel Gansevoort's--had struck tents and marched with its drums and colours early that morning, carrying also the regimental wagons and batteaux. However, I had been told that this veteran regiment was not to go with the army into the Iroquois country, but was to remain as a protection to Tryon County. But now Colonel Lamb's remaining section of artillery was to march to the lake; and whether this indicated that our army at last was fairly in motion, nobody knew. Yet, it seemed scarcely likely, because Lieutenant Boyd had been ordered out with a scout of twenty men toward the West branch of the Delaware, and he told me that he expected to be absent for several days. Besides, it was no secret that arms had not yet been issued and distributed to all the recruits in the foot regiments; that Schott's riflemen had not yet drawn their equipment, and that as yet we had not collected half the provisions required for an extensive campaign, although nearly every day the batteaux came up the river with stores from Schenectady and posts below.
Strolling up from the river that afternoon, very fine in my best, and, I confess, content with myself except for the lack of hair powder, queue, and ribbon, which ever disconcerted me, I saw already the two guns of the battalion of artillery moving out of their cantonment, the limbers, chests, and the forge well horsed and bright with polish and paint, the men somewhat patched and ragged, but with queues smartly tied and heads well floured.
Had our cannoneers been properly and newly uniformed, it had been a fine and stirring sight, with the artillery bugle-horn sounding the march, and the camp trumpets answering, and Colonel Lamb riding ahead with his mounted officers, very fine and nobly horsed, the flag flying smartly and most beautiful against the foliage of the terraced woods.
A motley assembly had gathered to see them march out; our General Clinton and his staff, in the blue and buff of the New York Line, had come over, and all the officers and soldiers off duty, too, as well as the people of the vicinity, and a horde of workmen, batteaux-men, and forest runners, including a dozen Oneida Indians of the guides.
Poor Alden's 6th Massachusetts foot regiment, which was just leaving for the lake on its usual road-mending detail, stood in spiritless silence to see the artillery pass; their Major, Whiting, as well as the sullen rank and file, seeming still to feel the disgrace of Cherry Valley, where their former colonel lost his silly life, and Major Stacia was taken, and still remained a prisoner.
As for us of Morgan's, we were very sorry for the mortified New Englanders, yet not at all forgetful of their carping and insolent attitude toward the ragged New York Line--where at least the majority of our officers were gentlemen and where proper and military regard for rank was most decently maintained. Gad! To hear your New Englander talk, a man might think that this same war was being maintained and fought by New England alone. And, damn them, they got Schuyler laid aside after all. But the New York Line went about its grim and patient business, unheeding their New England arrogance as long as His Excellency understood the truth concerning the wretched situation. And I for one marvelled that the sniffling 'prentices of Massachusetts and the Connecticut barbers and tin-peddlers had the effrontery to boast of New England valour while that arch-malcontent, Ethan Allen, and his petty and selfish yokels of Vermont, openly defied New York and Congress, nor scrupled to conduct most treasonably, to their everlasting and black disgrace. No Ticonderoga, no Bennington, could wipe out that outrageous treachery, or efface the villainy of what was done to Schuyler--the man who knew no fear, the officer without reproach.
The artillery jolted and clinked away down the rutty road which their wheels and horses cut into new and deeper furrows; a veil of violet dust hung in their wake, through which harness, cannon, and drawn cutlass glittered and glimmered like sunlit ripples through a mist.
Then came our riflemen marching as escort, smart and gay in their brown forest-dress, the green thrums rippling and flying from sleeve and leggin' and open double-cape, and the raccoon-tails all a-bobbing behind their caps like the tails that April lambkins wriggle.
Always the sight of my own corps thrilled me. I thanked God for those big, sun-masked men with their long, silent, gliding stride, their shirts open to their mighty chests, and the heavy rifles all swinging in glancing unison on their caped shoulders, carried as lightly as so many reeds.
I stood at salute as our Major and Captain Simpson strode by; grinned ever so little as Boyd came swinging along, his naked cutlass drawn, scarlet fringes tossing on his painted cape. He whispered as he passed:
"Murphy and Elerson took two scalps last night. They're drying on hoops in the barracks. Look and see if they be truly Seneca."
At that I was both startled and disgusted; but it was well-nigh impossible to prevent certain of our riflemen who had once been wood-runners from treating the Iroquois as the Iroquois treated them. And they continued to scalp them as naturally as they once had clipped pads and ears from panther and wolf. Mount and the rifleman Renard no longer did it, and I had thought to have persuaded Murphy and Elerson to conduct more becoming. But it seemed that I had failed.
My mind was filled with resentful thoughts as I entered the Lower Fort and started across the swarming parade toward the barracks, meaning to have a look at these ghastly trophies and judge to what nation they belonged.
People of every walk in life were passing and repassing where our regimental wagons were being loaded, and I threaded my way with same difficulty amid a busy throng, noticing nobody, unless it were one of my own corps who saluted my cockade.
Halfway across, a young woman bearing a gunny-sack full of linen garments and blankets to be washed blocked my passage, and being a woman I naturally gave her right of way. And the next instant saw it was Lois.
She had averted her head, and was now hurriedly passing on, and I turned sharply on my heel and came up beside her.
"Lois," I managed to say with a voice that was fairly steady, "have you forgotten me?"
Her head remained resolutely averted; and as I continued beside her, she said, without looking at me:
"Do you not understand that you are disgracing yourself by speaking to me on the parade? Pass on, sir, for your own sake."
"I desire to speak to you," I said obstinately.
"No. Pass on before any officers see you!"
My face, I know, was fiery red, and for an instant all the ridicule, the taunts, the shame which I might well be storing up for myself, burned there for anyone to see. But stronger than fear of ridicule rose a desperate determination not to lose this maid again, and whether what I was doing was worthy, and for her sake, or unworthy, and for my own, I did not understand or even question.
"I wish to talk with you," I said doggedly. "I shall not let you go this time."
"Are you mad to so conduct under the eyes of the whole fort?" she whispered. "Go your way!"
"I'd be madder yet to let you get away again. My way is yours."
She halted, cheeks blazing, and looked at me for the first time.
"I ask you not to persist," she said, "----for my sake if not for yours. What an officer or a soldier says to a girl in this fort makes her a trull in the eyes of any man who sees. Do you so desire to brand me, Mr. Loskiel?"
"No," I said between my teeth, and turned to leave her. And, I think, it was something in my face that made her whisper low and hurriedly:
"Waiontha Spring! If you needs must see me for a moment more, come there!"
I scarcely heard, so tight emotion had me by the throat, and walked on blindly, all a-quiver. Yet, in my ears the strange wards sounded: "Waiontha--Waiontha--come to the Spring Waiontha--if you needs must see me."
On a settle before the green-log barrack, some of Schott's riflemen were idling, and now stood, seeing an officer.
"Boys," I said, "where is this latest foolery of Tim Murphy hung to dry?"
They seemed ashamed, but told me, As I moved on, I said carelessly, partly turning:
"Where is the Spring Waiontha?"
"On the Lake Trail, sir--first branch of the Stoney-Kill."
"Is there a house there?"
"Rannock's."
"A path to find it?"
"A sheep walk only. Rannock is dead. The destructives murdered him when they burned Cherry Valley. Mrs. Rannock brings us eggs and milk."
I walked on and entered the smoky barracks, and the first thing I saw was a pair o' scalps, stretched and hooped, a-dangling from the rafters.
Doubtless, Murphy and Elerson meant to sew them to their bullet pouches when cured and painted. And there was one reckless fellow in my company who wore a baldrick fringed with Shawanese scalps; but as these same Shawanese had murdered his father, mother, grandmother, and three little brothers, no officer rebuked him, although it was a horrid and savage trophy; but if the wearing of it were any comfort to him I do not know.
I looked closely at the ornamented scalps, despite my repugnance. They were not Mohawk, not Cayuga, nor Onondaga. Nor did they seem to me like Seneca, being not oiled and braided clean, but tagged at the root with the claws of a tree-lynx. They were not Oneida, not Lenape. Therefore, they must be Seneca scalps. Which meant that Walter Butler and that spawn of satan, Sayanquarata, were now prowling around our outer pickets. For the ferocious Senecas and their tireless war-chief, Sayanquarata, were Butler's people; the Mohawks and Joseph Brant holding the younger Butler in deep contempt for the cruelty he did practice at Cherry Valley.
Suddenly a shaft of fear struck me like a swift arrow in the breast, as I thought of Butler and of his Mountain Snakes, and of that mad child, Lois, a-gypsying whither her silly inclination led her; and Death in the forest-dusk watching her with a hundred staring eyes.
"This time," I muttered, "I shall put a stop to all her forest-running!" And, at the thought, I turned and passed swiftly through the doorway, across the thronged parade, out of the gate.
Hastening my pace along the Lake Road, meeting many people at first, then fewer, then nobody at all, I presently crossed the first little brook that feeds the Stoney-Kill, leaping from stone to stone. Here in the woods lay the Oneida camp. I saw some squaws there sewing.
The sheep walk branched a dozen yards beyond, running northward through what had been a stump field. It was already grown head-high in weeds and wild flowers, and saplings of bird-cherry, which spring up wherever fire has passed. A few high corn-stalks showed what had been planted there a year ago.
After a few moments following the path, I found that the field ended abruptly, and the solid walls of the forest rose once more like green cliffs towering on every side. And at their base I saw a house of logs, enclosed within a low brush fence, and before it a field of brush.
Shirts and soldiers' blankets lay here and there a-drying on the bushes; a wretched garden-patch showed intensely green between a waste of fire-blackened stumps. I saw chickens in a coop, and a cow switching forest flies. A cloud of butterflies flew up as I approached, where the running water of a tiny rill made muddy hollows on the path. This doubtless must be the outlet to Waiontha Spring, for there to the left a green lane had been bruised through the elder thicket; and this I followed, shouldering my way amid fragrant blossom and sun-hot foliage, then through an alder run, and suddenly out across a gravelly reach where water glimmered in a still and golden pool.
Lois knelt there on the bank. The soldiers' linen I had seen in her arms was piled beside her. In a willow basket, newly woven, I saw a heap of clean, wet shirts and tow-cloth rifle-frocks.
She heard me behind her--I took care that she should--but she made no sign that she had heard or knew that I was there. Even when I spoke she continued busy with her suds and shirts; and I walked around the gravelly basin and seated myself near her, cross-legged on the sand, both hands clasping my knees.
"Well?" she asked, still scrubbing, and her hair was fallen in curls about her brow--hair thicker and brighter, though scarce longer, than my own. But Lord! The wild-rose beauty that flushed her cheeks as she laboured there! And when she at last looked up at me her eyes seemed like two grey stars, full of reflections from the golden pool.
"I have come," said I, "to speak most seriously."
"What is it you wish?"
"A comrade's privilege."
"And what may that be, sir?"
"The right to be heard; the right to be answered--and a comrade's privilege to offer aid."
"I need no aid."
"None living can truthfully say that," said I pleasantly.
"Oh! Do you then require charity from this pleasant world we live in?"
"I did not offer charity to you."
"You spoke of aid," she said coldly.
"Lois--is there in our brief companionship no memory that may warrant my speaking as honestly as I speak to you?"
"I know of none, Do you?"
I had been looking at her chilled pink fingers. My ring was gone.
"A ring for a rose is my only warrant," I said.
She continued to soap the linen and to scrub in silence. After she had finished the garment and wrung it dry, she straightened her supple figure where she was kneeling, and, turning toward me, searched in her bosom with one little, wet hand, drawing from it a faded ribbon on which my ring hung.
"Do you desire to have it of me again?" she asked, without any expression on her sun-freckled face.
"What? The ring?"
"Aye! Desire it!" I repeated, turning red. "No more than you desire the withered bud you left beside me while I slept."
"What bud, sir?"
"Did you not leave me a rose-bud?"
"I?"
"And a bit of silver birch-bark scratched with a knife point?"
"Now that I think of it, perhaps I may have done so--or some such thing--scarce knowing what I was about--and being sleepy. What was it that I wrote? I can not now remember--being so sleepy when I did it."
"And that is all you thought about it, Lois?"
"How can one think when half asleep''
"Here is your rose," I said angrily. "I will take my ring again."
She opened her grey eyes at that.
"Lord!" she murmured in an innocent and leisurely surprise. "You have it still, my rose? Are roses scarce where you inhabit, sir? For if you find the flower so rare and curious I would not rob you of it--no!" And, bending, soaked and soaped another shirt.
"Why do you mock me, Lois?"
"I! Mock you! La! Sir, you surely jest."
"You do so! You have done so ever since we met. I ask you why?" I repeated, curbing my temper.
"Lord!" she murmured, shaking her head. "The young man is surely going stark! A girl in my condition--such a girl as I mock at an officer and a gentleman? No, it is beyond all bounds; and this young man is suffering from the sun."
"Were it not," said I angrily, "that common humanity brought me here and bids me remain for the moment, I would not endure this."
"Heaven save us all!" she sighed. "How very young is this young man who comes complaining here that he is mocked--when all I ventured was to marvel that he had found a wild rose-bud so rare and precious!"
I said to myself: "Damn! Damn!" in fierce vexation, yet knew not how to take her nor how to save my dignity. And she, with head averted, was laughing silently; I could see that, too; and never in my life had I been so flouted to my face.
"Listen to me!" I broke out bluntly. "I know not who or what you are, why you are here, whither you are bound. But this I do know, that beyond our pickets there is peril in these woods, and it is madness for man or maid to go alone as you do."
The laughter had died out in her face. After a moment it became grave.
"Was it to tell me this that you spoke to me in the fort, Mr. Loskiel?" she asked.
"Yes, Two days ago our pickets were fired on by Indians. Last night two riflemen of our corps took as many Seneca scalps. Do you suppose that when I heard of these affairs I did not think of you--remembering what was done but yesterday at Cherry Valley?"
"Did you--remember--me?"
"Good God, yes!" I exclaimed, my nerves on edge again at the mere memory of her rashness. "I came here as a comrade--wishing to be of service, and--you have used me----"
"Vilely," she said, looking serenely at me.
"I did not say that, Lois----"
"I say it, Mr. Loskiel. And yet--I told you where to find me. That is much for me to tell to any man. Let that count a little to my damaged credit with you.... And--I still wear the ring you gave.... And left a rose for you, Let these things count a little in my favour. For you can scarcely guess how much of courage it had cost me." She knelt there, her bared arms hanging by her side, the sun bright on her curls, staring at me out of those strange, grey eyes.
"Since I have been alone," she said in a low voice, "no man--unless by a miracle it be you--has offered me a service or a kindness except that he awaited his reward. Soon or late their various songs became the same familiar air. It is the only song I've heard from men--with endless variations, truly, often and cunningly disguised--yet ever the same and sorry theme.... Men are what God made them; God has seemed to fashion me to their liking--I scarce know how--seeing I walk in rags, unkempt, and stained with wind and rain, and leaf and earth and sun."
She made a childish gesture, sweeping the curls aside with both her hands:
"I sheared my hair! Look at me, sir--a wild thing in a ragged shift and tattered gown--all burnt and roughened with the sun and wind--not even clean to look on--yet that I am!--and with no friend to speak to save an Indian.... I ask you, sir, what it is in me--and what lack of pride must lie in men that I can not trust myself to the company of one among them--not one! Be he officer, or common soldier--all are the same."
She dropped her head, and, thoughtfully, her hands again crept up and wandered over her cheeks and hair, the while her grey eyes, fixed and remote, seemed lost in speculation. Then she looked up again:
"Why should I think to find you different?" she asked, "Is any man different from his fellows, humble or great? Is it not man himself, not only men, that I must face as I have faced you--with silence, or with sullen speech, or with a hardness far beyond my years, and a gaiety that means nothing more kind than insolence?"
Again her head fell on her breast, and her hands linked themselves on her knees as she knelt there in silence.
"Lois," I said, trying to think clearly, "I do not know that other men and I are different. Once I believed so. But--lately--I do not know. Yet, I know this: selfish or otherwise, I can not endure the thought of you in peril."
She looked at me very gravely; then dropped her head once more.
"I don't know," I said desperately, "I wish to be honest--tell you no lie--tell none to myself. I--your beauty--has touched me--or whatever it is about you that attracts. And, whatever gown you go in, I scarcely see it--somehow--finding you so--so strangely--lovely--in speech also--and in--every way.... And now that I have not lied to you--or to myself--in spite of what I have said, let me be useful to you. For I can be; and perhaps these other sentiments will pass away----"
She looked up so suddenly that I ceased speaking, fearful of a rebuff; but saw only the grave, grey eyes looking straight into mine, and a sudden, deeper colour waning from her cheeks.
"Whatever I am," said I, "I can be what I will. Else I were no man. If your--beauty--has moved me, that need not concern you--and surely not alarm you. A woman's beauty is her own affair. Men take their chance with it--as I take mine with yours--that it do me no deep damage. And if it do, or do not, our friendship is still another matter; for it means that I wish you well, desire to aid you, ease your burdens, make you secure and safe, vary your solitude with a friendly word--I mean, Lois, to be to you a real comrade, if you will. Will you?"
After a moment she said:
"What was it that you said about my--beauty?"
"I take my chances that it do me no deep damage."
"Oh! Am I to take my chance, too?"
"What chance?"
"That--your kindness do me--no damage?"
"What senseless talk is this you utter?"
She shook her head slowly, then:
"What a strange boy! I do not fear you."
"Fear me?" I repeated, flushing hotly. "What is there to fear? I am neither yokel nor beast."
"They say a gentleman should be more dreaded."
I stared at her, then laughed:
"Ask yourself how far you need have dread of me--when, if you desire it, you can leave me dumb, dismayed, lip-bound by your mocking tongue--which God knows well I fear."
"Is my tongue so bitter then? I did not know it."
"I know it," said I with angry emphasis. "And I tell you very freely that----"
She stole a curious glance at me. Something halted me--an expression I had never yet seen there in her face, twitching at her lips--hovering on them now--parting them in a smile so sweet and winning that, silenced by the gracious transformation, unexpected, I caught my breath, astonished.
"What is your given name?" she asked, still dimpling at me, and her eyes now but two blue wells of light.
"Euan," I said, foolish as a flattered schoolboy, and as awkward.
"Euan," she said, still smiling at me, "I think that I could be your friend--if you do truly wish it. What is it you desire of me? Ask me once more, and make it very clear and plain."
"Only your confidence; that is all I ask."
"Oh! Is that all you ask of me?" she mimicked mockingly; but so sweet her smile, and soft her voice, that I did not mind her words.
"Remember," said I, "that I am older than you. You are to tell me all that troubles you."
"When?"
"Now."
"No. I have my washing to complete, And you must go. Besides, I have mending, darning, and my knitting yet to do. It all means bed and bait to me."
"Will you not tell me why you are alone here, Lois?"
"Tell you what? Tell you why I loiter by our soldiers' camps like any painted drab? I will tell you this much; I need no longer play that shameless role."
"You need not use those words in the same breath when speaking of yourself," I answered hotly.
"Then--you do not credit ill of me?" she asked, a bright but somewhat fixed and painful smile on her red lips.
"No!" said I bluntly. "Nor did I ever."
"And yet I look the part, and seem to play it, too. And still you believe me honest?"
"I know you are."
"Then why should I be here alone--if I am honest, Euan?"
"I do not know; tell me."
"But--are you quite certain that you do not ask because you doubt me?"
I said impatiently: "I ask, knowing already you are good above reproach. I ask so I may understand how best to aid you."
A lovely colour stole into her cheeks.
"You are kind, Euan. And it is true--though--" and she shrugged her shoulders, "what other man would credit it?" She lifted her head a little and looked at me with clear, proud eyes:
"Well, let them say what they may in fort and barracks twixt this frontier and Philadelphia. The truth remains that I have been no man's mistress and am no trull. Euan, I have starved that I might remain exactly what I am at this moment. I swear to you that I stand here unsullied and unstained under this untainted sky which the same God made who fashioned me. I have known shame and grief and terror; I have lain cold and ill and sleepless; I have wandered roofless, hunted, threatened, mocked, beset by men and vice. Soldiers have used me roughly--you yourself saw, there at the Poundridge barracks! And only you among all men saw truly. Why should I not give to you my friendship, unashamed?"
"Give it," I said, more deeply moved than ever I had been.
"I do! I do! Rightly or wrongly, now, at last, and in the end, I give my honest heart and friendship to a man!" And with a quick and winning gesture she offered me her hand; and I took it firmly in my clasp, and fell a-trembling so I could not find a word to utter.
"Come to me to-night, Euan," she said. "I lodge yonder. There is a poor widow there--a Mrs. Rannock--who took me in. They killed her husband in November. I am striving to repay her for the food and shelter she affords me. I have been given mending and washing at the fort. You see I am no leech to fasten on a body and nourish me for nothing. So I do what I am able. Will you come to me this night?"
"Yes." But I could not yet speak steadily.
"Come then; I--I will tell you something of my miserable condition--if you desire to know.... Truly I think, speaking to no one, this long and unhappy silence has eaten and corroded part of me within--so ill am I at moments with the pain and shame I've borne so long--so long, Euan! Ah--you do not--know.... And it may be that when you do come to-night I have repented of my purposes--locked up my wounded heart again. But I shall try to tell you--something. For I need somebody--need kindly council very sorely, Euan. And even the Sagamore now fails me--on the threshold----"
"What?"
"He means it for the best; he fears for me. I will tell you how it is with me when you come to-night. I truly desire to tell you--I--I need to tell you. Will you come to me?"
"On my honour, Lois."
"Then--if you please, will you leave me now? I must do my washing and mending--and----" she smiled, "if you only knew how desperately I need what money I may earn. My garments, Euan, are like to fall from me if these green cockspur thorns give way."
"But, Lois," I said, "I have brought you money!" And I fished from any hunting shirt a great, thick packet of those poor paper dollars, now in such contempt that scarce five hundred of them counted for a dozen good, hard shillings.
"What are you doing?" she said, so coldly that I ceased counting the little squares of currency and looked up at her surprised.
"I am sharing my pay with you," said I. "I have no silver--only these."
"I can not take--money!"
"What?"
"Did you suppose I could?"
"Comrades have a common purse; Why not?"
For a few moments her face wore the same strange expression, then, of a sudden her eyes filled and closed convulsively, and she turned her head, motioning me to leave her.
"Will you not share with me?" I asked, very hot about the ears.
She shook her head and I saw her shoulders heave once or twice.
"Lois," I said gravely, "did you fear I hoped for some--reward? Child--little comrade--only the happiness of aiding you is what I ask for. Share with me then, I beg you. I am not poor."
"No--I can not, Euan," she answered in a stifled voice. "Is there any shame to you in sharing with me?"
"Wait," she whispered. "Wait till you hear. And--thank you--for--your kindness."
"I will be here to-night," I said. "And when we know each other better we will share a common purse."
She did not answer me.
I lingered for a moment, desiring to reassure and comfort her, but knew not how. And so, as she did not turn, I finally went away through the sunlit willows, leaving her kneeling there alone beside the golden pool, her bright head drooping and her hands still covering her face.
As I walked back slowly to the fort, I pondered how to be of aid to her; and knew not how. Had there been the ladies of any officers with the army now, I should have laid her desperate case before them; but all had gone back to Albany before our scout of three returned from Westchester.
Here on the river, within our lines, while the army remained, she would be safe enough from forest peril. Yet I burned and raged to think of the baser peril ever threatening her among men of her own speech and colour. I suppose, considering her condition, they had a right to think her that which she was not and never had been. For honesty and maiden virtue never haunted camps. Only two kinds of women tramped with regiments--the wives of soldiers, and their mistresses.
Yet, somehow her safety must be now arranged, her worth and virtue clearly understood, her needs and dire necessities made known, so that when our army moved she might find a shelter, kind and respectable, within the Middle Fort, or at Schenectady, or anywhere inside our lines.
My pay was small; yet, having no soul dependent on my bounty and needing little myself, I had saved these pitiable dollars that our Congress paid us. Besides, I had a snug account with my solicitor in Albany. She might live on that. I did not need it; seldom drew a penny; my pay more than sufficing. And, after the war had ended--ended----
Just here my heart beat out o' step, and thought was halted for a moment. But with the warm thought and warmer blood tingling me once again, I knew and never doubted that we had not done with one another yet, nor were like to, war or no war. For in all the world, and through all the years of youth, I had never before encountered any woman who had shared with me my waking thoughts and the last and conscious moment ere I slept. But from the time I lost this woman out of my life, something seemed also missing from the world. And when again I found her, life and the world seemed balanced and well rounded once again. And in my breast a strange calm rested me.
As I walked along the rutty lake road, all hatched and gashed by the artillery, I made up my mind to one matter. "She must have clothes!" thought I, "and that's flat!" Perhaps not such as befitted her, but something immediate, and not in tatters--something stout that threatened not to part and leave her naked. For the brier-torn rags she wore scarce seemed to hold together; and her small, shy feet peeped through her gaping shoon in snowy hide-and-seek.
Now, coming hither from the fort, I had already noticed on the Stoney-Kill where our Oneidas lay encamped. So when I sighted the first painted tree and saw the stone pipe hanging, I made for it, and found there the Indians smoking pipes and not in war paint; and their women and children were busy with their gossip, near at hand.
As I had guessed, there by the fire lay a soft and heavy pack of doeskins, open, and a pretty Oneida matron sewing Dutch wampum on a painted sporran for her warrior lord.
The lean and silent warriors came up as I approached, sullenly at first, not knowing what treatment to expect--more shame to the skin we take our pride in!
One after another took the hand I offered in self-respecting silence.
"Brothers," I said, "I come to buy. Sooner or later your young men will put on red paint and oil their bodies. Even now I see your rifles and your hatchets have been polished. Sooner or later the army will move four hundred miles through a wilderness so dark that neither sun nor moon nor stars can penetrate. The old men, the women, the children, and the littlest ones still strapped to the cradle-board, must then remain behind. Is it the truth I speak, my brothers?"
"It is the truth," they answered very quietly, "Then," said I, "they will require food and money to buy with. Is it not true, Oneidas?"
"It is true, brother."
I smiled and turned toward the women who were listening, and who now looked up at me with merry faces.
"I have," said I, "four hundred dollars. It is for the Oneida maid or matron who will sell to me her pretty bridal dress of doeskin--the dress which she has made and laid aside and never worn. I buy her marriage dress. And she will make another for herself against the hour of need."
Two or three girls leaped laughing to their feet; but, "Wait!" said I. "This is for my little sister; and I must judge you where you stand, Oneida forest flowers, so I may know which one among you is most like my little sister in height and girth and narrow feet."
"Is our elder brother's little sister fat and comely?" inquired one giggling and over-plump Oneida maid.
"Not plump," I said; and they all giggled.
Another short one stood on tip-toe, asking bashfully if she were not the proper height to suit me.
But there was a third, graceful and slender, who had risen with the rest, and who seemed to me nearer a match to Lois. Also, her naked, dusky feet were small and shapely.
At a smiling nod from me she hastened into the family lodge and presently reappeared with the cherished clothing. Fresh and soft and new, she cast the garments on the moss and spread them daintily and proudly to my view for me to mark her wondrous handiwork. And it was truly pretty--from the soft, wampum-broidered shirt with its hanging thrums, to the clinging skirt and delicate thigh-moccasins, wonderfully fringed with purple and inset in most curious designs with painted quills and beads and blue diamond-fronds from feathers of a little jay-bird's wing.
Bit by bit I counted out the currency; and it took some little time. But when it was done she took it eagerly enough, laughing her thanks and dancing away toward her lodge. And if her dusky sisters envied her they smiled on me no less merrily as I took my leave of them. And very courteously a stately chief escorted me to the campfire's edge. The Oneidas were ever gentlemen; and their women gently bred.
Once more at my own hut door, I entered, with a nod to Mayaro, who sat smoking there in freshened war paint. One quick and penetrating glance he darted at the Oneida garment on my arm, but except for that betrayed no curiosity.
"Well, Mayaro," said I, in excellent spirits, "you still wear war paint hopefully, I see. But this army will never start within the week."
The Siwanois smiled to himself and smoked. Then he passed the pipe to me. I drew it twice, rendered it.
"Come," said I, "have you then news that we take the war-trail soon?"
"The war-trail is always open for those who seek it. When my younger brother makes ready for a trail, does he summon it to come to him by magic, or does he seek it on his two legs?"
"Are you hoping to go out with the scout to-night?" I asked. "That would not do."
"I go to-night with my brother Loskiel--to take the air," he said slyly.
"That may not be," I protested, disconcerted. "I have business abroad to-night."
"And I," he said very seriously; but he glanced again at the pretty garments on my arm and gave me a merry look.
"Yes," said I, smilingly, "they are for her. The little lady hath no shoon, no skirt that holds together, save by the grace of cockspur thorns that bind the tatters. Those I have bought of an Oneida girl. And if they do not please her, yet these at least will hold together. And I shall presently write a letter to Albany and send it by the next batteau to my solicitor, who will purchase for her garments far more suitable, and send them to the fort where soon, I trust, she will be lodged in fashion more befitting."
The Sagamore's face had become smooth and expressionless. I laid aside the garments, fished out quill and inkhorn, and, lying flat on the ground, wrote my letter to Albany, describing carefully the maid who was to be fitted, her height, the smallness of her waist and foot as well as I remembered. I wrote, too, that she was thin, but not too thin. Also I bespoke a box of French hair-powder for her, and buckled shoes of Paddington, and stockings, and a kerchief.
"You know better than do I," I wrote, "having a sister to care for, how women dress. They should have shifts, and hair-pegs, and a scarf, and fan, and stays, and scent, and hankers, and a small laced hat, not gilded; cloak, foot-mantle, sun-mask, and a chip hat to tie beneath the chin, and one such as they call after the pretty Mistress Gunning. If women wear banyans, I know not, but whatever they do wear in their own privacy at morning chocolate, in the French fashion, and whatever they do sleep in, buy and box and send to me. And all the money banked with you, put it in her name as well as mine, so that her draughts on it may all be honoured. And this is her name----"
I stopped, dismayed, I did not know her name! And I was about to sign for her full power to share my every penny! Yet, my amazing madness did not strike me as amazing or grotesque, that, within the hour, a maid in a condition such as hers was to divide my tidy fortune with me. Nay, more--for when I signed this letter she would be free to take what she desired and even leave me destitute.
I laughed at the thought--so midsummer mad was I upon that sunny July afternoon; and within me, like a hidden thicket full of birds, my heart was singing wondrous tunes I never knew one note of.
"O Sagamore," I said, lifting my head, "tell me her surname now, because I need it for this business. And I forgot to ask her at the Spring Waiontha."
For a full minute the Indian's countenance turned full on me remained moon-blank. Then, like lightning, flashed his smile.
"Loskiel, my friend, and now my own blood-brother, what magic singing birds have so enchanted your two ears. She is but a child, lonely and ragged--a tattered leaf still green, torn from the stem by storm and stress, blown through the woodlands and whirled here and yonder by every breath of wind. Is it fit that my brother Loskiel should notice such a woman?"
"She is in need, my brother."
"Give, and pass on, Loskiel."
"That is not giving, O my brother."
"Is it to give alone, Loskiel? Or is it to give--that she may render all?"
"Yes, honestly to give. Not to take."
"And yet you know her not, Loskiel."
"But I shall know her yet! She has so promised. If she is friendless, she shall be our friend. For you and I are one, O Sagamore! If she is cold, naked, or hungry, we will build for her a fire, and cover her, and give her meat. Our lodge shall be her lodge; our friends hers, her enemies ours. I know not how this all has come to me, Mayaro, my friend--even as I know not how your friendship came to me, or how now our honour is lodged forever in each other's keeping. But it is true. Our blood has made us of one race and parentage."
"It is the truth," he said.
"Then tell me her name, that I may write it to my friend in Albany."
"I do not know it," he said quietly.
"She never told you?"
"Never," he said. "Listen, Loskiel. What I now tell to you with heart all open and my tongue unloosened, is all I know of her. It was in winter that she came to Philipsburgh, all wrapped in her red cloak. The White Plains Indians were there, and she was ever at their camp asking the same and endless question."
"What question, Mayaro?"
"That I shall also tell you, for I overheard it. But none among the White Plains company could answer her; no, nor no Congress soldier that she asked.
"The soldiers were not unkind; they offered food and fire--as soldiers do, Loskiel," he added, with a flash of Contempt for men who sought what no Siwanois, no Iroquois, ever did seek of any maiden or any chaste and decent woman, white or red.
"I know," I said. "Continue."
"I offered shelter," he said simply. "I am a Siwanois. No women need to dread Mohicans. She learned this truth from me for the first time, I think. Afterward, pitying her, I watched her how she went from camp to camp. Some gave her mending to do, some washing, enabling her to live. I drew clothing and arms and rations as a Hudson guide enrolled, and together she and I made out to live. Then, in the spring, Major Lockwood summoned me to carry intelligence between the lines. And she came with me, asking at every camp the same strange question; and ever the soldiers laughed and plagued and courted her, offering food and fire and shelter--but not the answer to her question. And one day--the day you came to Poundridge-town--and she had sought for me through that wild storm--I met her by the house as I came from North Castle with news of horsemen riding in the rain."
He leaned forward, looking at me steadily.
"Loskiel," he said, "when first I heard your name from her, and that it was you who wanted Mayaro, suddenly it seemed to me that magic was being made. And--I myself gave her her answer--the answer to the question she had asked at every camp."
"Good God!" said I, "did you, then know the answer all the while? And never told her?" But at the same moment I understood how perfectly characteristic of an Indian had been his conduct.
"I knew," he said tranquilly, "but I did not know why this maiden wished to know. Therefore was I silent."
"Why did you not ask her?" But before he spake I knew why too.
"Does a Sagamore ask idle questions of a woman?" he said coldly. "Do the Siwanois babble?"
"No. And yet--and yet----"
"Birds sing, maidens chatter. A Mohican considers ere his tongue is loosed."
"Aye--it is your nature, Sagamore.... But tell me--what was it in the mention of my name that made you think of magic?"
"Loskiel, you came two hundred miles to ask of me the question that this maid had asked in every camp."
"What question?"
"Where lay the trail to Catharines-town," he said.
"Did she ask that?" I demanded in astonishment.
"It was ever the burden of her piping--this rosy-throated pigeon of the woods."
"That is most strange," said I.
"It is doubtless sorcery that she should ask of me an interview with you who came two hundred miles to ask of me the very question."
"But, Mayaro, she did not then know why I had come to seek you."
"I knew as quickly as I heard your name."
"How could you know before you saw me and I had once made plain my business?"
"Birds come and go; but eagles see their natal nest once more before they die."
"I do not understand you, Mayaro."
He made no answer.
"Merely to hear my name from this child's lips, you say you guessed my business with you?"
"Surely, Loskiel--surely. It was all done by magic. And, at once, I knew that I should also speak to her, there in the storm, and answer her her question."
"And did you do so?"
"Yes, Loskiel. I said to her: 'Little sad rosy-throated pigeon of the woods, the vale Yndaia lies by a hidden river in the West. Some call it Catharines-town.'"
I shook my head, perplexed, and understanding nothing.
"Yndaia? Did you say Yndaia, Mayaro?"
Then, as he looked me steadily in the eye, my gaze became uneasy, shifted, fell by an accident upon the blood-red bear reared on his hind legs, pictured upon his breast. And through and through me passed a shock, like the dull thrill of some forgotten thing clutched suddenly by memory--yet clutched in vain.
Vain was the struggle, too, for the faint gleam passed from my mind as it had come; and if the name Yndaia had disturbed me, or seeing the scarlet ensign on his breast, or perhaps both coupled, had seemed to stir some distant memory, I did not know. Only it seemed as though, in mental darkness, I had felt the presence of some living and familiar thing--been conscious of its nearness for an instant ere it had vanished utterly.
The Sagamore's face had become a smooth, blank mask again.
"What has this maid, Lois, to do with Catharines-town?" I asked. "Devils live there in darkness."
"She did not say."
"You do not know?"
"No, Loskiel."
"But," said I, troubled, "why did she journey hither?"
"Because she now believes that only I in all the world could guide her to the vale Yndaia; and that one day I will pity her and take her there."
"Doubtless," I said anxiously, "she has heard at the forts or hereabouts that we are to march on Catharines-town."
"She knows it now, Loskiel"
"And means to follow?" I exclaimed in horror.
"My brother speaks the truth."
"God! What urges the child thither?"
"I do not know, Loskiel. It seems as though a madness were upon her that she must go to Catharines-town. I tell you there is sorcery in all this. I say it--I, a Sagamore of the Enchanted Wolf. Who should know magic when it stirs but I, of the Siwanois--the Magic Clan? Say what you will, my comrade and blood-brother, there is sorcery abroad; and well I know who wrought it, spinning with spiders' webs there by the lost Lake of Kendaia----" He shuddered slightly. "There by the black waters of the lake--that hag--and all her spawn!"
"Catharine Montour!"
"The Toad-woman herself--and all her spawn."
"The Senecas?"
"And the others," he said in a low voice.
A sudden and terrible misgiving assailed me. I swallowed, and then said slowly:
"Two scalps were taken late last night by Murphy and Elerson. And the scalps were not of the Mohawk. Not Oneida, nor Onondaga, nor Cayuga. Mayaro!" I gasped. "So help me God, those scalps are never Seneca!"
"Erie!" he exclaimed with a mixture of rage and horror. And I saw his sinewy hand quivering on his knife-hilt. "Listen, Loskiel! I knew it! No one has told me. I have sat here all the day alone, making my steel bright and my paint fresher, and singing to myself my people's songs. And ever as I sat at the lodge door, something in the summer wind mocked at me and whispered to me of demons. And when I rose and stood at gaze, troubled, and minding every river-breeze, faintly I seemed to scent the taint of evil. If those two scalps be Erie, then where the Cat-People creep their Sorcerer will be found."
"Amochol," I repeated under my breath. And shivered.
For, deep in the secret shadows of that dreadful place where this vile hag, Catharine Montour, ruled it in Catharines-town, dwelt also all that now remained of the Cat-Nation--Eries--People of the Cat--a dozen, it was rumoured, scarcely more--and demons all, serving that horrid warlock, Amochol, the Sorcerer of the Senecas.
What dreadful rites this red priest and his Eries practiced there, none knew, unless it were true that the False Faces knew. But rumour whispered with a thousand tongues of horrors viewless, nameless, inconceivable; and that far to the westward Biskoonah yawned, so close indeed to the world's surface that the waters boiling deep in hell burst into burning fountains in the magic garden where the red priest made his sorcery, alone.
These things I had heard, but vaguely, here and there--a word perhaps at Johnson Hall, a whisper at Fort Johnson, rumours discussed at Guy Park and Schenectady when I was young. But ever the same horror of it filled me, though I believed it not, knowing full well there were no witches, sorcerers, or warlocks in the world; yet, in my soul disturbed concerning what might pass deep in the shadows of that viewless Empire.
"Mayaro," I said seriously, "do you go instantly to the fort and view those scalps."
"Were the braids fastened at the roots with tree-cat claws?"
"Aye!"
"No need to view them, then, Loskiel."
"Are they truly Erie?"
"Cats!" He spat the word from his lips and his eyes blazed.
"And--Amochol!" I asked unsteadily.
"The Cat People creep with the Seneca high priest, mewing under the moon."
"Then--he is surely here?"
"Aye, Loskiel."
"God!" said I, now all a-quiver; "only to slay him! Only to end this demon-thing, this poison spawn of the Woman-Toad! Only to glimpse his scarlet rags fairly along my rifle sight!"
"No bullets touch him."
"That is nonsense, Mayaro----"
"No, Loskiel."
"I tell you he is human! There are no sorcerers on earth. There never were--except the Witch of Endor----"
"I never heard of her. But the Witch of Catharines-town is living. And her warlock offspring, Amochol!" He squared his broad shoulders, shaking them. "What do I care?" he said. "I am a Sagamore of the Enchanted Clan!" He struck the painted symbol on his chest. "What do I care for this red priest's sorcery--I, who wear the great Witch Bear rearing in scarlet here across my breast!
"Let the Cat People make their magic! Let Amochol sacrifice to Leshi in Biskoonah! Let their accursed Atensi watch the Mohicans from behind the moon. Mayaro is a Sagamore and his clan are Sachems; and the clan was old--old--old, O little brother, before their Hiawatha came to them and made their League for them, and returned again to The Master of Life in his silver cloud-canoe!
"And I say to you, O my blood-brother, that between this sorcerer and me is now a war such as no Mohican ever waged and no man living, white or red, has ever seen. His magic will I fight with magic; his knife and hatchet shall be turned on mine! And I shall deceive and trick and mock him--him and his Erie Cats, till one by one their scalps shall swing above a clean Mohican fire. O Loskiel, my brother, and my other self, a warrior and a Sagamore has spoken. Go, now, to your evening tryst in peace and leave me. For in my ears the Seven Chiefs are whispering--The Thunderers. And Tamanund must hear my speech and read my heart. And the long roll of our Mohican dead must be recited--here and alone by me--the only one who has that right since Uncas died and the Mohican priesthood ended, save for the Sagamores of the Magic Clan.
