BEYOND THE SUNSET

BY

ARTHUR D. HOWDEN SMITH

AUTHOR OF "THE DOOM TRAIL"

NEW YORK
BRENTANO'S
PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1923
BY BRENTANO'S
COPYRIGHT, 1923
BY THE RIDGEWAY COMPANY
First Printing . . . January, 1923.
Second " . . . February, 1923
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I [I Am Saved from Myself]
II [The Wilderness Trail]
III [The Shawnee Scalp-Hunters]
IV [A Meeting in the Wilderness]
V [The Father of Waters]
VI [We Cross the Great River]
VII [The Country of the Dakota]
VIII [The Fight for the Herd]
IX [The Horse Stealers]
X [The Wolf-Brothers]
XI [The Mountain That Was God]
XII [The Altar of Tamanoas]
XIII [We Turn Back]
XIV [The Squat Bowmen]
XV [Kachina]
XVI [In Homolobi]
XVII [The Web of Destiny]
XVIII [Tawannears' Search Is Ended]
XIX [Peter's Boulder]
XX [The Spotted Stallion]
XXI [The Stampede]
XXII [Our Trade with the Tonkawas]
XXIII [My Orenda Saves Us]
XXIV [A Prophet in Spite of Himself]
XXV [Homeward]
XXVI [The End of the Trail]

BEYOND THE SUNSET

CHAPTER I
I AM SAVED FROM MYSELF

There is none like your wanderer to settle himself coseywise by a warm hearth. An outcast and adventurer from boyhood, exiled from England for adherence to the Pretender, my estates forfeited, dependent for bread upon the earnings of my sword in a foreign service, Fate tossed me across the broad Atlantic to this New World of ours—and in one short year I had found Marjory and fortune!

I became straightway as sedate as any Dutch burgher betwixt Port George and the stockade of the Outward. Camp-bred and forest-schooled, I yet discovered zest in the problems of merchantry and exulted in the petty tasks of the householder. I was a model of husbandry. But Fate was not satisfied with its work. Two years of joy I had; then came the fever that the Portuguese snow brought north from the Main to scourge New York. In a week my joy was turned to ashes. She, who had braved the perils of the wilderness with me, wilted and died.

But there is justice in Fate. Give it time, and 'twill rebuild what it has marred, provided always that we who are its toys keep heads up and courage undaunted—easier deeds to write of than to perform, God knows. And truly, the day Fate stepped forward to redress the balance found me with head bowed and spirit breaking, treading bitterly the narrow groove of duties I lacked the will to escape.

I sat at my desk in the counting-room, fumbling through a file of papers. There was a breath of Spring in the air, and outside in the trees of Pearl Street the bluebirds and robins bickered together, and the people who passed the door were no less irresponsibly gay. In all New York, it seemed, none save I lacked cause for pleasure. John Allen, the young Dorset bondman whose liberty I had purchased when I hired him for clerk, whistled between his teeth as he labored his quill across the ledgers—when he was not glancing askance at me. Upstairs I heard the crooning of Scots Elspeth, and the strident plaint of my son objecting to her ministrations.

Why should that baby voice be potent only to evoke for me the bitter memories of my loss? I frowned as I sanded the last sheet of a letter to my London correspondents.

"An early Spring after an easy Winter," remarked Allen tentatively. "That should mean a rare flood of furs from the far savages, Master Ormerod."

I growled an assent. I knew the boy meant well. He was ever trying to draw me out of myself.

Upstairs a door opened, and a yelp of infant glee rang in my ears. I leaped to my feet and ran into the hall.

"Elspeth!" I roared.

Her plump features and decent gray locks appeared at the upper landing.

"Eh, sir!" she answered. "I can hear ye fine."

"And I can hear naught but mouthing of silly rhymes and puling babble," I snapped savagely.

"And gey prrroud ye micht well be of that same," she retorted. "It's what ma douce lamb that's gone wad be tellin' ye, if——"

'Twas hopeless to argue with her, and cursing, I crossed the lower hall to the room I devoted to my private affairs and slammed the door after me. But even as I sank into the chair beside the cold hearth, I knew that I might not find escape from that sweet ghost that haunted me, so real, so vital—yet so remote. Wherever I went in that house she followed me. It was as if she sat now in the opposite chair, a bit of embroidery in her lap, her brown eyes dwelling fondly on my face.

I rose and walked to the window, turning my back on the picture which persisted in shaping itself upon the hearth-rug. Westward across the houseroofs that stretched to Hudson's River the sun was slowly sinking in one of those magnificent displays of coloring that only the New World can show. It meant nothing to me. I turned impatiently, and retraced my steps.

A myriad ghosts swarmed before my eyes, ghosts of London, of Paris, of the wilderness, of many other places, kings, queens, great lords, priests, soldiers, merchants, heroes and cowards, honest men and scoundrels, Indians in war paint, courtiers in five-pound ruffles—but in front of them all stood the one ghost I could never avoid, lips always parted as if for a kiss, brown eyes glowing with love.

I shuddered.

The door opened behind me.

"Master Ormerod!" 'Twas Allen. "I knocked, but you did not hear. There are gentry to see you, sir."

"I'm in no mood to see people," I answered fiercely.

"But these——"

"Send them away. I'll not be annoyed with them."

The door was thrown open again with a crash.

"How now, Ormerod," bellowed a choleric voice. "Is this the way to treat my dignity, let alone my friendship? Must you keep me cooling my heels on your doorstep the while you consider the order of my admittance? Look to yourself, lad, or I'll have you shackled in the dungeons of Fort George. Ay, and there's another hath reason for distemper with you. Whilst I have walked so far from the Bowling Green, he is new-arrived from the Iroquois country, and mainly that he may deliver you a belt, if what I hear be true."

I jumped to my feet, shocked out of my evil mood, and chagrined by the discourtesy I had put upon the greatest man in our province, ay, the governor himself, Master Burnet, to whom we all owe more than we shall ever be able to repay for the diligent statecraft with which he nursed our community to increased wealth and prosperity. I know there are those who cry out against him, more especially since he was transferred to Massachusetts to wrestle with the dour Puritan folk and fell foul of their sanctimonious ways and contentious habits; but I account such no more than fools. He had a stern eye for the king's prerogatives, I grant you, and a jealous opinion of his own authority. But on questions of policy he was right ten times where his antagonists were right once.

He was a stout personage, ruddy of countenance and with strongly carved features, blunt, dogmatic, yet quaintly logical, a staunch friend and a fearless foe. He stood now in the doorway, feet planted wide, and drove home his words with thuds of his cane.

"Your Excellency!" I gasped. "I was at fault. I pray you——"

"Tush!"

He waved his hand in a gesture of derision, but a kindly gleam showed in his prominent eyes.

"Say no more, lad. I know what is wrong with you. 'Tis that brings me here—and other friends, too."

He stepped aside, and I exclaimed with surprise as my eyes discerned the two figures that slipped noiselessly out of the hall shadows.

"Tawannears! Peter!"

The first was an Indian, whose lithe body was naked above the tanned deerskin thigh-leggins and gaka, or breechcloth. On his chest was painted a wolf's head in yellow, white and black pigments. Tomahawk and knife hung in sheaths against either thigh. A single eagle's-feather was thrust into his scalp-lock. His bronzed face, with its high-arched nose, broad forehead and square jaw, was lit by a grim smile.

"Kwa, Otetiani,"* he said, giving me the Indian name that the Keepers of the Faith had bestowed in placing me upon the roll of the Wolf Clan of the Senecas.

* "Hail. Always-ready."

And he lifted his right hand arm-high in the splendid Iroquois gesture of salutation. I answered as befitted one who was not only my Clan brother and friend, but the war chief of the Great League, and as such, Warden of the Western Door of the Long House.

After him entered a mountain of a man, whose vast bulk was absurdly over-emphasized by the loose shirt and trousers of buckskin he wore and the coonskin cap that crowned his lank yellow locks. Others might be deceived by the rolls of fat, the huge paunch, the stupid simplicity of the broad, flat face, with insignificant features dabbed here and there, the little mild blue eyes that blinked behind ramparts of loose flesh, but I knew Peter Corlaer for the strongest, craftiest forest-runner of the frontier. Beneath his layers of blubber were muscles of forged steel and capacities for endurance that had never been plumbed.

"Zounds, man, but I'm glad to see you," I cried, trusting my fingers to his bear's grip.

"Ja," he answered vacantly in a tiny squeaky voice that issued incongruously from his immense frame.

I saw Allen staring at him in amazement, and I could not restrain a laugh—I who had not smiled in six months.

"I shall be merry now, John," I said. "They are old friends I had not expected to see so soon."

The governor clapped his hand on the clerk's shoulder.

"Ay, my lad, y'are safe to leave your master with us," he said in his kindly fashion. "Y'are a good youth. We have room for your like in New York. Here what ye have been matters not. 'Tis what ye are that counts. But leave us now, for we have much to discuss."

I turned again to Tawannears, as Allen closed the door behind him.

"What brings you, brother? You are welcome—that I need not say. But you two are the last I should have looked to see walk in here out of Pearl Street. Tell me all! How are my brethren of the Long House? Have any challenged the Warders of the Door? What news from beyond the Lakes? Are the French——?"

"God-a-mercy!" protested Master Burnet. "Accept reason, Ormerod. A question at a time, and in due order, if it pleases you. And may a guest sit in your house?"

I laughed again—as I doubt not he intended—and waved to all three of them.

"Prithee, content yourselves," I bade. "Y'are not such strangers as to require an invitation."

The governor let himself down into my armchair. Tawannears, his white teeth exposed in a pleasant grin—for, like all Indians, he had a keen sense of humor—sank upon the bearskin rug, and after a moment's hesitation, Corlaer imitated him.

"My brother will not take it amiss if Corlaer and Tawannears slight his chairs?" inquired the Indian in his cadenced, musical English that took on something of the sonorous rhythm of his own tongue. "We forest people are not used to setting our haunches at right angles to our feet. I learned much from the missionaries when I went to school with them as a boy, Gaengwarago,* but I never became accustomed to the white man's chairs. Hawenneyu, the Great Spirit, meant the earth to sit on, as well as to walk on. It is the only chair I know."

* "Great Swift Arrow"—Indian name for Governor of New York.

"But Corlaer, it seems, has been to school to your people to better advantage than you were with us," retorted the governor.

"The white man learns more readily than the Indian," affirmed the Seneca. "That is the reason why he will some day push the Indian from his path."

"From his path?" I repeated, interested as always in the thoughts of this learned savage, who combined in his own mind to an amazing degree the philosophy of the civilized white man and the mental reactions of his untutored people.

"Yes, brother," he answered. "The time will come when the white man will push the Indian out of all this country."

"But where will your people go?" I asked.

"Who knows? Only Hawenneyu can tell. Perhaps he will care for them in some new land, out there, beyond the sunset."

And Tawannears waved his hand toward the kindling glory that overhung the west.

The governor leaned forward in his chair.

"Ay, that was what I had in my mind," he declared. "What lies there beyond the sunset? You know something of it, Tawannears, but you do not know all. 'Tis knowledge of that I crave. In a manner of speaking 'tis that brings us together here."

He was silent for a moment, and we all watched him, resting his chin upon the clasped hands that supported his cane, his eyes glued upon the Western sky.

"Tell your story, Tawannears," he said abruptly. "That is the simplest way to expound an involved situation. And do you heed him, Ormerod. There is more than a whim of mine in this. It may be your own future well-being is at stake."

I fixed my eyes upon the Indian's face.

"Yes, tell your story," I urged.

He bowed his head in assent.

"I will tell, brother. Tawannears speaks also for Corlaer. Is it not so, Peter?"

The big Dutchman's mouth opened to emit a shrill "Ja."

"First, my brother, Ormerod, whom we of the Hodenosaunee* call Otetiani," the Indian resumed, "I will strive to answer the questions that you asked. I bring you greetings from your foster-father, my uncle, the Royaneh** Donehogaweh. He bids me say to you that his heart longs for his white son. He keeps a place always prepared for you in his lodge. He took counsel with me before I left the Long House, and advised me to seek you out. All is well with my people. The Western Door is secure. No enemies have challenged it. But Tawannears has been idle, and so his thoughts have turned to the hunger in his heart, that my brother will remember was there in other days."

* People of the Long House.

** Hereditary chief, erroneously called sachem.

He rose to his feet, like all Indian orators, unable to find comfort in delivery whilst seated. Arms folded across his naked chest, his eagle's-feather well-nigh touching the ceiling, he towered above us, an incarnate spirit of the Wilderness.

"My brother has not forgotten that once Tawannears loved a maid of his people, daughter of your foster-father, who was called Gahano, and was stolen from him by a French dog, and who died that Tawannears might live.

"My brother knows that there is an old tale of my people that the Lost Souls of the dead go to the Land of the Lost Souls which is ruled by Ataentsic* and her grandson Jousekeha, which is beyond Dayedadogowar, the Great Home Of The Winds, beyond Haniskaonogeh, the Dwelling Place of The Evil-minded, ay, beyond the setting sun.

* She Whose Body Is Ancient.

"My brother knows it is said that once a warrior of my people, placing his trust in Hawenneyu and the Honochenokeh,* traveled westward after the Setting Sun, and daring all things, came at last to the Land of the Lost Souls, where he found a maiden whom he had loved dancing with other Lost Souls before Ataentsic. And Jouskeha, taking pity on his love, gave him a hollowed pumpkin, and they placed the Lost Soul of the maiden in the pumpkin, and the warrior carried it back to the Long House, and his people made a feast and they raised up the soul of the maiden from the pumpkin shell.

* Subordinate Good Spirits.

"My brother remembers that two Winters since Tawannears and Corlaer left the Long House to search for the Land of Lost Souls, but there was trouble between the Hodenosaunee and the Shawnee, and whilst Tawannears and Corlaer were in the country of the Dakota, across the great river Mississippi, they were called back by a message from the Hoyarnagowar.* Six young warriors of ten lost their lives that the message might be delivered. Tawannears returned. Since then he has discharged the duties of his people. Now he is free again."

* The Council of the Royanehs, governing body of the Iroquois.

He took a step toward me, his face blazing with the keen intelligence that was his outstanding characteristic.

"Oh, my brother, so much I have said of Tawannears. I speak next of you. Word came to Deonundagaa* in the first moon of the Winter that the flower that had twined around your heart had withered and died. Oh, my brother, great was our grief; but in grief words are as nothing. I thought. I knew your loss because I, too, had suffered it. It said to myself: 'Otetiani is a man. He cannot weep. He has withstood the torture-stake. But he will suffer greatly in his mind—even as I have suffered. What will aid him?"

* Chief Village of the Senecas and site of the Western Door.

"And then, oh, my brother, I saw what should be done. I summoned Corlaer, and I said to him: 'We will go to New York and find our brother Ormerod and take him with us to hunt again for the Land of Lost Souls. A strange trail is best for the man whose mind is burdened with sad thoughts. If we find the Land of Lost Souls, perhaps the souls of the white people will be there, and he may recover her whom he has lost. If we find nothing, still he will have the journey, strange trails, new countries—and the pain in his heart will be dulled.'

"So, my brother, Corlaer and Tawannears came to New York, and lest my thought should be a wrong one—for Tawannears, after all, is an Indian and cannot know always what is best for a white man—we went first to Gaengwarago, who is wise in the ways of all people, and spoke with him. And now it is time for him to deliver his judgment.

"Na-ho."*

* "I have finished."

"But, Tawannears," I cried, as he dropped gracefully to the floor, "you forget that I am a Christian! My religion tells me nothing of a land whence the dead may be recovered. Think, brother, you were schooled in the natural sciences by the missionaries. How can you credit this—this myth. 'Tis true I have heard you tell it before, and I forebore to question because I would not add to your sorrow. But now I may not pass it by in silence. Forgive me, brother, if my words hurt you. I strive to speak with a straight tongue, as brothers should."

He lifted tranquil eyes to mine from his seat on the bearskin.

"My brother does not hurt Tawannears," he said. "A straight tongue cannot hurt. Brothers often disagree. It is true that the missionaries taught me as you say. It is true that I have read the Bible. The missionaries are good men. The Bible is a good Book. There is wisdom in it. But the men who wrote it did not even know that the Indians existed. They had never heard of this country. How, then, brother, could they know what the Great Spirit devised for the Indian? No, Ormerod, I think that the Great Spirit who made the world, who put the salt water in the ocean, which men use only for travel, and fresh water in the rivers, where men go to drink, may well have created a different after-world for the Indian than for the white man."

"Nay," I insisted, overwrought by this mingling of superstition and rare friendship coming on the heels of my mental anguish. "The soul that leaves the body is bodiless. It cannot be touched or seen. Remember, Tawannears, the Great Spirit sent His Son to dwell awhile with the white men, to give His life for the saving of mankind. Yet He said naught of this belief of yours."

Tawannears smiled scornfully.

"That is why I reject your religion, brother. It cannot be complete if it does not include the Indian, for the Indian has a soul as has the white man. But I say again: I promise nothing. I shall seek. Hawenneyu, and Tharon the Sky-holder, will decide if it is best for me to find—as for you, also. Life, brother, is a search. Religion is a struggle. I seek for what I love. I struggle for truth and justice. And I believe that the Great Spirit thinks of the Indian as often as he does of the white man."

Master Burnet tapped his cane on the floor.

"You waste time, Ormerod," he said testily. "My father was a bishop, and I have had enough of religion in my life to know that Godly debates are endless. Let be, prithee! For myself, I care not whether Tawannears be right or wrong. Yet the longer I live, the less sure I am of what is and is not. This continent is so incredibly gigantic that it may contain wonders our work-a-day minds have never dreamed on. A Land of Lost Souls! Well, why not? There were miracles in Judea. Why not in this wonderland? But hist! Bishop Gilbert, my father, hath just turned in his grave. I will ha' done. I am no casuist or Scots catechist, forever probing the chances of salvation. Nay, nay! I have heard many creeds in my time, but I have yet to hear one that surpasses Tawannears'."

I chuckled, despite myself.

"Already you succumb to the lure you deride," I pointed out.

He grinned back at me.

"True, I give thanks for the warning. Let us forget it."

His manner grew serious.

"For you, Ormerod, the consideration is not what Tawannears believes. You know him for a tried friend. That should suffice. His offer to you is designed to lift you from this routine, in which, dear lad—to be brutally explicit for the once—you are unable to subdue the pricking memories of that fair Mistress Marjory whom we all loved. I urge you, scorn it not. I have watched over you of late with misgivings. Y'are unsound in your mind, lad, and that's the truth on it.

"Do not mistake me. I am no fault-finder. Your life has been a hard one. You have had over-much of trial. Your loss is doubly bitter to you therefor. But that is the reason why you must drink some sharp purge of experience to cleanse your brain of the canker that gnaws now at your sanity. Tawannears points the way."

I looked at him, bewildered. From him to the Seneca, sitting cross-legged like a brazen statue, only his eyes burning with vivid emotion in his mask of a face. And from Tawannears to Corlaer, no less impassive, his little eyes almost wholly concealed behind their ramparts of flesh.

"But such a journey will require much time!" I protested.

"A year," assented Tawannears. "Perhaps more. Who can say?"

"Ja," endorsed Corlaer when I turned to him.

"'Tis impossible," I said. "There is my business."

A shriek of laughter came from upstairs. I guessed that Elspeth, knowing I was with guests, had relaxed all repression for the nonce.

"And the child," I added.

"Your reasons are not valid," replied the governor. "For your business, John Allen can well conduct it, and I will give him such supervision as he requires. The child is better in Elspeth's hands than any other's. You will mean nothing to him this next year at least. And Mistress Bnrnet shall keep an eye upon him."

"But there is great danger upon such a journey," I declared shamelessly.

"Why, that is so," admitted Master Burnet. "We may not dodge it. But you had better die, Ormerod, than linger on in the moods you have known this six-month past. You have enough fortune for the rearing of your son and his start in life. Write your will and leave his guardianship to me. You may make your mind easy on that score."

"You seem uncommonly anxious for me to go," I observed a trifle disagreeably.

"I am," he answered promptly. "I will go so far as to urge you in my official capacity, lad. I am not satisfied with affairs. We checkmate the French at one point, or in a certain direction, and they start an intrigue elsewhere. 'Tis an adventurous people, with a genius for military endeavor, that puts us to shame. And to the southward the Spaniards are rearing a power that can be toppled over only by their own fecklessness. We English are hemmed in along the seaboard behind the Allegheny Mountains. We are as cramped as fleas at the end of a dog's tail."

"We have not yet begun to colonize adequately this province alone," I exclaimed.

"True, but we are only the vanguard of the armies of home-makers of the future. Remember that. The time will come when our people will be striving to burst their bounds and move on onto the dim recesses of the Wilderness Country. What is that country? What is there beyond it? Beyond the Sunset, as Tawannears said. That is what I need to know, what England must know."

He poked at me with his cane.

"Look you, Ormerod, there are three questions to be answered. First, to what extent are the French established on the Mississippi? I know they have built lately a post they call Vincennes on the River Ouabache,* but I have not been able to learn if they have progressed permanently below that.

* Wabash.

"Second, how far have the Spaniards extended their influence beyond the Mississippi? Concerning this we know practically nothing.

"Third, what is the power of the far Indian races beyond the Great River, and what is their disposition toward us? Something in answer to this question Tawannears has told me, but I must know more."

"You have taken me by surprise," I temporized, turning in my mind recollections of bygone venturings, the soft clutch of moccasins on the feet, the pervading wood-smell of the forest, the feathered whispering of arrow flights, the thrill of the war-whoop, exultation in a close shot.

Master Burnet pressed his advantage.

"Surely, I have taken you by surprise," he persisted. "But the fact is, dear lad, I have striven all Winter for a diversion to lift you out of yourself and this house which is overfull of memories for your present good. Tawannears fetched me what I was unable to conceive. But I would have you consider that it offers more than an opportunity to escape discomfort and ill-health. No Englishman hath traversed the lands across the Mississippi. French soldiers and Jesuits have seen somewhat of it, but never an Englishman. The man who sees it first, and brings home a true account, will deserve well of his people. He will have rendered a service to generations yet unborn."

I peered for the last time at the armchair that stood empty by the hearth. As always, the slim wraith that sat there raised black-coifed head in a mute gesture of affection. It seemed to me that she nodded in approval. The brown eyes welled with sudden tears.

"I'll go," I said.

Tawannears regained his feet with the agility of a catamount.

"Yo-hay!"* he boomed.

* "I have heard," i.e., approved.

"Goodt," pronounced Corlaer solemnly.

"'Tis well," endorsed the governor. "You'll not regret it, Ormerod. There's much to do. Let's to it."

CHAPTER II

THE WILDERNESS TRAIL

The sun was already well above the horizon, but the light that stole through door and smoke-hole struggled unsuccessfully with the gloom of the Council House. From my seat of honor opposite the doorway I could make out only a few of the silent figures of Royanehs and chieftains sitting in concentric circles around the pit in which burned the tribal Council Fire of the Senecas. But as I watched, the direct rays of the sun crept over the earthen threshold, and Donehogaweh, sitting at my left, extended his sinewy arm and dropped a handful of tobacco leaves upon the smoldering coals in the fire-pit. A single column of smoke, hazily blue, rose straight in the air, and the acrid odor of the tobacco permeated the room.

"Oh, Hawenneyo," intoned the Guardian of the Western Door, "and you, Tharon, the Sky-holder, and Heno, Master of the Thunder, and Gaoh, Lord of the Winds, you too, oh, Three Sisters of the Deohako, Our Supporters, and the Honochenokeh, Aids of the Great Spirit and Ministers of his Mercy, heed our prayer! Open your ears to the words we send you by the smoke which rises from our Council Fire!"

He cast aside his skin robe of ceremony, and stood erect in his place, naked except for breechclout and moccasins, his gaunt body as straight as a youth's, his voice ringing with the virility that defies age. He folded his arms upon his chest. His face was raised to the smoke-hole in the roof.

"We are sending forth upon a journey three of our young men. They have far to go. It may be that they will trespass upon forbidden ground. We beseech that you will deal gently with them. If they may go no further, turn their steps aside, and lead them elsewhere. They are not foolishly curious. They seek to redress a wrong and to learn what is in store for their people. That is all.

"We show them to you, now, before the people."

He signaled me to rise, and I swung food-bags in place and stood beside him, leaning on my musket.

"This is Otetiani, my white son. He is a brave warrior, Oh, Hawenneyu. His mind is clouded by a great sorrow. Take it from him, and let him return to live out his life in comfort."

Corlaer rose.

"This is Corlaer, my white brother. He is a big man, oh, Hawenneyu, and he has a big belly. But if his strength is great, he can subdue his hunger. He is a good friend and a terrible enemy."

Tawannears rose.

"This is Tawannears, born of the Clan of the Wolf, Warden of the Door. He is the son of my sister. In him flows all that is left of my blood. He goes to fill an empty place in his heart. If it be wise, oh, Hawenneyu, grant him what he seeks.

"Na-ho!"

And from the circles of indistinct figures came a muttered chorus—

"Yo-hay!"

Donehogaweh turned to us as we stood by the fire-pit whence the smoke had ceased to rise.

"You are going upon a long journey," he said gravely. "Perhaps many enemies will assail you. Perhaps you will know great danger. Perhaps you will be faced by death. But I charge you, do not show fear. If you return with the scalps of all who oppose you, we will be proud of you. We will dance for you the Wasaseh, the War Dance. If you do not return at all, we will remember you, and the women shall teach the children to honor your memories. But do not return to us unless you can boast of all that you have done, and be ashamed of nothing.

"Na-ho!"

He caught up his skin-robe and draped it around his shoulders as he led us from the Council House, the assemblage of Royanehs and chiefs crowding after us through the narrow door. In the flat, hard-beaten Dancing Place outside, the center of the wide-spreading Seneca village of Deonundagaa, stood hundreds of warriors, women, and leaping, scrambling children. They stretched from the door to the gaondote, or war-post, its charred, splintered stump rising in the center of the open space, around which were ranked the ganasotes, or Long Houses, in which the people dwelt, and from which they took their name.

Most of them were only idly curious, friendly, but with no personal interest. But many who knew us pressed forward for a last, informal word before we left. Guanaea, wife of Donehogaweh—I dislike the debased word squaw, which is inept for a people like the Iroquois, who rate their women far higher than we do—snatched at my hand, her kindly, capable glance examining my equipment. The deerskin garments I wore had been fashioned by her. She had prepared the provender of jerked meat and mixed charred corn and maple-sugar which filled my food-bags. She had contrived my barken box of coarse salt. And she had done as much for Tawannears and Corlaer, too.

"Good-by, Otetiani, my white son," she said, with tears in her eyes. "May Hawenneyu have you in his keeping! I have no son of my body to tell me brave tales of what he has done, and you know that you are doubly dear to me. You must do as Tawannears and Corlaer when the snow flies and rub yourself with bear's grease. It is good at all times, and you should learn to like it. And do not bathe so often. Hanegoategeh, the Evil Spirit, is always on the watch to send ills to those who rub their skins. But here!"

She took a small pouch of deerskin from her breast and hung it around my neck by a strip of rawhide.

"That will protect you against all evils! Keep it always on you."

"What is it?" I asked, slipping it inside my leather shirt.

"A most powerful Orenda," she whispered mysteriously. "I had it made by Hineogetah, the Medicine Man. It is proof against spirits and bullets. It will turn a scalping-knife and resist a tomahawk."

"But what is it?" I persisted.

She looked around to make sure that nobody was within hearing distance. Donehogaweh was holding a final discussion with Tawannears, and the interest of the crowd was concentrated upon them.

"The fang of a bull rattlesnake," she said, ticking the items off on her fingers. "That is the spirit to resist evil. The eye-tooth of a wolf that was slain by Sonosowa of the Turtle Clan, for, of course, no Wolf could slay a wolf, in act of making his kill. That is the spirit to resist courage. A coal from the Ever-burning Fire at Onondago. That is the spirit to resist disease. It is the most powerful Orenda that Hineogetah has ever made, and I pray that it will keep you safe, for I think you will need it, Otetiani, a white man venturing into the Land of Lost Souls, where the wrath of Tharon may fall at any moment."

"But what of Corlaer?" I asked, amused as well as touched by this essentially feminine point of view.

"Oh, he is different!" she said.

I would have said more to her, but Tawannears turned from his uncle and slung his furled buckskin shirt across his naked shoulders.

"Come, brother," he called to me. "We must go."

I stooped quickly and kissed Guanaea on her wrinkled cheek. She drew back, startled, and raised her hand to the spot my lips had touched.

"What is that, Otetiani?" she asked, bewildered.

"It is the way a white son salutes his mother," I answered.

"Do it again," she commanded.

I did, to the stern amusement of Donehogaweh and his attendant Royanehs.

"I like it," she said. "It is a good son who gives his mother such pleasure. Surely, Hawenneyu will send you back to me."

"If his Orenda is strong and his valor great, he will return," declared Donehogaweh. "But there has been enough of leavetaking. A warrior's strength should not be sapped by sorrow before he takes the war-trail. Good-by, Otetiani, my son. Good-by, Corlaer, my brother. Good-by, Tawannears, son of my sister. We await your return with honor."

He raised his right arm in the gesture of farewell. A thicket of arms sprang up in the Dancing Place and we acknowledged the salute in kind. Then, without a word, Tawannears turned his back and walked southward through the village. I walked after him, and Corlaer came behind me. Not a voice was raised to shout after us. Not a call came from the surrounding houses. I looked back once—as no Indian would have done—and saw the assemblage standing immobile, Donehogaweh, with his robe wrapped around him, his eyes fastened upon us, his face emotionless. Even Guanaea stood now like a statue. Then we came to the forest wall, and Deonundagaa became a thing of roof-tops, occasionally glimpsed through the thickening screen of greenery.

The trail was the usual Indian footway, a stamped-out slot, a groove just wide enough for a man to pass, worn in the floor and hacked through the body of the wilderness. We traversed it in silence, each, I suppose, immersed in his thoughts. For the most part, I fixed my eyes upon the sliding muscles of Tawannears' back, rippling so smoothly under his oiled skin, his effortless stride carrying him ahead at a steady dog-trot. Behind me I could hear the grunting of Corlaer and the crackle of branches his broad shoulders pushed against—and by that I knew that we were in absolutely safe country, for the big Dutchman could be as quiet and as agile with his mountainous bulk as Tawannears, himself.

My mind turned to the day, three weeks past, that these two had reëntered my life, after years of separation, and lifted me at once by the clean ardor of their personalities out of the miasma of sickening thoughts in which grief had immersed me.

Much had happened since then. Hasty adjustments of my business; last-minute conferences with the governor and several merchants, members of his Council, who had generously volunteered to take over the conduct of my affairs; drilling of John Allen in various niceties of the situation; the voyage up Hudson's River by sloop to Albany, huddled under the protection of Fort Orange below the mouth of the Mohawk, our main outpost on the frontier; a fortnight on the Great Trail of the Long House; flitting meetings with old friends; the aroma of the forest; longer and longer hours of sleep; Deonundagaa and—this.

I tossed back my head and inhaled the scent of the wild grapevine that twisted around a giant oak, and my eyes took joy from the mottling of the sunlight drifting through foliage a hundred feet overhead and the scuttling of a rabbit across the trail. We passed a beaver-pond, and I drew a lesson in steadfast courage from the tireless endurance of these small creatures, forever building and never dismayed by the most arduous undertaking.

Three weeks! And already I saw myself in prospect of a whole man again. I straightened with the thought, and took pride in my instant ability to adjust myself to the Indian's trail pace. Tawannears gave me a quick smile over his shoulder.

"My brother's heart is glad," he said. "I can tell by the lightness of his step."

"Truly, I feel as I had never thought to feel again," I returned. "Who would choose to live in a town if he might roam the forest at will? And the day is passing fair."

"Oof!" grunted Corlaer behind me. "It grows hot."

We made thirty miles that day, and camped with some Seneca hunters who shared their fresh venison with us. In the morning we continued on our way, still heading south for the headwaters of the Alleghany River.

"For the route we take," said Tawannears, in discussing the journey, "the word of my brother Otetiani shall be law. He has a mission to perform for Gaengwarago. But if you will listen to me you will strike south to the Alleghany, and follow that into the Ohio, which, in turn, flows into the Great River that my people call the Father of Waters. This way, brother, we shall fetch a wide compass around the French post at Detroit, and come near enough Vincennes for you to look at it if you wish. But it will be better for you if the French do not see you or hear of your mission."

"That is true," I admitted. "But for your plan we must have a canoe."

"I can find one," he answered readily. "I cached it on the Alleghany the last time I returned from an embassy to the Creeks."

We settled our route according to Tawannears' advice. Traveling by water, as he also pointed out, meant on the whole a much better rate of progress than land travel, and likewise made it unnecessary for us to traverse so many tribal ranges. Tawannears, as a war chief of the Iroquois, was fairly certain of respectful treatment at the hands of any well-known tribe north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi. But many of these Indians had fallen under the influence of the French, and it was questionable what attitude they might adopt if they discovered who I was. It was safest for all concerned to pass as swiftly and quietly as possible through the country this side of the Mississippi. We have nothing to gain by lingering, and perhaps everything to lose.

The second day we had no beaten trail to aid us, and a cold rain pelted from the east. The country was seamed with shallow ravines and gulleys, and at intervals we came to dense belts of undergrowth, spurred with thorns and bound together by vines and creepers. Sometimes we circled these patches. Sometimes we hacked a path with our war-hatchets. We were exhausted when night fell, and welcomed the shelter offered us by a party of wandering Mohicans; but in the morning we took up the trail, despite the recurring rain. Slippery rocks and ankle-deep mud delayed us. The coarse grass of the occasional swales was treacherous underfoot. But we kept on. And I was amazed to discover that the weather had no effect upon my spirits. I enjoyed the independence of it, the sopping foliage, the persistent drip-drip of the rain, the fatigue that strained every muscle. More than all I enjoyed our third camp beneath a bark lean-to hastily contrived. The roof leaked; our fire lasted barely long enough to cook the wild turkey our Mohican hosts had given us; and I was soaked to the skin. Yet I slept through the night to awaken alert and refreshed in the bright dawning of a new day.

In the forenoon Tawannears made his landfall on a tiny creek that fed the headwaters of the Alleghany. We reached the main stream in mid-afternoon, and with one curt glance around, he walked straight to a grass-covered indentation in the bank.

"Here is the canoe, brothers," he said casually.

"Nein," Corlaer, without moving from where he stood, his little eyes fixed on the hiding-place.

Tawannears drew back from the edge of the inlet, a startled look on his usually blank face.

"Here I left it, well-concealed," he insisted.

"Smoke, down-rifer," remarked the Dutchman.

Tawannears and I shifted our gaze. The Seneca's eyes reflected a momentary expression of chagrin that he should not have been the first to mark this sign.

"We will go to it," he announced briefly. "This land is tributary to the Long House. We shall see who is bold enough to take the canoe of a chief of the Long House from the threshold of the Western Door."

Of course, he was speaking figuratively, for we were a long three days' tramping from Deonundagaa; but it was a striking manifestation of the proud arrogance of the Iroquois that Tawannears, an Indian to his backbone, insisted upon walking directly into that encampment, without going to the preliminaries of scouting the strange community.

A half-grown boy sighted us through the trees while we were still some distance away, and his shrill cries gave the alarm. As we stepped from the edge of the forest, a dozen men grouped in front of the four bark shelters that stood just back from the bank. In the offing I perceived half as many women and some children. They were a dark, stumpy people, with low-browed, brutish faces.

Tawannears frowned and pointed to a canoe drawn up on the bank.

"Andastes," he spat contemptuously. "They are dogs and thieves who have no right here. The Hoyarnagowar has bidden them range in the Susquehanna Valley."

Musket in the hollow of his arm, he marched into the center of the dour group, every member of which clutched a fusil, trade musket or strung bow.

"Andastes," he said, "you have taken my canoe."

"We have only our own canoe," answered a thick-limbed warrior, who was out-thrust from the dingy throng.

"I say it is mine," returned Tawannears with haughty emphasis.

"You are welcome to camp here if you wish; we will give you food," said the Andaste evasively.

Tawannears' eyes sparked fire.

"Dog of an Andaste!" he barked. "Who are you to speak as a master to the Hodenosaunee? You crawl when the word comes to you from Onondaga! You eat dirt if a warrior of the Long House commands it! You are the fathers of all lice!"

The Andastes scowled and bunched closer together, with a tentative poising of weapons. Tawannears drew his tomahawk and held it aloft.

"I am Tawannears, Warden of the Western Door," he said slowly. "I am fresh come from Deonundagaa. Say which it is to be, Andastes, peace or war?"

They shrank away from him. All save two or three disappeared into the lodges or the forest. But they had no thought of violence. The heart was taken out of them. Tawannears was more than Tawannears. He was the embodiment of that dread power which these inferior savages knew could carry annihilation in any direction and almost to any distance north, south and west. He stood there, ax upraised, the spirit of the Long House, which even the white men feared.

The Andaste chief lowered his eyes.

"We do not want war," he answered. "Take the canoe. We found it. We did not know——"

"You know that you have no rights here," Tawannears cut him off. "This is the hunting ground of the Long House. Here, too, may come Mohicans, Eries and the People of the Cat.* But Andastes belong in the Susquehanna valley. Get back there. If I find you here when I pass this way again, I will carry fire and tomahawk against you and all your people."

* Jegosasa, sometimes called Neuter Nation.

He turned on his heel, and with a gesture to us, stalked down to the shore and pushed the canoe into the water.

"Let us go on, brothers," he urged. "Here the air is unclean."

He took the bow paddle, and I crouched amidships. Corlaer, gentle as a girl for all his bulk, slipped gingerly into the stern. Their blades bit into the shallow water, and under the impulse of those slow, easy strokes, the light craft fairly danced downstream, gaining speed as it caught the drift of the current. We rounded a curve, and the Andaste encampment disappeared from view.

"Will they obey you?" I asked Tawannears.

He laughed shortly.

"They will be gone before the sun rises again, brother Otetiani. They know well that they have no right there, but the place is out of the way and far from the Door, and they thought they would be safe. They are a nation of women. We do not even let them fight for us."

Paddling was very different work from wood-ranging, and we made ten miles before darkness compelled us to land on a miniature island and pitch camp in the lee of a big rock. We had a small fire so arranged that its glow could not be seen from either shore, and beside it we slept under the stars. With the dawn we were up and afloat once more, munching the burnt corn and maple-sugar from our food-sacks.

This day I observed that Tawannears seemed to redouble his vigilance. From his position in the bow he studied the shore-line constantly, and in the afternoon he halted an hour before daylight failed, to take advantage of an opportunity to camp upon another island.

"Why so careful?" I grumbled. "Do you think these Andastes may be tracking us, after all!"

He shook his head, smiling.

"No, brother, but we are entering a country where the Long House is feared, but where its word is no longer law. Anywhere here we may meet bands of young warriors of a score of tribes who have taken advantage of the Spring hunting to look for their first scalps. They would see in us only three victims for killing."

But despite—or it may be because of—our vigilance, we saw no trace of other men, save once when making a portage around some rapids. As we were in the act of relaunching our canoe three other craft, each containing three red warriors, rounded the next bend downstream. We waited for them, arms ready. But they made the sign of peaceful intent as they approached, and we held our fire. They were Cherokees, fine, tall men, very much like the Iroquois, and they told us frankly that they were an embassy carrying belts to Detroit They said their people were having trouble with the colonists in the Carolinas and they desired to take steps to establish an alliance with the French.

"The French are no different from the English, brothers," replied Tawannears. "They are both Asseroni.* They are both white. We are red. There are white men who understand the Indian. Two are my brothers here. But they have few among their race who agree with them. You go upon a hopeless errand. The French will make you promises. They will give you arms, and use you when it suits their ends, and when they have no use for you they will let you go to the stake."

* Ax-makers.

The Cherokees, squatting in a half-circle on the shore facing us and the beached canoes, exchanged uneasy glances.

"Then what does our brother of the Hodenosaunee advise?" asked the oldest chief. "What policy do his people pursue to uphold themselves? They are directly between French and English. If there is no help from one or the other, what is the Indian to do?"

"The Hodenosaunee maintain their place by strength," replied Tawannears. "They have made their help worthwhile to the English. But the time will come, brothers, when the English will no longer need us, when the white man's firewater has debauched our young men, when so many white men have come over the Great Water that they will outnumber the Indian. Then the Indian must go."

"Where?" demanded the Cherokee.

Tawannears waved his arm down-stream.

"Brothers," he said, "I journey to find what lies betwixt this and the sunset—and beyond. It may be that Hawenneyu has set aside a country for the red man that the white man cannot take."

"If the red man gives ground forever, then surely the white man will drive him out," declared the Cherokee.

"True," agreed Tawannears. "And if the red men united together, the white man could never drive them out. Your brothers, the Tuscaroras, came north in my father's time, driven from their homes by the same white men who now harass you. We of the Hodenosaunee took them into our League, and now they are safe. The walls of the Long House protect them. Perhaps the Hoyarnagowar would decree a lengthening of the walls if the Cherokees desired to enter the League."

"Yes, as younger brothers to sit outside the Fire Circle, without casting votes in the Council of Royanehs," returned the Cherokee with passionate emphasis. "That is what happened to the Tuscaroras. They are dependents of the Hodenosaunee. We Cherokees are a great people. Shall we lose ourselves in the fabric of the Long House?"

Tawannears emptied the ashes from his pipe and rose.

"My brother has pointed the reason why the red man cannot stand against the white man," he said quietly. "Outside of the Long House the powerful tribes will not hold together. The Hodenosaunee can conquer people like the Eries or the Mohicans, but we see no interest in conquering the Cherokees—and if we did not conquer you, you would not join with us."

"Because we might not join you as equals!" the Cherokee retorted hotly.

"There is no question of equality or inequality," asserted Tawannears. "But the Founders of the Great League created only so many Royanehs, and we who follow in their footsteps may not correct their work. Go to Onondaga with your belts, and Tododaho, the greatest of our Royanehs, who warms his mind by the Everlasting Fire, will make your hearts strong with wise talk. Let him tell you, better than I can, how to unite for strength."

The Cherokee rose with a stern light of resentment in his face.

"We go to Detroit," he said. "Better be allies of the Frenchman, and play one race of white man against the other, than be slaves of the Hodenosaunee."

Tawannears did not answer him and was silent until we had paddled an hour or more.

"What did you think of our talk, brother Otetiani?" he asked suddenly, peering over his shoulder at me.

"I thought that you were right," I answered.

"I am so sure I am right that I can see the whole future of the red man," he cried. "He will perish because he cannot break down his tribal barriers."

"Der Frenchman, too," spoke up Corlaer behind me.

I turned in mingled amusement and surprise. It was seldom he used more than monosyllables.

"Ja," he continued, "der Englishman, he takes in all, Dutch, Swede, Cherman, Frenchman. But der Frenchman, he is der Frenchman. Der Englishman he comes on top. He-mixes. Ja."

CHAPTER III
THE SHAWNEE SCALP-HUNTER

Day after day we descended the broadening river. Once a floating snag ripped our bottom out, and we swam to shore, pushing the sodden craft ahead of us. Tawannears cut bark strips, melted pitch I collected from the pine trees, and salvaged the sinews of a deer he shot with the bow and arrow he carried for hunting game. With these he mended the hole and made it water-tight, and after two days' delay we continued our journey, thankful to have escaped attack whilst we tarried in this situation, for our spare powder had been wetted.

Treacherous channels and difficult portages hindered us further, but each day saw some advance to our credit, and at last we came to the place which Tawannears called the Meeting of the Waters. We were swept by a rapid current around the shoulder of a point just before sunset, and there opened before us two other watery prospects. At our left another stream, the Monongahela, poured in from the south to join its flow with the Allegheny, and the two united to form the great Ohio.

'Twas a matchless situation. North, south and west ran the three rivers, roads already laid to tap the resources of the wilderness. At their confluence was the ideal site for the erection of a fortress to command their courses and dominate the wilderness for miles around. Indeed, I remember long years afterward—I think it was in the year '60—young Colonel Washington of Virginia, when he was in New York in attendance on General Amherst, told me 'twas here the great French General Montcalm settled to build Fort Duquesne, which was one of the causes of the last struggle for the wilderness land. I remember, too, he said in his grave, simple way, that it should yet be the site of a prosperous town.

We camped that night on the point, the murmur of the waters in Spring freshet loud in our ears, and in the morning we allowed our canoe to be carried into the brawling current of the Ohio. So swift flowed this mighty stream that we had no necessity to use our paddles, save to guide the canoe from rocks and maintain it in the safest channel. We traveled as far that day as we often had in two days on the Allegheny's more tortuous reaches. But there came days when we must be at pains to avoid hidden dangers; when the waters foamed with rocks and submerged bars, and immense trees were hurled along like battering-rams to sink the over-confident. Sometimes we were fain to avoid over-dangerous bits, and stumbled along the shore-line in shallow water, the canoe on our shoulders.

I marveled that we saw so little human life. Occasionally a canoe would dart into the bank at sight of our approach, its occupant seeking shelter in the undergrowth. Twice an attempt was made by other canoes to overhaul us, but I was able now to lend my arms to assist Tawannears and Peter, and we left the pursuers far behind. Again, where the Scioto falls into the Ohio from the north, we encountered a party of Miamis bound south on an impartial hunt for scalps and buffalo robes. They knew Tawannears, and treated us with all respect. But for the most part the river flowed undisturbed on its majestic way to mingle with the Father of Waters.

For days and days we saw no other men. Not even a spiral of smoke rose from the dark forests that marched unbroken down to the shelving banks or the bluffs and hills that elsewhere rimmed the channel.

Then, without warning, came the attack.

The stream had narrowed between low banks, and a riffle of rocks on the north side compelled us to follow the southern margin.

A shot boomed from the southern bank, and I heard it whistle by my head. Other shots echoed it. We all looked around. Puffs of smoke were blowing from the underbrush. The shrill howl of the warwhoop soared in quavering accents above the babble of the river. Painted men, feathers raking from their half-shaven heads, broke cover and ran along after us, firing and yelling. Two long canoes shoved off from the bank, and churned the water with four paddles apiece. In the bow of each knelt a savage whose one object was to shoot us down. Bullets phutted through the frail bark sides of the canoe and splashed the water all around us.

"Shawnees!" exclaimed Tawannears. "For your lives, brothers!"

We drove our paddles into the water, but our handicap was that we could not veer more than just so far toward the northern bank until we had passed the string of rocks that barred it. We were still some distance above the termination of the obstruction when a jagged slug of lead tore into the canoe between Tawannears and me, glanced from a hickory thwart, and sliced a long, curving slit in the side below the water-line; I dropped my paddle, and clutched the lips of the cut with both hands, one outside and one inside the canoe, striving to hold them together as best I could. The water trickled in, of course, and as the canoe sank under its growing weight it became increasingly difficult to control the leak; but at least we were able to make some progress.

"Good, brother!" panted Tawannears, seeing what I was doing. "A few feet more!"

The Shawnees howled with satisfaction as they perceived our plight. Their canoes shot after us at twice our speed, and some of the warriors on the southern bank plunged into the river where it was narrowest, and swam for the rock-ledge, whence they could wade to the northern bank. But Tawannears and Corlaer kept us afloat until we were almost past the rock-ledge. 'Twas I saw the wavelet that would swamp us, and I shouted a warning to the others. We held powder-horns and rifles aloft and sprang for the nearest rocks.

I went head under and barely saved my powder from a second wetting. Tawannears and Peter found footing at once, and the huge Dutchman helped me up beside them. Then we stumbled through the water as fast as the hazardous rocks permitted, zigzagging and stooping low to disconcert the enemies who fired on us from the opposite bank and the two canoes, which drove on downstream to seek a favorable landing-place. The Shawnees who had undertaken to swim the river were already ashore several hundred yards upstream and running towards us along the bank, and it was at them that we fired as soon as we had gained the first trees of the forest.

We were panting from our efforts, but Tawannears hit a man in the leg. Corlaer drilled his target through the chest. I missed. But our firing had the effect of confusing the pursuit. Instead of charging in the open, they dived into the forest in an attempt to work down on us from behind. But we sensed their purpose, and tarried only long enough to reload. With Tawannears in the lead, we set off northward, making no attempt to conceal our trail, for we had no time for niceties. The whoops of the swimmers could be heard on our right rear, and answering calls came from the warriors who had debarked from the canoes on our left. Through the tree-trunks we could see some ten or a dozen more taking to the water from the south bank.

Fortunately, the forest hereabouts was a wondrous primeval growth of tall-stemmed, widely-spaced trunks. There was little underbrush, and the ground was carpeted with a deep, springy layer of vegetable mould, the easiest footing for a runner. The light was sifted high overhead by the interlacing boughs, and it was impossible to see distinctly at any distance. The odds seemed reasonably in our favor, despite the continuous whooping at our heels, and I was amazed when Tawannears came to an abrupt halt after we had run a scant half-hour.

"They will be scattered," he said in explanation to my look of inquiry. "We will teach them that they are not dealing with young deer-hunters like themselves. Do you run on a score of strides, Otetiani, and Corlaer as many more. I will fire when I see a target, and flee. Then you will each fire in turn, and run. That way the two in the rear will have had time to reload. Come, brothers, we will scotch these young men who think our scalps as easy to take as a deer's antlers."

Corlaer grunted approval, and we two held to our course. I halted behind a great oak from which I could barely discern the figure of Tawannears lurking behind an uprooted elm. Five minutes passed. The yelping of our enemies had died away. Young hounds they might be, but it was in their blood to save breath once they had their noses on a green trail. Suddenly, I saw a stab of flame in the gloom, and Tawannears darted toward me, musket in hand. The crash of his shot was followed by a yelp of agony, and once more the silence of the forest reëchoed the eerie war-whoop.

"Watch carefully, brother," the Seneca muttered as he loped past.

I lifted my musket and waited, eyes darting right and left, striving to pierce the depths of the shadow-world that was unflecked by a single ray of sunlight. I stared so long that my eye muscles wearied, and the lids blinked. I closed them for a moment's rest, and when I reopened them the first thing I was conscious of seeing was a shadow darker than the shadows, that flitted between two tree-trunks on my left. He was so close that I thought I must have been deceived, but whilst I watched he showed again, and I made out the slanting feather above his crouching form. I aimed a good foot below the feather, and pulled trigger. The Shawnee leaped high in air, with a throttled cry, and pitched forward on his face. I ran.

"Goodt," murmured Corlaer, huddled behind a boulder that showed moss-covered amongst the timber.

I sped on, and halted only when Tawannears' low voice reached my ears.

"Reload," he said briefly. "We must run again when Corlaer comes. The dogs are swifter than I thought. Hear them!"

He inclined his ear to the left rear, and I heard distinctly the interchange of signal-yells, once even a distant crashing of branches. The Shawnees were working around in an attempt to head us off. I was relieved when Corlaer'a musket boomed, and the Dutchman's huge body bounded into view. He ran as lightly as he did everything else. The man was a swift runner who could keep up with him.

"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.