Chapter 10. Sermons In Stones

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_ CHAPTER X. SERMONS IN STONES

By sunup we had left the city on the three hills, Elsin, Colonel Van Schaick, and I, riding our horses at the head of the little column, followed by an escort of Rangers. Behind the Rangers plodded the laden bat-horses, behind them creaked an army transport-wagon, loaded with provisions and ammunition, drawn by two more horses, and the rear was covered by another squad of buckskinned riflemen, treading lightly in double file.

Nobody had failed me. My reckless, ale-swilling Rangers had kept the tryst with swollen eyes but steady legs; a string of bat-horses stood at the door of the Half-Moon when Elsin and I descended; and a moment later the army wagon came jolting and bumping down the hilly street, followed by Colonel Van Schaick and a dozen dragoons.

When he saw me he did not recognize me, so broad and tall had I become in these four years. Besides, I wore my forest-dress of heavily fringed doeskin, and carried the rifle given me by Colonel Hamilton.

"Hallo, Peter!" I called out, laughing.

"_You!_ Can that be you, Carus!" he cried, spurring up to me where I sat my horse, and seizing me by both caped shoulders. "Lord! Look at the lad! Six feet, or I'm a Mohawk!--six feet in his moccasins, and his hair sheered close and his cap o' one side, like any forest-swaggering free-rifle! Carus! Carus! Damme, if I'll call you Captain! Didn't you greet me but now with your impudent 'Hallo, Peter!'? Didn't you, you undisciplined rogue? By gad, you've kept your promise for a heart-breaker, you curly-headed, brown-eyed forest dandy!"

He gave me a hug and a hearty shake, so that the thrums tossed, and my little round cap of doeskin flew from my head. I clutched it ere it fell, and keeping it in my hand, presented him to Elsin.

"We are affianced, Peter," I said quietly. "Colonel Willett must play guardian until this fright in Albany subsides."

"Oh, the luck o' that man Willett!" he exclaimed, beaming on Elsin, and saluting the hand she stretched out. "Why do you not choose a man like me, madam? Heaven knows, such a reward is all I ask of my country's gratitude! And you are going to marry this fellow Carus? Is this what sinners such as he may look for? Gad, madam, I'm done with decency, and shall rig me in fringed shirt and go whipping through the woods, if such maidens as you find that attractive!"

"I find you exceedingly attractive, Colonel Van Schaick," she said, laughing--"so attractive that I ask your protection against this man who desires to be rid of me at any cost."

Van Schaick swore that I was a villain, and offered to run off with her at the drop of her 'kerchief, but when I spoke seriously of the danger at Albany, he sobered quickly enough, and we rode to the head of the little column, now ready to move.

"March," I said briefly; and we started.

"I'll ride a little way with you," said the Colonel--"far enough to say that when Joshua gave me your message on my return last night I sent my orderly to find the wagon and animals and provision for three days' march. You can make it in two if you like, or even in twenty-four hours."

I thanked him and asked about the rumors which had so alarmed the people in Albany; but he shook his head, saying he knew nothing except that there were scalping parties out, and that he for one believed them to be the advance of an invading force from Canada.

"You ask me where this sweet lady will be safest," he continued, "and I answer that only God knows. Were I you, Carus, I should rather have her near me; so if your duty takes you to Johnstown it may be best that she remain with you until these rumors become definite. Then, it might be well that she return to Albany and stay with friends like the Schuylers, or the Van Rensselaers, or Colonel Hamilton's lady, if these worthy folk deem it safe to remain."

"Have they gone?" I asked.

"They're preparing to go," he said gloomily. "Oh, Carus, when we had Walter Butler safe in Albany jail in '78, why did we not hang him? He was taken as a spy, tried, and properly condemned. I remember well how he pretended illness, and how that tender-hearted young Marquis Lafayette was touched by his plight, and begged that he be sent to hospital in the comfortable house of some citizen. Ah, had we known what that human tiger was meditating! Think of it, Carus! You knew him, did you not, when he came a-courting Margaret Schuyler? Lord! who could believe that Walter Butler would so soon be smeared with the blood of women and children? Who could believe that this young man would so soon be damned with the guilt of Cherry Valley?"

We rode on in silence. I dared not glance at Elsin; I found no pretext to stop Van Schaick; and, still in perfect silence, we wheeled northwest into the Schenectady road, where Peter took leave of us in his own simple, hearty fashion, and wheeled about, galloping back up the slope, followed by his jingling dragoons.

I turned to take my last look at the three hills and the quaint Dutch city. Far away on the ramparts of the fort I saw our beloved flag fluttering, a gay spot in the sunshine, with its azure, rose, and silvery tints blending into the fresh colors of early morning. I saw, too, the ruined fort across the river, where that British surgeon, Dr. Stackpole, composed the immortal tune of "Yankee Doodle" to deride us--that same tune to which my Lord Cornwallis was now dancing, while we whistled it from West Point to Virginia.

As I sat my saddle there, gazing at the city I had thought so wonderful when I was a lad fresh from Broadalbin Bush, I seemed once more to wander with my comrades, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Steve Watts, and Jack Johnson--now Sir John--a-fishing troutlings from the Norman's Kill, that ripples through the lovely vale of Tawasentha. Once more I seemed to see the patroon's great manor-house through the drooping foliage of the park elms, and the stately mansion of our dear General Schuyler, with its two tall chimneys, its dormers, roof-rail, and long avenue of trees; and on the lawn I seemed to see pretty little Margaret, now grown to womanhood and affianced to the patroon; and Betty Schuyler, who scarce a year since wedded my handsome Colonel Hamilton--that same lively Betty who so soon sent Walter Butler about his business, though his veins were like to burst with pride o' the blood in them, that he declared came straight from the Earls of Arran and the great Dukes of Ormond and of Ossery.

"Of what are you thinking?" asked Elsin softly.

"Of my boyhood, dearest. Yonder is the first city I ever beheld. Shall I tell you of it--and of that shy country lad who came hither to learn something of deportment, so that he might venture to enter an assembly and forget his hands and feet?"

"Were _you_ ever awkward, Carus?"

"Awkward as a hound-pup learning to walk."

"I shall never believe it," she declared, laughing; and we moved forward on the Schenectady road, Murphy, Mount, Elerson, and the little Weasel trotting faithfully at heel, and the brown column trailing away in their dustless wake.

I had not yet forgotten the thrill of her quick embrace when, as we met at the breakfast-table by candle-light, I had told her of my commission and of our Governor's kindness. And just to see the flush of pride in her face, I spoke of it again; and her sweet eyes' quick response was the most wonderful to me of all the fortune that had fallen to my lot. I turned proudly in my saddle, looking back upon the people now entrusted to me--and as I looked, pride changed to apprehension, and a quick prayer rose in my heart that I, a servant of my country, might not prove unequal to the task set me.

Sobered, humbled, I rode on, asking in silence God's charity for my ignorance, and His protection for her I loved, and for these human souls entrusted to my care in the dark hours of the approaching trial.

North and northwest we traveled on a fair road, which ran through pleasant farming lands, stretches of woods, meadows, and stubble-fields. At first we saw men at work in the fields, not many, but every now and again some slow Dutch yokel, with his sunburned face turned from his labor to watch us pass. But the few farmhouses became fewer, and these last were deserted. Finally no more houses appeared, and stump-lots changed to tangled clearings, and these into second growth, and these at last into the primeval forests, darkly magnificent, through which our road, now but a lumber road, ran moist and dark, springy and deep with the immemorial droppings of the trees.

Without command of mine, four lithe riflemen had trotted off ahead. I now ordered four more to act on either flank, and called up part of the rear-guard to string out in double file on either side of the animals and wagon. The careless conversation in the ranks, the sudden laugh, the clumsy skylarking all ceased. Tobacco-pipes were emptied and pouched, flints and pans scrutinized, straps and bandoleers tightened, moccasins relaced. The batmen examined ropes, wagon-wheels, and harness, and I saw them furtively feeling for their hatchets to see that everything was in place.

Thankful that I had a company of veterans and no mob of godless and silly trappers, bawling contempt of everything Indian, I unconsciously began to read the signs of the forest, relapsing easily into that cautious custom which four years' disuse had nothing rusted.

And never had man so perfect a companion in such exquisite accord with his every mood and thought as I had in Elsin Grey. Her sweet, reasonable mind was quick to comprehend. When I fell silent, using my ears with all the concentration of my other senses, she listened, too, nor broke the spell by glance or word. Yet, soon as I spoke in low tones, her soft replies were ready, and when my ever restless eyes reverted, resting a moment on her, her eyes met mine with that perfect confidence that pure souls give.

At noon we halted to rest the horses and eat, the pickets going out of their own accord. And I did not think it fit to give orders where none were required in this company of Irregulars, whose discipline matched regiments more pretentious, and whose alignment was suited to the conditions. Braddock and Bunker Hill were lessons I had learned to regard as vastly more important than our good Baron's drill-book.

As I sat eating a bit of bread, cup of water in the other hand. Jack Mount came swaggering up with that delightful mixture of respect and familiarity which brings the hand to the cap but leaves a grin on the face.

"Well, Jack?" I asked, smiling.

"Have you noticed any sign, sir?" he inquired. Secretly self-satisfied, he was about to go on and inform me that he and Tim Murphy had noticed a stone standing against a tree--for I saw them stop like pointers on a hot grouse-scent just as we halted to dismount. I was unwilling to forestall him or take away one jot of the satisfaction, so I said: "What have you seen?"

Then he beamed all over and told me; and the Weasel and Tim Murphy came up to corroborate him, all eagerly pointing out the stone to me where it rested against the base of a black ash.

"Well," said I, smiling, "how do you interpret that sign?"

"Iroquois!" said the rangers promptly.

"Yes, but are they friendly or hostile?"

The question seemed to them absurd, but they answered very civilly that it was a signal of some sort which could only be interpreted by Indians, and that they had no doubt that it meant some sort of mischief to us.

"Men," I said quietly, "you are wrong. That stone leaning upon a tree is a friendly message to me from a body of our Oneida scouts."

They stared incredulously.

"I will prove it," said I. "Jack, go you to that stone. On the under side you will find a number of white marks made with paint. I can not tell you how many, but the number will indicate the number of Oneidas who are scouting for us ahead."

Utterly unconvinced, yet politely obedient, the blond giant strode off across the road, picked up the great stone as though it were a pompion, turned it over, uttered an exclamation, and bore it back to us.

"You see," I said, "twenty Oneida scouts will join us about two o'clock this afternoon if we travel at the same rate that we are traveling. This white circle traced here represents the sun; the straight line the meridian. Calculating roughly, I should set the time of meeting at two o'clock. Now, Jack, take the stone to the stream yonder and scrub off the paint with moss and gun-oil, then drop the stone into the water. And you, Tim Murphy, go quietly among the men and caution them not to fire on a friendly Oneida. That is all, lads. We march in a few moments."

The effect upon the rangers was amusing; their kindly airs of good-natured protection vanished; Mount gazed wildly at me; Tim Murphy, perfectly convinced yet unable to utter a word, saluted and marched off, while Elerson and the Weasel stood open-mouthed, fingering their rifles until the men began to fall in silently, and I put up Elsin and mounted my roan, motioning Murphy and Jack Mount to my stirrups.

"Small wonder I read such signs," I said. "I am an Oneida chief, an ensign, and a sachem. Come freely to me when signs of the Iroquois puzzle you. It would not have been very wise to open fire on our own scouts."

It seemed strange to them--it seemed strange to me--that I should be instructing the two most accomplished foresters in America. Yet it is ever the old story; all else they could read that sky and earth, land and water, tree and rock held imprinted for savant eyes, but they could not read the simple signs and symbols by which the painted men of the woods conversed with one another. Pride, contempt for the savage--these two weaknesses stood in their way. And no doubt, now, they consoled themselves with the thought that a dead Iroquois, friendly or otherwise, was no very great calamity. This was a danger, but I did not choose to make it worse by harping on it.

About two o'clock a ranger of the advanced guard came running back to say that some two score Iroquois, stripped and painted for war, were making signs of amity from the edge of the forest in front of us.

I heard Mount grunt and Murphy swearing softly under his breath as I rode forward, with a nod to Elsin.

"Now you will see some friends of my boyhood," I said gaily, unlacing the front of my hunting-shirt as I rode, and laying it open to the wind.

"Carus!" she exclaimed, "what is that blue mark on your breast?"

"Only a wolf," I said, laughing. "Now you shall see how we Oneidas meet and greet after many years! Look, Elsin! See that Indian standing there with his gun laid on his blanket? The three rangers have taken to cover. There they stand, watching that Oneida like three tree-cats."

As I cantered up and drew bridle Elerson called out that there were twenty savages in the thicket ahead, and to be certain that I was not mistaken.

The tall Oneida looked calmly up at me; his glittering eyes fell upon my naked breast, and, as he looked, his dark face lighted, and he stretched out both hands.

"Onehda!" he ejaculated.

I leaned from my saddle, holding his powerful hands in a close clasp.

"Little Otter! Is it you, my younger brother? Is it really you?" I repeated again and again, while his brilliant eyes seemed to devour my face, and his sinewy grip tightened spasmodically.

"What happiness, Onehda!" he said, in his softly sonorous Oneida dialect. "What happiness for the young men--and the sachems--and the women and children, too, Onehda. It is well that you return to us--to the few of us who are left. Koue!"

And now the Oneidas were coming out of the willows, crowding up around my horse, and I heard everywhere my name pronounced, and everywhere outstretched hands sought mine, and painted faces were lifted to mine--even the blackened visage of the war-party's executioner relaxing into the merriest of smiles.

"Onehda," he said, "do you remember that feast when you were raised up?"

"Does an Oneida and a Wolf forget?" I said, smiling.

An emphatic "No!" broke from the painted throng about me.

Elsin, sitting her saddle at a little distance, watched us wide-eyed.

"Brothers," I said quietly, "a new rose has budded in Tryon County. The Oneidas will guard it for the honor of their nation, lest the northern frost come stealing south to blight the blossom."

Two score dark eyes flashed on Elsin. She started; then a smile broke out on her flushed face as a painted warrior stalked solemnly forward, bent like a king, and lifted the hem of her foot-mantle to his lips. One by one the Oneidas followed, performing the proud homage in silence, then stepping back to stand with folded arms as the head of the column appeared at the bend of the road.

I called Little Otter to me, questioning him; and he said that as far as they had gone there were no signs of Mohawk or Cayuga, but that the bush beyond should be traversed with caution. So I called in the flanking rangers, replacing them with Oneidas, and, sending the balance of the band forward on a trot, waited five minutes, then started on with a solid phalanx of riflemen behind to guard the rear.

As we rode, Elsin and I talking in low tones, mile after mile slipped away through the dim forest trail, and nothing to alarm us that I noted, save once when I saw another stone set upon a stone; but I knew my Oneidas had also seen and examined it, and it had not alarmed them sufficiently to send a warrior back to me.

It was an Oneida symbol; but, of course, my scouts had not set it up. Therefore it must have been placed there by an enemy, but for what purpose except to arrest the attention of an Oneida and prepare him for later signals, I could not yet determine. Mount had seen it, and spoken of it, but I shook my head, bidding him keep his eyes sharpened for further signs.

Signs came sooner than I expected. We passed stone after stone set on end, all emphasizing the desire of somebody to arrest the attention of an Oneida. Could it be I? A vague premonition had scarcely taken shape in my mind when, at a turn in the road, I came upon three of my Oneida scouts standing in the center of the road. The seven others must have gone on, for I saw nothing of them. The next moment I caught sight of something that instantly riveted and absorbed my attention.

From a huge pine towering ahead of us, and a little to the right, a great square of bark had been carefully removed about four feet from the ground. On this fresh white scar were painted three significant symbols--the first a red oblong, about eighteen inches by four, on which were designed two human figures, representing Indians, holding hands. Below that, drawn in dark blue, were a pair of stag's antlers, of five prongs; below the antlers--a long way below--was depicted in black a perfectly recognizable outline of a timber-wolf.

I rode up to the tree and examined the work. The paint was still soft and fresh on the raw wood. Flies swarmed about it. I looked at Little Otter, making a sign, and his scarcely perceptible nod told me that I had read the message aright.

The message was for me, personally and exclusively; and the red man who had traced it there not an hour since was an Iroquois, either Canienga, Onondaga, Cayuga, or Seneca--I know not which. Roughly, the translation of the message was this: The Wolf meant me because about it were traced the antlers, symbol of chieftainship, and below, on the ground, the symbol of the Oneida Nation, a long, narrow stone, upright, embedded in the moss. The red oblong smear represented a red-wampum belt; the figures on it indicated that, although the belt was red, meaning war, the clasped hands modified the menace, so that I read the entire sign as follows:

"An Iroquois desires to see you in order to converse upon a subject concerning wars and treaties."

"Turn over that stone, Little Otter," I said.

"I have already done so," he replied quietly.

"At what hour does this embassy desire to see me?"

He held up four fingers in silence.

"Is this Canienga work?"

"Mohawk!" he said bitterly.

The two terms were synonymous, yet mine was respectful, his a contemptuous insult to the Canienga Nation. No Indian uses the term Mohawk in speaking to or of a Mohawk unless they mean an insult. Canienga is the proper term.

"Is it safe for me to linger here while all go forward?" I asked Little Otter, lowering my voice so that none except he could hear me.

He smiled and pointed at the tree. The tree was enormous, a giant pine, dwarfing the tallest tree within range of my vision from where I sat my horse. I understood. The choice of this great tree for the inscription was no accident; it now symbolized the sacred tree of the Six Nations--the tree of heaven. Beneath it any Iroquois was as safe as though he stood at the eternal council-fire at Onondaga in the presence of the sachems of the Long House. But why had this unseen embassy refused to trust himself to this sanctuary? Because of the rangers, to whom no redskin is sacred.

"Jack Mount," I said, "take command and march your men forward half a mile. Then halt and await me."

He obeyed without a word. Elsin hesitated, gave me one anxious, backward glance, but my smile seemed to reassure her, and she walked her black mare forward. Past me marched the little column. I watched it drawing away northward, until a turn in the forest road hid the wagon and the brown-clad rear-guard. Then I dismounted and sat down, my back to the giant pine, my rifle across my knees, to wait for the red ambassador whom I knew would come.

Minute after minute slipped away. So still it grew that the shy forest creatures came back to this forest runway, made by dreaded man; and because it is the work of a creature they dread and suspect, their curiosity ever draws them to man-made roads. A cock-grouse first stepped out of the thicket, crest erect, ruff spread; then a hare loped by, halting to sniff in the herbage. I watched them for a long while, listening intently. Suddenly the partridge wheeled, crest flattened, and ran into the thicket, like a great rat; the hare sat erect, flanks palpitating, then leaped twice, and was gone as shadows go.

I saw the roadside bushes stir, part, and, as I rose, an Indian leaped lightly into the road and strode straight toward me. He was curiously painted with green and orange, and he was stark naked, except that he wore ankle-moccasins, clout, and a fringed pouch, like a quiver, covered with scarlet beads in zigzag pattern.

He did not seem to notice that I was armed, for he carried his own rifle most carelessly in the hollow of his left arm, and when he had halted before me he coolly laid the weapon across his moccasins.

The dignified silence that always precedes a formal meeting of strange Iroquois was broken at length by a low, guttural exclamation as his narrow-slitted eyes fell upon the tattoo on my bared breast: "Salute, Roy-a-neh!"

"Welcome, O Keeper of the Gate," I said calmly.

"Does my younger brother know to which gate-warden he speaks?" asked the savage warily.

"When a Wolf barks, the Eastern Gate-Keepers of the Long House listen," I replied. "It was so in the beginning. What has my elder brother of the Canienga to say to me?"

His cunning glance changed instantly to an absolutely expressionless mask. My white skin no longer made any difference to him. We were now two Iroquois.

"It is the truth," he said. "This is the message sent to my younger brother, Onehda, chief ensign of the Wolf Clan of the Oneida nation. I am a belt-bearer. Witness the truth of what I say to you--by this belt. Now read the will of the Iroquois."

He drew from his beaded pouch a black and white belt of seven rows. I took it, and, holding it in both hands, gazed attentively into his face.

"The Three Wolves listen," I said briefly.

"Then listen, noble of the noble clan. The council-fire is covered at Onondaga; but it shall burn again at Thendara. This was so from the first, as all know. The council therefore summons their brother, Onehda, as ensign of his clan. The will of the council is the will of the confederacy. Hiro! I have spoken."

"Does a single coal from Onondaga still burn under the great tree, my elder brother?" I asked cautiously.

"The great tree is at Onondaga," he answered sullenly; "the fire is covered."

Which was as much as to say that there was no sanctuary guaranteed an Oneida, even at a federal council.

"Tell them," I said deliberately, "that a belt requires a belt; and, when the Wolves talk to the Oneidas, they at Thendara shall be answered. I have spoken."

"Do the Three Wolves take counsel with the Six Bears and Turtles?" he asked, with a crafty smile.

"The trapped wolf has no choice; his howls appeal to the wilderness entire," I replied emphatically.

"But--a trapped wolf never howls, my younger brother; a lone wolf in a pit is always silent."

I flushed, realizing that my metaphor had been at fault. Yet now there was to be nothing between this red ambassador and me except the subtlest and finest shades of metaphor.

"It is true that a trapped wolf never howls," I said; "because a pitted wolf is as good as a dead wolf, and a dead wolf's tongue hangs out sideways. But it is not so when the pack is trapped. Then the prisoners may call upon the Wilderness for aid, lest a whole people suffer extermination."

"Will my younger brother take counsel with Oneidas?" he asked curiously.

"Surely as the rocks of Tryon point to the Dancers, naming the Oneida nation since the Great Peace began, so surely, my elder brother, shall Onehda talk to the three ensigns, brother to brother, clan to clan, lest we be utterly destroyed and the Oneida nation perish from the earth."

"My younger brother will not come to Thendara?" he inquired without emotion.

"Does a chief answer as squirrels answer one to another?--as crow replies to crow?" I asked sternly. "Go teach the Canienga how to listen and how to wait!"

His glowing eyes, fastened on mine, were lowered to the symbol on my breast, then his shaved head bent, and he folded his powerful arms.

"Onehda has spoken," he said respectfully. "Even a Delaware may claim his day of grace. My ears are open, O my younger brother."

"Then bear this message to the council: I accept the belt; my answer shall be the answer of the Oneida nation; and with my reply shall go three strings. Depart in peace, Bearer of Belts!"

Lightly, gracefully as a tree-lynx, he stooped and seized his rifle, wheeled, passed noiselessly across the road, turned, and buried himself in the tufted bushes. For an instant the green tops swayed, then not a ripple of the foliage, not a sound marked the swift course of the naked belt-bearer through the uncharted sea of trees.

Mounting my roan, I wheeled him north at a slow walk, preoccupied, morose, sadly absorbed in this new order of things where an Oneida now must needs answer a Mohawk as an Iroquois should once have answered an Erie or an Algonquin. Alas for the great League! alas for the mighty dead! Hiawatha! Atotarho! Where were they? Where now was our own Odasete; and Kanyadario, and the mighty wisdom of Dekanawidah? The end of the Red League was already in sight; the Great Peace was broken; the downfall of the Confederacy was at hand.

At that northern tryst at Thendara, the nine sachems allotted to the Canienga, the fourteen sachems of the Onondaga, the eight Senecas, the Cayuga ten must look in vain for nine Oneidas. And without them the Great Peace breaks like a rotten arrow where the war-head drops and the feathers fall from the unbound nock.

Strange, strange, that I, a white man of blood untainted, must answer for this final tragic catastrophe! Without me, perhaps, the sachems of the three clans might submit to the will of the League, for even the surly Onondagas had now heeded the League-Call--yes, even the Tuscaroras, too. And as for those Delaware dogs, they had come, belly-dragging, cringing to the lash of the stricken Confederacy, though now was their one chance in a hundred years to disobey and defy. But the Lenape were ever women.

Strange, strange, that I, a white man of unmixed blood, should stand in League-Council for the noblest clan of the Oneida nation!

That I had been adopted satisfied the hereditary law of chieftainship; that I had been selected satisfied the elective law of the sachems. Rank follows the female line; the son of a chief never succeeded to rank. It is the matron--the chief woman of the family--who chooses a dead chief's successor from the female line in descent; and thus Cloud on the Sun chose me, her adopted; and, dying, heard the loud, imperious challenge from the council-fire as the solemn rite ended with:

"_Now show me the man!_"

And so, knowing that the antlers were lifted and the quiver slung across my thigh, she died contented, and I, a lad, stood a chief of the Oneida nation. Never since time began, since the Caniengas adopted Hiawatha, had a white councilor been chosen who had been accepted by family, clan, and national council, and ratified by the federal senate, excepting only Sir William Johnson and myself. That Algonquin word "sachem," so seldom used, so difficult of pronunciation by the Iroquois, was never employed to designate a councilor in council; there they used the title, Roy-a-neh, and to that title had I answered the belt of the Iroquois, in the name of Kayanehenh-Kowa, the Great Peace.

For what Magna Charta is to the Englishman, what the Constitution is to us, is the Great Peace to an Iroquois; and their gratitude, their intense reverence and love for its founder, Hiawatha, is like no sentiment we have conceived even for the beloved name of Washington.

Now that the Revolution had split the Great Peace, which is the Iroquois League, the larger portion of the nation had followed Brant to Canada--all the Caniengas, the greater part of the Onondaga nation, all the Cayugas, the one hundred and fifty of our own Oneidas. And though the Senecas did not desert their western post as keepers of the shattered gate in a house divided against itself, they acted with the Mohawks; the Onondagas had brought their wampum from Onondaga, and a new council-fire was kindled in Canada as rallying-place of a great people in process of final disintegration.

It was sad to me who loved them, who knew them first as firm allies of New York province, who understood them, their true character, their history and tradition, their intimate social and family life.

And though I stood with those whom they struck heavily, and who in turn struck them hip and thigh, I bear witness before God that they were not by nature the fiends and demons our historians have painted, not by instinct the violent and ferocious scourges that the painted Tories made of these children of the forest, who for five hundred years had formed a confederacy whose sole object was peace.

I speak not of the brutal and degraded _gens de prairie_--the horse-riding savages of the West, whose primal instincts are to torture the helpless and to violate women--a crime no Iroquois, no Huron, no Algonquin, no Lenni-Lenape can be charged with. But I speak for the _gens de bois_--the forest Indians of the East, and of those who maintained the Great League, which was but a powerful tribunal imposing peace upon half a continent.

Left alone to themselves, unharassed by men of my blood and color, they are a kindly and affectionate people, full of sympathy for their friends in distress, considerate of their women, tender to their children, generous to strangers, anxious for peace, and profoundly reverent where their League or its founders were concerned.

Centuries of warfare for self-preservation have made them efficient in the arts of war. Ferocity, craft, and deception, practised on them by French, Dutch, and English, have taught them to reply in kind. Yet these somber, engrafted qualities which we have recorded as their distinguishing traits, no more indicate their genuine character than war-paint and shaven head display the customary costume they appear in among their own people. The cruelties of war are not peculiar to any one people; and God knows that in all the Iroquois confederacy no savage could be found to match the British Provost, Cunningham, or Major Bromfield--no atrocities could obscure the atrocities in the prisons and prison-ships of New York, the deeds of the Butlers, of Crysler, of Beacraft, and of Bettys.

For, among the Iroquois, I can remember only two who were the peers in cruelty of Walter Butler and the Tory Beacraft, and these were the Indian called Seth Henry, and the half-breed hag, Catrine Montour.

Pondering on these things, perplexed and greatly depressed, I presently emerged from the forest-belt through which I had been riding, and found our little column halted in the open country, within a few minutes' march of the Schenectady highway.

The rangers looked up at me curiously as I passed, doubtless having an inkling of what had been going on from questioning the Oneida scouts, for Murphy broke out impulsively, "Sure, Captain, we was that onaisy, alanna, that Elerson an' me matched apple-pipps f'r to inthrojuce wan another to that powwow forninst the big pine."

"Had you appeared yonder while I was talking to that belt-bearer it might have gone hard with me, Tim," I said gravely.

Riding on past the spot where Jack Mount stood, his brief authority ended, I heard him grumbling about the rashness of officers and the market value of a good scalp in Quebec; and I only said: "Scold as much as you like, Jack, only obey." And so cantered forward to where Elsin sat her black mare, watching my approach. Her steady eyes welcomed, mine responded; in silence we wheeled our horses north once more, riding stirrup to stirrup through the dust. On either side stretched abandoned fields, growing up in weeds and thistles, for now we were almost on the Mohawk River, the great highway of the border war down which the tides of destruction and death had rolled for four terrible years.

There was nothing to show for it save meadows abandoned to willow scrub, fallow fields deep in milk-weed, goldenrod, and asters; and here and there a charred rail or two of some gate or fence long since destroyed.

Far away across the sand-flats we could see a ruined barn outlined against the sunset sky, but no house remained standing to the westward far as the eye could reach. However, as we entered the highway, which I knew well, because now we were approaching a country familiar to me, I, leading, caught sight of a few Dutch roofs to the east, and presently came into plain view of the stockade and blockhouses of Schenectady, above which rose the lovely St. George's church and the heavy walls and four demi-bastions of the citadel which is called the Queen's Fort.

As we approached in full view of the ramparts there was a flash, a ball of white smoke; and no doubt a sentry had fired his musket, such was evidently their present state of alarm, for I saw the Stars and Stripes run up on the citadel, and, far away, I heard the conch-horn blowing, and the startled music of the light-infantry horns. Evidently the sight of our Oneidas, spread far forward in a semicircle, aroused distrust. I sent Murphy forward with a flag, then advanced very deliberately, recalling the Oneidas by whistle-signal.

And, as we rode under the red rays of the westering sun, I pointed out St. George's to Elsin and the Queen's Fort, and where were formerly the town gates by which the French and Indians had entered on that dreadful winter night when they burned Schenectady, leaving but four or five houses, and the snowy streets all wet and crimsoned with the blood of women and children.

"But that was many, many years ago, sweetheart," I added, already sorry that I had spoken of such things. "It was in 1690 that Monsieur De Mantet and his Frenchmen and Praying Indians did this."

"But people do such things now, Carus," she said, serious eyes raised to mine.

"Oh, no----"

"They did at Wyoming, at Cherry Valley, at Minnisink. You told me so in New York--before you ever dreamed that you and I would be here together."

"Ah, Elsin, but things have changed now that Colonel Willett is in the Valley. His Excellency has sent here the one man capable of holding the frontier; and he will do it, dear, and there will be no more Cherry Valleys, no more Minnisinks, no more Wyomings now."

"Why were they moving out of the houses in Albany, Carus?"

I did not reply.

Presently up the road I saw Murphy wave his white flag; and, a moment later, the Orange Gate, which was built like a drawbridge, fell with a muffled report, raising a cloud of dust. Over it, presently, our horses' feet drummed hollow as we spurred forward.

"Pass, you Tryon County men!" shouted the sentinels; and the dusty column entered. We were in Schenectady at last.

As we wheeled up the main street of the town, marching in close column between double lines of anxious townsfolk, a staff-officer, wearing the uniform of the New York line, came clattering down the street from the Queen's Fort, and drew bridle in front of me with a sharp, precise salute.

"Captain Renault?" he asked.

I nodded, returning his salute.

"Colonel Gansvoort's compliments, and you are directed to report to Colonel Willett at Butlersbury without losing an hour."

"That means an all-night march," I said bluntly.

"Yes, sir." He lowered his voice: "The enemy are on the Sacandaga."

I stiffened in my stirrups. "Tell Colonel Gansvoort it shall be done, sir." And I wheeled my horse, raising my rifle: "Attention!--to the left--dress! Right about face! By sections of four--to the right--wheel--March! ... Halt! Front--dress! Trail--arms! March!"

The veterans of Morgan, like trained troop-horses, had executed the maneuvers before they realized what was happening. They were the first formal orders I had given. I myself did not know how the orders might be obeyed until all was over and we were marching out of the Orange Gate once more, and swinging northward, wagons, bat-horses, and men in splendid alignment, and the Oneidas trotting ahead like a pack of foxhounds under master and whip. But I had to do with irregulars; I understood that. Already astonished and inquiring glances shot upward at me as I rode with Elsin; already I heard a low whispering among the men. But I waited. Then, as we turned the hill, a cannon on the Queen's Fort boomed good-by and Godspeed!--and our conch-horn sounded a long, melancholy farewell.

It was then that I halted the column, facing them, rifle resting across my saddle-bow.

"Men of New York," I said, "the enemy are on the Sacandaga."

Intense silence fell over the ranks.

"If there be one rifleman here who is too weary to enter Johnstown before daylight, let him fall out."

Not a man stirred.

"Very well," I said, laughing; "if you Tryon County men are so keen for battle, there's a dish o' glory to be served up, hot as sugar and soupaan, among the Mayfield hills. Come on, Men of New York!"

And I think they must have wondered there in Schenectady at the fierce cheering of Morgan's men as our column wheeled northwest once more, into the coming night.

* * * * *

We entered Johnstown an hour before dawn, not a man limping, nor a horse either, for that matter. An officer from Colonel Willett met us, directing the men and the baggage to the fort which was formerly the stone jail, the Oneidas to huts erected on the old camping-ground west of Johnson Hall, and Elsin and me to quarters at Jimmy Burke's Tavern. She was already half-asleep in her saddle, yet ever ready to rouse herself for a new effort; and now she raised her drowsy head with a confused smile as I lifted her from the horse to the porch of Burke's celebrated frontier inn.

"Colonel Willett's compliments, and he will breakfast with you at ten," whispered the young officer. "Good night, sir."

"Good night," I nodded, and entered the tavern, bearing Elsin in my arms, now fast asleep as a worn-out child. _

Read next: Chapter 11. The Test

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