IN THE OTTAWA CAMP
Chance was disposed to be in a good humor. I had scarcely stepped into
the crowd when I saw Pierre.
I went to him knowing that I should find opportunity for reproof, but
should probably lack the will. For Pierre was my harlequin, and what
man can easily censure his own amusements even when he sees their harm?
Then there was more to make me lenient. The man's family had served my
own for as many generations as the rooks had builded in our yews, and
so, on one side at least, he inherited blind loyalty to my name. I say
on one side, for his blood was mixed; his father had married a vagrant,
a half-gypsy Irish girl who begged among the villages. It was the
union of a stolid ox and a wildcat, and I had much amusement watching
the two breeds fight for the mastery in the huge Pierre. The cat was
quicker of wit, but the ox was of more use to me in the long run, so I
tried to keep an excess of stimulants--whether of brandy or
adventure--out of Pierre's way.
He was a figure for Bacchus when I found him, and I pricked at him with
my sword, and drove him to the water, where I saw him well immersed.
"Now for quick work," I admonished. "I must see the commandant, but
only for a moment. You gather the men, and have the canoes in waiting.
There will be no tobacco for you to-night, if you are not ready when I
come."
He shook the water from his red locks, and wagged his head in much more
docile fashion than I had expected. "My master cannot go too fast for
me," he said, with a twist of his great protruding lip. "I have no
liking for white meat broth myself."
He drew back like one who has hit a bull's-eye and waited for me to ask
questions, but I thought that I knew my man, and laughed at his
childishness.
"No more of that!" I said with perfunctory sternness. "What pot-house
rabble of Indians have you been with that you should prattle of making
broth of white men, and dare bring such speech to me as a jest! That
is not talk for civilized men, and if you repeat it I shall send you
back to France. You are more familiar with the savages than I like a
man of mine to be. Remember that, Pierre. Now go."
But he lingered. "It is no pot-house story," he defended sulkily.
"The Ottawas say they will go to war if the prisoner is not put in the
pot before to-morrow morning. And what can the commandant do? The
Ottawas are two thousand strong."
I knew, without comment, that he was telling me the truth, and I stood
still. The din of the dancing and feasting was growing more and more
uproarious, and the Indians were ripe for any insanity. I saw that the
sun was already casting long shadows, and that the night would be on us
before many hours. I looked at the garrison. Two hundred Frenchmen
all told, and most of them half-hearted when it came to defending an
Englishman and a foe! I turned to my man.
"You have been with an Ottawa girl, called Singing Arrow," I said.
"Are you bringing me some woman's tale you learned from her?"
He squirmed like a clumsy puppy, but I could see his pride in my
omniscience. "She is smarter than a man," he said vaguely.
And Pierre were the man, I thought that likely. "Take me to her," I
commanded.
I expected to follow him among the revelers, but he turned his back on
them, and led the way through a labyrinth of huts, a maze so winding
that I judged him more sober than I had thought. When we found the
girl, she was alone, and I saw from her look that this was not the
first visit Pierre had made.
He summoned her importantly, while I withdrew to a distance, that I
might have her brought to me in form. I was intent and uneasy, but I
had room in my heart for vain self-satisfaction that I knew something
of the Ottawa speech. My proficiency in Indian dialects, for which the
world praised me lightly, as it might commend the cut of my doublet,
had cost me much drudgery and denial, and my moments of reward were
rare.
Singing Arrow came forward, and curtsied as the priests had taught her.
I was forced to approve my man's taste. Not that she was beautiful to
my eyes, for brown women were never to my liking; but she had youth and
neatness, and when she raised her eyes I saw that I might look for
intelligence and daring. I motioned her to come nearer.
"Singing Arrow," I said, in somewhat halting Ottawa, "my man here tells
me that your people are talking as if they were asleep, and were
dreaming that they were all kings. Now when a dog barks at the moon,
we do not stop to tremble for the safety of the moon, but we ask what
is the matter with the dog. That is what I would ask of you. What do
the Ottawas care what Monsieur de la Mothe-Cadillac, the commandant,
does with the English prisoner?"
She thought a moment, and plaited the folds of her beaver-skin skirt as
I have seen many a white girl do. "I know of no dog," she said, with a
slow upward glance that tried to gauge my temper. "And as for the
moon, it shines alike on the grass and the tall trees, and I have seen
no Frenchman yet who could reach up and pluck it from its place. But I
have seen a chain that was once bright like silver grow dull and eaten
with rust. A wise man will throw such a chain away, and ask for a new
one."
I shrugged. "You have sharp eyes," I said, shrugging yet more, "if you
can see rust on the covenant chain that binds the French to the
Ottawas. Is that what you mean?"
She looked up with a flash of fun and diablerie such as I never thought
to see in a savage face. "Then monsieur has seen it himself?"
Now this would not do; I would leave all gallantries to my subordinate.
"This is idle talk," I said, as I lit my pipe, and prepared as if to
go. "It is the clatter of water among stones that makes a great noise,
but goes nowhere. I have seen many strange things in my life, but
never a cat that could fight fair, nor a woman that could answer a
direct question. Look at this now. I ask you about the English
prisoner, and you talk to me of covenant chains."
She looked at me with impassive good humor, her hands busy with her
wampum necklaces, and I saw, not only that I had failed to entrap her
into losing her temper, but that I was dealing with a quick-witted
woman of a race whose women were trained politicians. But, for reasons
of her own, she chose to answer me fairly.
"The Frenchman is right," she said, with a second swift upward look to
test the ice where she was venturing. "I was wrong to talk of the
covenant between the French and my people, for the chain is too weak to
bear even the weight of words. It is rusted till it is as useless as a
band of grasses to bind a wild bull. But blood will cleanse rust.
What can the French want with their enemy, the Englishman? Why should
not the prisoner's blood be used to brighten the chain between the
Ottawas and the French?"
Now this was plain language. I listened to the girl's speech, which
was as gently cadenced as if she talked of flowers or summer pleasures,
and thought that here was indeed snake's venom offered as a sweetmeat.
But why did she warn me? I had a flash of sense. I went to her, and
compelled her to stop playing with her necklaces, and raise her eyes to
mine.
"Answer me, Singing Arrow," I commanded. "You are repeating what was
said in council, but you do not agree with it. You would like to save
the prisoner. Look at me again. Am I right?"
I could as well have held an eel. She slipped from my hands, and ran
back to her lodge. "So!" she cried, as she lifted the mat before her
door. "So it is not the dog alone that smells at its food before it
will eat. Why stay here? I have given you what you came to find.
Take it." And with a look at Pierre she disappeared.
Pierre gave a great bellow of laughter. "I will catch her," he
volunteered, and made a plunge in the direction of the lodge; but I
caught him by the hood of his blanket coat, and let his own impetus
choke him.
"Now look you, Pierre Boudin," I said, "if you cross the door of that
lodge on any errand,--on any errand, mind you,--you are no longer man
of mine. I mean that; you are no longer man of mine. Now begone.
Gather the men, go to the canoes, and wait there till I come. I may
come soon; I may not come till morning."
Pierre was still swelling. "As the master wishes," he said, with his
eyes down; but I thought that he hesitated, and I called him to me.
"Pierre," I said, "do you want to be sent back to Montreal, and have
François Labarthe put in your place?"
The giant looked up to see how much I was in earnest, and, as I
returned his look, all his bravado oozed away. It does not seem quite
the part of a man to cow a subordinate till he looks at you with the
eyes of a whipped hound; but it was the only method to use with Pierre,
and I went away satisfied.
I turned my steps toward the main camp of Ottawas, and there I idled
for an hour. The braves were good-humored with me, for I was a trader,
not an officer, and their noses were keen for the brandy that I might
have for barter. So that I was free to watch them at their gambling,
or dip my ladle in their kettles if I willed. All this was good, but
it went no further. With all my artifices, I could not make my way
into the great circle around the camp fire, and I grew sore with my
incapacity, for I saw that Longuant, the most powerful chief of the
Ottawas, was speaking. I picked up a bone and threw it among the dogs
with an oath for my own slowness.
The bone was greasy, and I took out my handkerchief, but before I could
use it to wipe my hands, a young squaw pushed her way up to me, and
offered her long black hair as a napkin. She threw the oily length
across my arm, and flattered me in fluent Ottawa.
Then I forgot myself. The body frequently plays traitor in
emergencies, and my repugnance conquered me so that I pushed her away
before I had time to think. Then I knew that I must make amends.
"The beauty of your hair is like the black ice with the moon on it," I
said in Ottawa. "You must not soil it."
She giggled with pleasure to hear me use her own tongue, and would have
come close to me again, but I motioned her away.
"Stay there, and catch this," I called, and I tossed her a small coin.
For all her squat figure and her broad, dull face, she was quick of
action as a weasel. She put her hands behind her, and, thrusting her
head forward, caught the coin in her teeth. It was well done; so well
that I said "Brava," and the braves around me gave approving grunts.
"Look at the stupid Frenchman!" I heard a brave say. "For all his red
coat, and his manners, he cannot catch as well as a squaw."
I pointed my finger at him, and twirled my mustaches as if I were
playing villain in a comedy. "A Frenchman does not stoop to catch
money," I vaunted, with my arm akimbo. "Money is for slaves and women.
Give the Frenchman a spear, a man's weapon, and then see if he can be
beaten at throwing by a squaw."
There was a laugh at this, and the squaw to whom I had thrown the coin
seized a sturgeon spear that leaned against a kettle, and hurled it at
me. I turned my back, and caught it over my shoulder. There was a
hush among the braves for a moment, then a low growl of applause. "Let
him do it again," several voices cried.
I did it again, and yet again, in varying ways. The squaw threw well,
and caught better, but she was no match for my longer reach and better
training. Still we kept the spear hurtling. With each throw I backed
a pace or two toward the council fire, and the crowd made way for me.
"This is enough," I cried at length. "Have you no men among you who
can throw better than your women?"
A dozen braves, each clamoring, leaped forward, but before I could
select one of them, a young Huron elbowed his way into the midst of
them and placed himself before me.
"Try your skill with me," he cried, striking his breast, and though he
spoke a broken mixture of Huron and Ottawa, his air was so rhetorical
that the Ottawas, always keen for a dramatic moment, stopped to listen.
I balanced the spear in my hand. "I am trying my skill with the
Ottawas," I said. "Since when has Pemaou, the Huron, forsaken his own
camp?"
The Huron drew back. He was a son of that adroit traitor, the Baron,
and what his presence in this camp meant, I could only surmise. But
that he was of the Baron's blood was enough for me, and I was prepared
to dislike him without searching for excuse. He, on his part, looked
equally unfriendly. He resented my recognition, and taking his war
spear from his belt he sent it at me with a vicious fling.
This heated my blood. I caught the spear, and tested it across my
knee. It was pliant but tough, and wickedly barbed,--a weapon for a
man to respect. "So you wanted the color of my blood," I called
angrily. "You have a good spear; all that was lacking was a man to aim
it;" and with a contemptuous laugh I tossed the spear back to his hand.
Now this was mere childishness, and I knew it, and hoped, with shame
for my own lack of sense, that Pemaou would not accept my covert
challenge, and that the matter would end there. But Pemaou had
purposes of his own. He looked at the spear for a moment, then sent it
spinning toward my head. "On guard!" he cried in my own tongue, and I
remembered that he had spent some time among the French at Montreal.
I caught the spear, and cursed myself for a fool. The Indians again
gave tongue to their approval, and gathered in a ring, leaving the
space between Pemaou and myself clear. All was ready for the game to
proceed. I hesitated a moment, and the Ottawas laughed, while Pemaou
looked disdainful.
All animals are braggarts, from the cock in the barnyard to the moose
when he hears his rival, and man is not much better. I pricked the
spear point against my hand, and looked at it critically.
"It is as dull as the Huron's wits," I scoffed, "but we will do the
best that we can with it;" and stepping back several feet nearer the
council fire, I put the weapon into play.
I have been in weightier occasions than the one that followed, but
never in one that I can remember in more detail. In all lives there
are moments that memory paints in bright, crude colors, like pictures
in a child's book, and so this scene looks to me now. I can see the
crowding Ottawas, their bodies painted red and black, their nose
pendants--a pebble hung on a deer-sinew--swinging against their greasy
lips as they shouted plaudits or derision. But best I can see Pemaou,
dancing between me and the sun like some grotesque dream fantasy. He
was in full war bravery, his body painted red, barred with white
stripes to imitate the lacing on our uniforms, and his hair
feather-decked till he towered in height like a fir tree. I say that
he was grotesque, but at the time I did not think of his appearance; I
thought only that here was a man who was my mate in cunning, and who
wished me ill.
This was no squaw's game, for each cast was made with force and method.
We both threw warily, and the spear whistled to and fro as regularly as
a weaver's shuttle. I backed my way toward the council fire until I
could hear Longuant distinctly, then I prayed my faculties to serve me
well, and stood my ground. My mind was on the rack. I could not, for
the briefest instant, release the tension of my thought as to the game
before me, yet I missed no sound from the group around the fire. The
low, red sun dazzled my eyes, and I waited, with each throw from the
Huron, for one that should be aimed with deadlier intent.
For I realized that Pemaou was not doing his best, and, since I had
seen hate in his eyes, this clemency troubled me. I wondered if he
were a decoy, and if some one were coming upon me from the rear, and I
stopped and stared at him with defiance, only to see that he was
looking, not at me, nor at the attentive audience around us, but over
my head at the council fire.
Then, indeed, the truth clapped me in the face, and I could have
laughed aloud to think what a puppet I had been, just when I was
comforting my vanity with my own shrewdness. Of course, Pemaou would
spare me, and so prolong the game. As the son of the leader of the
Hurons, he had more to learn from Longuant's speech than I. We were
playing with the same cards, but his stakes were the larger. I
suddenly realized that I was enjoying myself more than in a long time.
But the test was to come. When Pemaou had heard all he wished, he
would aim the spear at my throat, and so, though I threw negligently, I
watched like a starved cat. I heard the council agree upon a decisive
measure, and I knew that the Huron's moment had arrived. He seized it.
His spear whistled at me like a bullet, but my muscles were braced and
waiting. I caught the weapon, and held it, though the wood ate into my
palms. The savages told the Huron in a derisive roar that the
Frenchman was the better man.
And now it was my turn. So far I had thrown fair, without twist or
trickery, but I knew one turn of the wrist that could do cruel work.
Should I use it? Pemaou had tried to murder me. I looked at his
red-and-white body, and reptile eyes, and hate rushed to my brain like
liquor. I took the spear and snapped it.
"Take your plaything!" I cried, and I tossed the fragments in his face.
"Learn to use it if you care for a whole skin, for I promise you that
we shall meet again." And turning my back on him, I strode out of the
Ottawa camp the richer by some information, and one foe.