I TAKE A NEW PASSENGER
Now the great bay on which we were embarked was a water empire, fair to
the eye, but tricky of wind and current. La Baye des Puants the French
called it, from the odor that came at seasons from the swamps on the
shore, and it ran southwest from Lake Illinois. The Pottawatamie
Islands that we had just left well-nigh blocked its mouth, and its
southern end was the outlet of a shining stream that was known as the
River of the Fox. The bay was thirty leagues long by eight broad, and
had tides like the ocean. Five tribes dwelt around it: the
Pottawatamies at its mouth, the Malhominis halfway down on its western
shore, and the Sacs, the Chippewas, and the Winnebagoes scattered at
different points in more transitory camps. To the east the bay was
separated from Lake Illinois by a long peninsula that lay like a
rough-hewn arrow with its point to the polestar. It was goodly land, I
had been told, rich in game, and splashed with ponds, but since it was
too small to support the hunting of a tribe it was left comparatively
unoccupied. All of the five tribes, and sometimes the Miamis, fished
there at intervals; it was neutral ground. I told all this to the
woman as our canoes swept toward the sunset.
She sat with her back to the west, and the sun, that dazzled my eyes,
shone red through her brown hair, and I scorned myself that I should
have believed for a moment that such soft, fine abundance ever framed a
man's forehead. I talked to her freely; talked of winds and tides and
Indians, and was not deterred when she answered me but sparingly. I
could not see her face distinctly, because of the light, but there was
something in the gentleness and intentness of her listening poise that
made me feel that she welcomed the safeguard of my aimless speech, but
that for the moment she had no similar weapons of her own.
So long as daylight lasted, we traveled swiftly toward the southwest,
but when the sunset had burned itself to ashes, and the sky had blurred
into the tree line, I told the men to shift their paddles, and drift
for a time. The last twenty-four hours had hardened them to surprise.
They obeyed me as they did Providence,--as a troublesome, but
all-powerful enigma.
And so we floated, swinging like dead leaves on the long swells. The
stars came out, the gulls went shoreward for the night, and we were as
alone as if on the sea. The woman's slender figure, wrapped in her
white cloak, became a silent, shining wraith. She was within touch of
my hand, yet unreachably remote. I lost my glib speech. The gray
loneliness that one feels in a crowd came over me. If I had been alone
with my men, I should have felt well accompanied, master of my craft,
and in tune with my condition. It was the presence of this alien
woman, whom I must protect, but not approach, that made me realize that
I was thousands of leagues from my own kind, and that I must depend on
my own judgment--with which I felt much out of conceit--to carry this
expedition safely through the barbarous wilderness. I shook myself,
and told my men to pick up their paddles.
But we were to travel no more toward the southwest that night. My plan
was to turn back, paddle due east, and reach the peninsula before the
late moonrise. This doubling on my track was to cheat Pemaou if he
were indeed pursuing. Then I was planning to make the peninsula my
headquarters for a time. I had left word at the islands that I was on
my way to confer with the Malhominis, but I had not committed myself as
to where I should make my permanent camp. I hoped, in this game of
hide and seek, to shake off the Huron, and leave the woman in safe
hiding, while I went on my mission from tribe to tribe.
And so I told the men to work with muffled paddles. I thought the
precaution somewhat unnecessary, but took it as a matter of form. Now
that I was in action again, I felt in command of the situation. And
then, from some shadowy distance, I heard the splash of a pursuing oar.
I commanded silence, and we craned into the darkness, and listened. We
all heard it. The sound came as regularly as a heart-beat, and it was
no muffled stroke. The oarsman was using his paddle openly and fast.
The sound came from behind us, a little to the north, and, judging from
its growing distinctness, it was following hard in our track. There
was nothing for it but a race. I gave orders.
The men worked well, and we sped through foaming water for perhaps a
quarter hour. Then land rose in front of us. It shot up, all in an
instant, out of the murk, and we had quick work to keep from grounding
our canoes. I could see no shore line to north or south. We had found
either the end of a promontory or a small island. We landed on a
shelving beach, and lifted the canoes out of danger.
"Lie down," I commanded; and we dropped on the sand, and strained our
ears for sound of pursuit.
For a time we heard nothing. Our burst of speed had carried us some
distance, and I had begun to think that we had shaken off our pursuer,
when again came the beat, beat, beat of the distant oar. We lay close
as alligators on a bank, and waited. The strokes came nearer, and at
last we saw a sliding shape. As well as we could make out, there was
but one canoe, and it was passing us a little to the northward. It
would miss the jut of land where we were hiding, and land on the main
shore of the peninsula. We could hear but one paddle, so judged that
there was but one person in the canoe. Still we did not know.
It was growing near moonrise, and there was nothing to be done. I told
the men to lie near together, and sleep till I called them. Then I cut
boughs and laid a couple of blankets on them for the woman's couch.
She had sat quiet all these hours, and now, as I bade her good-night,
she asked her first question.
"Are you willing to tell me why you fear pursuit, monsieur?"
I hesitated. "We grow like animals in the wilderness," I parried, "and
so suspect every sound as coming from a foe."
"Then you do not know who it is in the canoe?"
I could have answered "no," but I would not.
"Yes, I think that I know," I replied. "I think that it is Pemaou, a
Huron. An Indian whom you have never seen."
She read the hate in my voice. "Do you know what he wants, monsieur?"
And now I could answer truthfully, and with a laugh. "I suspect that
he wants, or has been sent to get, something that I have determined to
keep,--at least for the present," I told her. "Good-night, madame."
I told my inner self that I must sleep soundly, and wake just before
dawn; and so that was what happened. The horizon was flushing when I
rose and looked around. My company was asleep. The woman lay on her
bright blankets, and I looked at her a moment to make sure that all was
well. She was smiling as if her dreams were pleasant, and her face
wore such a look of peace, that I turned to the east, ready to begin
the day, and to thank God that I had not done everything entirely
wrong. I took the lighter of the canoes, carried it to the water, and
dipping a cautious paddle, crept off along the shore.
If I wake in the woods every dawn for a year, I can never grow stale to
the miracle of it. I was on no pleasant errand, yet I could not help
tingling at the cleanness of the air and at the smell of the mint that
our canoes had crushed. I hugged the shore like a shadow, and rounded
a little bend. It was as I had thought. We had landed on the western
side of a small island, and before me, not a quarter hour's paddling
away, stretched the shore line of the peninsula.
Here was my risk. I paddled softly across the open stretch, but that
availed me little, for I was an unprotected target. I slanted my
course northward, and strained my gaze along the shore. Yet I hardly
expected to find anything. It came like a surprise when I saw in
advance of me a light canoe drawn up on the sand.
I landed, drew my own canoe to shelter, and reconnoitred. I had both
knife and musket ready, and I pulled myself over logs as silent as a
snake. Yet, cautious as I was, little furtive rustlings preceded me.
The wood folks had seen me and were spreading the warning. Unless
Pemaou were asleep I had little chance of surprising him. Yet I crept
on till I saw through the leaves the outlines of a brown figure on the
ground.
I stopped. I had been trying for a good many hours to balance the
right and wrong of this matter in my mind, and my reason had insisted
to my inclination that, if I had opportunity, I must kill Pemaou
without warning. We respect no code in dealing with a rattlesnake, and
I must use this Huron like the vermin that he was. So I had taught
myself.
But now I could not do it. The blanket-wrapped shape was as
unconscious as a child in its cradle, and though the wilderness may
breed hardness of purpose it need not teach butchery. I crept out
determined to scuttle the Indian's canoe and go away. If the man
waked, my knife was ready to try conclusions with him in a fair field.
I suppose that I really desired him to wake, and that made me careless,
for just as I bent to the canoe, I let my foot blunder on a twig, and
it cracked like shattering glass. I grasped my knife and whirled. The
figure on the ground jerked, threw off its shrouding blanket, and
stretched up. It was not Pemaou. It was the Ottawa girl Singing Arrow.
I did not drop my knife. My thought was of decoy and ambush, which was
no credit to me, for this girl had been faithful before. But we train
ourselves not to trust an Indian except of necessity.
"Are you alone?" I demanded.
She nodded, pressing her lips together and dimpling. She feared me as
little as a kitten might.
"I came to the Pottawatamie camp just after you left," she volunteered.
And then I laughed, laughed as I had not done in days. So this was the
quarry that I had been stalking! I had been under a long tension, and
it was suddenly comfortable to be ridiculous. I sat down and laughed
again.
"Are you following Pierre?" I asked, sobering, and trying to be stern.
But she put her head sidewise and considered me. She looked like a
squirrel about to crack a nut.
"A hare may track a stag," she announced judicially. "I have followed
you. My back is bent like a worm with the aching of it, but I came
faster than a man. I have this for you," and fumbling in her blouse
she brought out a bulky packet addressed with my name.
I took it with the marvel that a child takes a sleight-of-hand toy and
stared at the seal.
"From Cadillac! From the commandant!" I ejaculated.
She nodded. It was her moment of triumph, but she passed it without
outward show.
"Read it. I am sleepy," she said, and yawning in my face she tumbled
herself back into the blanket and closed her eyes.
The packet was well wrapped and secured, and I dug my way to the heart
of it and found the written pages. The letter began abruptly.
"Monsieur," it said, "I send you strange tidings by a stranger
messenger. It is new to me to trust petticoats in matters of secrecy,
but it is rumored that you set me the example, and that you carried off
the Englishman dressed in this Singing Arrow's clothes. The Indian
herself will tell me nothing. That determined me to trust her.
"Briefly, you are followed. That fire-eating English lad that you have
with you--I warrant that he has proved a porcupine to travel with--must
be of some importance. At all events, an Englishman, who gives his
name as Starling, has made his way here in pursuit. He tells a fair
tale. He says that the lad, who is dear as a brother to him, is a
cousin, who was captured in an Indian raid on the frontier. As soon as
he, Starling, learned of the capture, he started after them, and he has
spent months searching the wilderness, as you would sift the sand of
the sea. He found the trail at last, and followed it here. He begs
that I send him on to you with a convoy.
"Now this, as you see, sounds very fair, and part of it I know to be
true. The man is certainly in earnest--about something,--and has spent
great time and endeavor in this search. He has even been to Quebec,
and worked on Frontenac's sympathies, for he bears from the governor a
letter of safe conduct to me, and another, from the Jesuits, to Father
Carheil. He comes--apparently--on no political mission; he is alone,
and his tale is entirely plausible. There is but one course open to
me. I must let him go on.
"But I do it with misgivings. The story is fair, but I can tell a fair
story myself upon occasion, and there is no great originality in this
one. I remember that you said after your first interview with your
Englishman, that you were afraid he was a spy. There is always that
danger,--a danger that Frontenac underestimates because he has not
grasped the possibilities that we have here. If both these men should
prove to be spies, and in collusion---- Well, they are brave men, and
crafty; it will be the greater pleasure to outwit them. I cannot
overlook the fact that the first Englishman was brought here by the
Baron's band of Hurons, and that this man selects his messengers from
the same dirty clan. I have reason to think he was in communication
with them before he came,--which is no credit to a white man.
Dubisson, my lieutenant, tells me that a Huron told his Indian servant
that pictures of the prisoner drawn on bark had been scattered among
the Indians for a fortnight past. The story was roundabout, and I
could not run it down. But it makes me watchful.
"So this is where we stand. I must give this man Starling a letter to
you. The letter will be official, and will direct you to deliver your
prisoner into Starling's hands. If he finds you, you have no choice
but to obey; so, if you think from your further knowledge of your
prisoner that it is unwise for these two men to meet, it is your cue
not to be found. I leave it with you.
"There is, of course, great doubt whether this will find you. You
asked me about Onanguisseé so I infer that you will stop at the islands
at the mouth of La Baye, and I shall send the Indian girl directly
there. I shall suggest to Starling that he hug the coast line, and
search each bay, and if he listens to me, the girl should reach you
well in advance. But it is all guess-work. Starling may have spies
among the Indians, and know exactly where you are. I wish he were out
of the way. Granted that his errand is fair, he will still see too
much. For all men, in whatever state they are born, lack neither
vanity nor ambition, and this man is accustomed to command. It is a
crack in the dike, and I do not like it.
"But enough. I hear that you trussed Father Blackgown like a pigeon
for the spit the night that you went away. I would have given my best
tobacco box to have seen it. There was some excitement here over the
loss of the prisoner, but no talk of pursuit. Indeed, the Hurons
seemed relieved to have him spirited out of the way. Which is odd, for
they took great pains to obtain him. But I am wonted to the
unexpected; it is the usual that finds me unprepared. Even Father
Blackgown surprises me. He has not complained to me of you, though
heretofore I have found him as ready to shout his wrongs as a crow in a
cornfield. But again, enough.
"And I have the honor to be, with great respect, monsieur,
"Your very obedient servant,
"ANTOINE DE LA MOTHE-CADILLAC."
I read the letter through twice. Then I turned to Singing Arrow. I
was glad she was a savage. If she had been white, man or woman, I
should have been obliged to go through a long explanation, and I was
not in the mood for it. Now savages are content to begin things in the
middle, and omit questions. It may be indolence with them, and it may
be philosophy. I have never decided to my satisfaction. But the fact
serves.
"Do you think that you were followed?" I asked.
The girl sat up and shook her head. "Only by the stars and the
clouds," she answered.
I felt relieved. "And how did you happen to come this way?" I went on.
"What did they tell you at the Pottawatamie Islands?"
She stopped to laugh. "That you went the other way," she replied, and
she swept her arm to the southwest.
I shrugged my shoulders. "And you thought I lied to them?"
She nodded her answer. "The bird who hides her nest cries and makes a
great noise and runs away from it," she explained. "You told all the
Pottawatamies who would listen that you were going southwest. So I
went southeast."
I could afford to let her laugh at me. "We stopped at that island over
there," I said, without comment. "Now we will follow this shore line
for a distance south. You must go with us. Singing Arrow, did they
tell you at the islands that the English prisoner was a woman, and that
she is now my wife?"
The girl did not answer nor look in my direction. She pulled her
blanket over her head, and sat as stiffly as a badger above his hole.
I could not determine whether the news of the marriage was a surprise
or not. It did not matter. I lit my pipe and let her work it out.
"Are you coming?" I asked at last. "I must go back to the island now."
She rose and pulled her blanket around her. She was typically Indian
at the moment, unreadable and cold. But she nodded in acquiescence and
went to her canoe.
I found my own canoe and we paddled side by side. The sun was over the
horizon now and fish were jumping. I saw a great bass that must have
weighed five pounds spring his whole length out of the water for a fly.
A sportsman in France would have traveled leagues to have seen such a
fish, and here it lay ready for my hand. Perhaps after all there was
no need to search for reasons for the exultation that was possessing me.
A few moments brought us to the island, and we rounded the point and
came into the cove. The little camp was awake and startled by my
absence. Pierre was searching the horizon from under a red, hairy
hand, and Labarthe was looking to the priming of his arquebus. Only
the woman sat steadfast. All this I saw at a glance.
I rushed the canoes to the shore, and helped the Indian girl to alight
as I would have helped any woman. I gave one look at the men, and
said, "Be still," and then I led Singing Arrow to the woman.
"Madame," I said, "here is the Indian girl who befriended you when you
were a prisoner. It was she who passed us last night. She comes to me
with documents from Cadillac, and I have great reason to be grateful to
her. I commend her to you, madame."
I doubt that the woman heard much of my speech, though I made it
earnestly. She was looking at the Indian girl, and the Indian girl at
her. I should have liked cordiality between them, but I did not expect
it. The woman would do her best, but she would not know how. I had
come to think her gracious by nature, and she would treat this girl
with courtesy, but she was a great lady while Singing Arrow was a
squaw, and she would remember it. Yet Singing Arrow, even though she
might admit her inferiority to a white man, would think herself the
equal of any woman of whatever rank or race. I could not see how the
gulf could be bridged.
But bridged it was, and that oddly. The woman stood for a moment half
smiling, and then suddenly tears gathered in her eyes. She put out her
hand to Singing Arrow, and the Indian took it, and they walked together
back into the trees. They could not understand each other, and I
wondered what they would do. But later I heard them laughing.
Well, the woman was destined to surprise me, and she had done it again.
I had thought her too finely woven and strong of fibre to be easily
emotional. It was some hours before it came to me that she had not
been with another woman since the night the savages had found her in
the Connecticut farmhouse. All the world had been a foe to be feared
and parried except myself, and I had been a despot. Perhaps she did
not know herself. Perhaps she would welcome Benjamin Starling after
all. No matter what her horror of him, she could at least be natural
with him, if only to show her scorn.