FRONTENAC SHORE.
"And what will my brother do?"
For minutes before John heard and answered it the question had been
singing in his ears to the beat of the paddles. He supposed that
Menehwehna had asked it but a moment ago.
"I cannot tell. Let us press on; it may be we shall find my
countrymen at Frontenac."
"As a child breaks down a lodge which another child has built, and
runs away, so your countrymen will have departed."
Fort Amitie lay far behind. They were threading their way now among
the Thousand Isles, and soon Lake Ontario opened before them,
spreading its blue waters to the horizon. But John heeded neither
green islands nor blue lake, nor their beauty, nor their peace, but
only the shame in his heart. He saw only the dazzle on the water,
heard only the swirl around his paddle, stroke by stroke, hour after
hour; prayed only for fatigue to drug the ache and bring about
oblivion with the night.
Coasting the shore they came at the close of day upon the charred
skeletons of three ships lifting their ribs out of the shallows
against the sunset, and beyond these, where the water deepened, to a
deserted quay.
They landed; and while they climbed the slope towards the fort, out
of one of its breaches its only inhabitant crawled to them--a young
dog, gaunt and tame with hunger.
The dog fawned upon Menehwehna. But John turned his back on the
smoke-blackened walls in a sick despair, seated himself on the slope,
and let his gaze travel southward over the shoreless water.
Beyond the rim of it would lie Oswego, ruined by the French as the
English had ruined Frontenac.
The dog came and stretched itself at his feet, staring up with eyes
that seemed at once to entreat his favour and to marvel why he sat
there motionless. Menehwehna had stepped down to the canoe to fetch
food for it, and by and by returned with a handful of biscuit.
"He will be useful yet," said Menehwehna, seating himself beside the
dog and feeding it carefully with very small pieces. "He cannot be
more than a year old, and before the winter is ended we will make a
hunter of him."
John did not answer.
"You will come with me now, brother?" Still Menehwehna kept his eyes
on the dog. "There is no other way."
"There is one way only," answered John, with his eyes fastened on the
south. "Teach me to build a canoe, and let me cross the water alone.
If I drown, I drown."
"And if you reached? Your countrymen are all gathering back to the
south; until the snow has come and passed, there will be no more
fighting. You are better with me. Come, and when the corn begins to
shoot again you shall tell me if you are minded to return."
"Menehwehna, you do not understand."
"I have studied you, my brother, when you have not guessed it; and I
say to you that if you went back now to your people it would be
nothing to their gain, nor to yours, for the desire of fighting has
gone out of you. Now in my nation we do not wonder when a man loses
that desire, for we put it away as men by eating put away the desire
of food. All things come to us in their season. This month the corn
ripens, and at home my wife and children are gathering it; but anon
comes the Moon of Travel, and they will weary of the village and
watch the lake for me to arrive and lead them away to the
hunting-grounds. So the beasts have their seasons; the buck his
month for belling, and the beaver his month for taking shelter in his
house which he has stored. And with us, when the snow melts, it may
happen that the war-talk begins--none knowing how--and spreads
through the villages: first the young men take to dancing and
painting their faces, and the elder men catch fire, and a day sees us
taking leave of our womankind to follow the war-path. But in time we
surfeit even of fighting, and remember our lodges again."
Menehwehna paused awhile, and patted the dog's head.
"Therefore, brother, were you of our race, I should not wonder that
the spirit of war has gone out of you. I myself am weary of it
for a season; I forget that Frenchman differs from Englishman, and
think of the sound of thin ice above the beaver's wash, the blood of
the red-deer's hocks on the snow, the smell of his steak over the
fire. But of the pale-faces some are warriors, some are not;
and the warriors fight, year in and year out, whenever they can.
That is your calling, brother, is it not?"
"I am not grown a coward, I hope."
"No," said Menehwehna thoughtfully, "you are not a coward; else my
heart had never gone out to you. But I think there is something dead
within you that must come to life, and something alive within you
that must die, before you grow into a warrior again. As for your
going back to-day, listen--
"There was war once between our nation and the Pottawatamies, and
in an open fight our braves killed many of their enemies and
scattered the rest to their villages. Great was the victory, but
mournful; for in the chase that followed it an arrow pierced the
throat of the leader of the Ojibways. His name was Daimeka, and he a
chief in my own island of Michilimackinac. Where he fell there he
lay. His people lifted the body and propped it against a tree,
seated, with its face towards the forest into which the Pottawatamies
had fled. They wiped the dirt from his head-dress, set his bow
against his shoulder, and so, having lamented him, turned their faces
northward to their own country.
"But Daimeka, although he could neither speak nor stir, saw all that
his friends did, and heard all that they said. He listened to their
praises of him and their talk of their victory, and was glad; he felt
the touch of their hands as they set out his limbs against the tree,
but his own hands he could not lift. His tears, indeed, ran as they
turned to abandon him; but this sign they did not see, and he could
give no other.
"The story says that little by little his hot tears melted the
frost that bound him; and by and by, as he remembered the cry of
home-coming--'_Kumad-ji-wug!_ We have conquered!'--his spirit put
forth an effort as a babe in its mother's travail, and he found his
feet and ran after the braves. Then was he mad with rage to find
that they had no eyes for him, and he no voice to call their
attention. When they walked forward he walked forward, when they
halted he halted, when they slept he slept, when they awoke he awoke;
nay, when they were weary he felt weariness. But for all the profit
it brought him he might still have been sitting under the tree; for
their eyes would not see him, and his talk to them was as wind.
"And this afflicted him so that at length he began to tear open his
wounds, saying, 'This, at least, will move them to shame, who owe
their victory to me!' But they heeded nothing; and when he upbraided
them they never turned their heads.
"At length they came to the shore where they had left the canoes, and
put across for the island. As they neared it the men in Daimeka's
canoe raised the war-shout, '_Kumad-ji-wug!_ We have conquered!' and
old men, wives and children came running from the village, his own
father and wife and children among them. 'Daimeka is dead!' was
shouted many times in the uproar; and the warriors spoke his praises
while his father wept, and his wife, and his two small ones.
"'But I am alive!' Daimeka shouted; for by this time he was in a
furious passion. Then he ran after his wife, who was fleeing towards
his own lodge, tearing her hair as she went. 'Listen to me, woman!'
he entreated, and would have held her, but could not. He followed
her into the lodge and stood over her as she sat on the bed, with her
hands in her lap, despairing. 'But I am alive!' he shouted again.
'See how my wounds bleed; bind them, and give me food. To bleed like
this is no joke, and I am hungry.' 'I have no long time to live,'
said the woman to one of the children, 'even now I hear my man
calling me, far away.' Daimeka, beside himself, beat her across the
head with all his force. She put up a hand. 'Children, even now I
felt his hand caressing me. Surely I have not long to live.'
"'I was better off under the tree,' said Daimeka to himself, and
strode forth from the lodge. By the shore he launched one of the
canoes; and now he felt no wish in his heart but to return to the
battlefield and sit there dead, if only he could find his body again
which he had left--as he now felt sure--sitting beneath the tree.
"On the fourth day he reached the battlefield. Night was falling,
and as he sought the tree he came on a blazing fire. Across it he
could see the tree plainly, and at the foot of it his body with the
light on its face.
"He stepped aside to walk round the fire; but it moved as he moved,
and again stood in his path. A score of times he tried to slip by
it, but always it barred his way, and always beyond it stood the
tree, with his own face fronting him across the blaze.
"'Fire, I am a fool,' said he at the last; 'but, fire, thou art a
worse fool to think that Daimeka would turn his back!' And so saying
he strode straight through its flame. At once he found himself
seated with his back to the tree in his dress of war, with his bow
resting against his shoulder. 'Now I am dead,' said he, contentedly;
nevertheless he began to finger his bow. 'On what do the dead feed
themselves?' he wondered; and, for a trial, fixed and shot an arrow
at a passing bird: for above the tree there was clear sky, though
darkness lay around its foot and in the darkness the fire still
burned. The bird fell; he plucked it, cooked it at the fire, and
ate.
"'In life I never ate better partridge,' said Daimeka, `but now that
I am a real ghost I will return once more to Michilimackinac and
frighten my wife out of her senses, for she deserves it.'
"So when the fire died down he arose, warm in all his limbs, and
started northward again. On the fourth day he found his canoe where
he had left it, and pushed off for the island. But, as he neared the
shore, a man who had been standing there ran back to the village, and
soon all his folk came running down to the beach, his wife in their
midst.
"'Daimeka!' they cried. 'It is indeed Daimeka returned to us!'
"'That may be,' said Daimeka, as his wife flung her arms around him;
'and again, it may not be. But, dead or alive, I find it good
enough.'
"Such, my brother, is the tale of Daimeka. Is it better, now, to
return to your people as a ghost or as a man who has found himself?"
John lifted a face of misery.
"Come," said Menehwehna, looking him straight in the eyes, and
letting his hand rest from patting the dog, which turned and licked
it feebly.
"I will come," said John.