I stirred to wakefulness when the first pink light of morning was in
the eastern skies. A pungent whiff of wood-smoke filled my nostrils,
and I turned over to watch Corlaer frying bacon and maize cakes--only
to lose my appetite at the spectacle of Ta-wan-ne-ars stretching
scalps on little hoops of withes to dry by the fire.
He went about it in a very business-like way, yet he indulged in an
amiable grin over my look of interested aversion.
"What does my brother find that is so horrible in a scalp?" he
inquired, extending a particularly gory one for my inspection. "'Tis
no more than the crown of a man's head--and that man an enemy."
"I like not the idea of mutilating a body," I retorted. "If you have
slain a man, 'tis sufficient. Why, you might as well cut off his arm
or his head!"
He considered my point while he made another hoop and adjusted a
scalp to it.
"Yes," he agreed; "that is what the English do, I am told."
"What?" I protested indignantly. "'Tis absurd!"
"To be sure, Ta-wan-ne-ars knows no more than what the missionaries
and his other white friends have told him," he answered. "But they
say that when a man in England is condemned to die, if he is an enemy
of the King, his head is chopped off and put on a high place, and
sometimes his arms and his legs are hacked off, too, and shown
elsewhere."
For an instant I was nonplussed.
"That may be so," I said finally, "but in battle we do not cut off
the heads or limbs of our foes."
"It is not your custom to do so," rejoined the Seneca equably. "It
is the custom of my people to scalp their foes. Then when a warrior
returns to his village and recounts his exploits nobody can deny his
proof."
I was at a loss to reply, and Corlaer averted further argument by
announcing that the bacon and maize were cooked. But I was somewhat
amused to notice that Ta-wan-ne-ars was careful to wash his hands
before eating. So much, at least, the missionaries had dented the
armor of his innate barbarism.
"And what of these?" I asked, pointing to the distorted bodies of
Murray's emissaries, as we adjusted our packs for the day's march.
Corlaer raised his cupped hand to his ear.
"Do you hear?" he said.
I followed his example, and through the clashing of the branches
overhead there sounded a prolonged, exultant howling.
"Der wolfs," he explained.
There was no disputing his stolid acceptance of the situation, and I
fell into my place between the Dutchman and Ta-wan-ne-ars. In five
minutes the forest had closed around us. The glade of last night's
adventure was shut off as completely as if it existed in another
world. There remained no more than the bare groove of the trail and
the encompassing walls of underbrush and overhead the roof of
tree-boughs. But at intervals a faint echo of yelps and snarls was
borne to our ears by the forest breeze.
That afternoon we forded the Mohawk to the southern side some
distance above Ga-ne-ga-ha-ga,[1] the Upper Mohawk Castle. And now
for the first time we began to meet other travelers. Several Mohawk
families shifting their abodes on account of poor crop conditions in
their old villages; a party of Oneidas of the Turtle Clan journeying
on a visit of condolence to the Mohawk Turtles, one of whose
_roy-an-ehs_ had just died; a band of Mohawk hunters returning from
the Spring hunt. By these latter Ta-wan-ne-ars sent word to
So-a-wa-ah, the senior _roy-an-eh_ of the Mohawk Wolf Clan, charged
with the warding of the Eastern Door, of our encounter with the
Cahnuagas and its result.
[1] Near Danube, N.Y.
We continued up the valley of the Mohawk all of that day and the
next. As we advanced westward the country became less settled. Game
was more plentiful. Once a deer trotted into the trail and stared at
us before plunging on its way. The second day, as we made camp and I
set out to gather firewood, a pile of sticks which I approached moved
with a dry, whirring rattle, and a mottled flat head rose menacingly
from restless coils.
"Be careful, brother," shouted Ta-wan-ne-ars.