"My name is Harry," I answered. "And I have never forgotten the song
in the cabin of the New Venture."
"Thank you, Harry," she returned with a trill of elfin laughter.
"And I do assure you I know other songs."
With that she was gone. Yet I had a feeling I had never known before
that she was still with me, and I stepped into the water with joy in
my heart.
A score of paces down the bank I found Ta-wan-ne-ars, and we crouched
under the pendant branches of a willow to see what would happen,
muskets primed and ready.
The yelling in the wood increased in volume as the False Faces
followed the course we had taken by broken branches and footprints in
the pinemold. A misshapen figure with the head of some fabled beast
squattered into the trail and galloped around, nose to ground like a
hound seeking a lost scent. In a moment the ugly head was lifted,
and a howl of satisfaction greeted the other monstrous shapes which
joined it. The whole pack gave tongue and vanished up the trail
after Marjory.
Ta-wan-ne-ars waited to give the stragglers time to appear, then rose
and led the way along the bed of the stream westward.
"Can you pick your path at night?" I inquired anxiously.
He pointed upward to a group of four stars that sparkled in the
velvet blue of the Summer sky.
"So long as Gwe-o-ga-ah[1] shines Ta-wan-ne-ars can not be lost," he
answered.
[1] The Loon.
We walked in the water for more than a mile, when the stream turned
to the north and we stepped out upon a rock and dressed. Afterward
we caught the overhanging bough of a tree and swung ourselves on to
dry ground above the bank, never leaving a trace of our course up to
that time. From this point we traveled on through the forest,
pursuing no settled path, but holding to the westward in the
direction of Oswego on the shore of the Cadarakui Lake.
We did not stop until after midday. Ta-wan-ne-ars knocked over a
wild turkey with his tomahawk, kindled a fire of dry sticks and
broiled the juicy bird before the coals. He insisted that I should
sleep first, promising to arouse me at the end of two hours--he
reckoned time, I should explain, by the declension of the sun. But
when he finally did arouse me the sun was close to setting, and I saw
by the sunken look of his eyes that he had not slept during his watch.
"Why did you not wake me?" I asked angrily.
"Ta-wan-ne-ars had no wish for sleep," he returned.
"Nonsense," I retorted. "You can not go indefinitely without rest."
"I had my thoughts for company," he said simply. "They are not happy
thoughts, brother. They would not let me sleep."
I was shaken by a profound revulsion of feeling. It came over me
that I had never fully appreciated the extreme degree of the mental
suffering to which he had been exposed.
"Your sorrow is great," I acknowledged, "but sure you know that she
for whom you mourn----"
"She is a sick soul," he said. "She has offended the Great Spirit,
and he has permitted Ha-ne-go-ate-geh to cast his shadow over her.
But some day she will have performed the penance Ha-wen-ne-yu asks of
her, and in that day he will permit Ta-wan-ne-ars to reclaim her."
"I hope so," I replied, stunned by the amazing confidence in eternal
justice, the Christian charity, of this man who was, properly
speaking, a lettered savage.
"Ta-wan-ne-ars knows it," he asserted confidently. "But I can not
help thinking of the wickedness of my enemy."
His hand flew to his knife-hilt.
"I am confident of what will come, but I sorrow over what has been
and is."
"I wish I had not spared him when his life was in my hand," I cried.
"My brother did not know," answered Ta-wan-ne-ars. "And already then
the harm was done, the evil was sowed, the soul was corrupted."
He smiled gravely.
"Your search is ended, brother," he added.
"What do you mean?"
"The soul you sought has been found. It is no longer sick."
"Mayhap," I agreed, "but none the less 'tis out of reach and in great
danger."
"We shall save it," he encouraged me. "Ta-wan-ne-ars knows. We must
wait. The time will come."
He refused again to sleep, and we ate the remainder of the
turkey--our hunger was prodigious--and pushed on, traveling most of
the night. Not once did we see a trace of the Keepers, and when we
halted Ta-wan-ne-ars said that we were on the marches of the
hunting-grounds of the Mohawks. We slept together the remainder of
that night, without a fire and on the top of a steep rock which was
set with boulders which the foot of any climber must set in motion.
In the late morning we killed a rabbit, broiled and ate it and
tramped the virgin forest until long past sunset. That day we
ventured to discharge our firearms, and to my vast pride I killed a
small deer. The following afternoon we caught our first view of the
inland sea from a height of land, and the next morning we sighted the
stockade of Oswego, the fort which Governor Burnet had established on
the shores of the lake in his effort to divert the far-western
fur-trade from the French posts.
The gate was closed, but as we approached it opened, and an enormous,
pot-bellied figure in buckskin and fur cap sauntered out to meet us.
"Ja, idt is you," Corlaer hailed us. "I knew that Joncaire was oop
to another of his tricks."
"What do you mean?" I asked as he turned to walk back beside us, his
fat face as solemn as ever.
"I hafe hadt a scare," he said. "I came back to De-o-nun-da-ga-a
from a hundting-party to find a Tahsagrondie messenger from Joncaire
who says he is to tell me you fooled der Gofernor of Jagara, but now
you are caught andt hafe gone to La Vierge du Bois. Andt der
Tahsagrondie says Joncaire is sorry. Ha, ha! I thought it was a
funny message."
"Funny mayhap," I replied feelingly. "But 'twas amazingly true."
Ta-wan-ne-ars nodded confirmation, and for an instant I thought
Corlaer was going to betray surprize. But he shut his gaping mouth
with resolution.
"What has happened?" he demanded. "I hafe come here to scout der
Doom Trail andt learn how you diedt--andt you are alife."
So we told him, whilst the lieutenant in command of the post and his
garrison of twenty lusty frontiersmen gathered in a knot to listen
over each other's shoulders.
"Budt--budt," expostulated Peter, "you hafe been in La Vierge du
Bois!"
"True."
"Budt nobody has efer been in La Vierge du Bois----"
"And come out alive," I amended. "I fear many poor souls have been
sacrificed by those fiendish priests."
"Andt you fooled Joncaire!" repeated Peter admiringly.
'Twas that indeed which pleased him most. He insisted upon our
repeating the tale with all details, and I believe he would have
required a third account had it not been for the interruption which
came during the afternoon.
We were sitting in the commandant's quarters on the upper floor of
the block-house when the sentries on the stockade announced a large
fleet of canoes approaching from the west. The lieutenant promptly
issued orders to get out the trade-goods, and prepared for an
impressive reception of the savages, deeming them emissaries of some
tribe come to exchange their fur-catch of the Winter.
But the leading canoes held on past the fort, and none of those which
followed gave indication of intent to steer inshore.
"Hafe you a canoe?" asked Corlaer of the bewildered lieutenant.
"_Ja_? Well, my friendts andt I will go andt ask what this means."
We launched the canoe from the water-gate, and with Peter and
Ta-wan-ne-ars at the paddles, sped out into the lake. Some distance
from shore we overhauled the rear squadron of the fleet, every canoe
loaded deep with packages of furs.
"Ho, brothers," called Ta-wan-ne-ars. "Who are you?"
The nearest canoe hove to.
"We are Necariagues," answered a paddler. "In front of us are
Ottawas and Missisakies."
"The Chief of the English fort, who commands here in the name of
Ga-en-gwa-ra-go, invites you to come ashore and trade with him."
Up stood a large, stout man with lanky black hair, dressed in the
uniform of the French marine troops, who had been ensconced behind a
bale of furs.
"Ha, 'tis my friend from Arles," he shouted, "and his companion, the
noble warchief! So the Keepers did not keep you?"
"No, Monsieur de Joncaire," I replied. "We are still alive to plague
you."
"_Venire St. Remi_, 'tis not sorry I am! Try it again, my lad. Only
try it again!"
"And what are you doing with these people?"
He roared with laughter.
"No more than shepherding them past the temptations of this English."
Ta-wan-ne-ars called again to the Indians in the canoes.
"Come ashore, brothers. We have rich goods to trade with you."
"We do not need to trade with the English," replied the Necariague
who had spoken before. "We are glad we can trade with our fathers,
the French. They have plenty of goods to offer us. Onontio has sent
word he will pay better than the English now."
"Ha, ha, ha," exploded Joncaire. "Ho, ho, ho! _Mort de ma vie_!
_Tonerr-rr-re de Dieu_! 'Tis an odd world! The boot is on the other
leg, Monsieur l'Arlesien!
"Present my compliments to Monsieur Burnet, Peter Corlaer. You may
tell him I am not so discouraged as I once was. No, no, many things
have happened.
"_Au revoir_--and avoid the Keepers. Avoid the keepers by all means.
I am told they keep a strict watch upon the Doom Trail these days."
His paddlers dipped their blades, and his bellows of laughter were
wafted back to us as his canoe followed the fur argosy down the lake
toward the French posts on the St. Lawrence--posts whose magazines
were already beginning to swell with the life-blood of English trade
which was pouring over the Doom Trail.