A TROUBLED MIND
That was a wild brant chase indeed! And although there were good
trackers among us, the fleeing Canienga took to the mountain streams and
travelled so, wading northward mile after mile, which very perfectly
covered their tracks, and finally left us travelling in circles near
Silver Lake.
I now think St. Sacrament must have mirrored their canoes--God and they
alone know the truth!--for I never heard of any other Mohawks, or any
Englishmen at all, or Frenchmen for that matter, who ever have heard of
this Mohawk war party coming south to meet and rescue Sir John.[12] Nor
do our own records, except generally, mention our measures taken to stop
the Sacandaga trail, or speak of the fight at the Big Eddy as a separate
and distinct combat.
[Footnote 12: Years later, Thayendanegea made a reference to this
attempt, but the inference was that he himself led the war party, which
is not true, because Brant was then in England.]
It may be that this fight at the Big Eddy remained unnoticed because we
sustained no losses. Also, we were losing our people all along the
wilderness, from the ashes of Falmouth to the Ohio. I do not know. But
my chiefest concern, then and later, was that the survivors among these
Caniengas got clean away, which misfortune troubled my mind, although my
Oneidas had a Dutch dozen of their scalps, all hooped and curing, when
we limped into the Drowned Lands from our wild brant chase above.
* * * * *
Now, my orders being to stop the Sacandaga Trail, there seemed no better
way than to cut this same trail with a ditch and plant in it a
chevaux-de-frise; and then so dispose my men that even a scout might
remain in touch by signal and be prepared to fall back behind this
barrier if Sir John crept upon our settlements by stealth.
Fish House could provision us, or the Point, if necessary; and any scout
of ours in the Drowned Lands ought to see smoke by day or fire by night
from Maxon's nose to Mayfield.
My scout of four and I passed in wearily between the rough, low redoubts
at Fish House, after sunset, and gave an account to Peter Wayland, the
captain commanding the post, that the northward war-trail was now clean
as far as Silver Lake, and that I proposed to block it and watch it
above and below.
Twilight was deepening when we came to John Howell's deserted log-house
on the Vlaie, and heard the owls very mournful in the tamarack forests
eastward.
A few rods farther on the hard ridge and one of my men challenged
smartly. In thick darkness he led us over hard ground along the vast
wastes of bushes and reeds, to where a new ditch had been dug down to
the Vlaie Water.
Thence he guided us through our chevaux-de-frise; and I saw my own
people lying in the shadowy gleam of a watch-fire; and an Oneida slowly
moving around the smouldering coals, chanting the refrain of his first
scalp-dance:
SCALP SONG
"Chiefs in your white plumes!
When your Tall Cloud glooms,
And we Oneidas wonder
To hear your thunder--
And the moon pales,
And the Seven Dancers wear veils,
Is it your rain that wails?
Is it the noise of hail?
Is it the rush of frightened deer
That we Oneidas hear?"
And the others chanted in sombre answer:
"It is the weeping of the Mohawk Nation,
Mourning amid their desolation,
For the scalpless head
Of each young warrior dead.
_A Voice from the Dark_
"It is the cry of their women, who bewail
Their warriors dead,
Not the east wind we hear!
It is the noise of their women, who rail
At those who fled,
Not whistling hail we hear!
It is the rush of feet that are afraid,
Not the swift flight of deer!"
_Another Voice_
"Let them flee,--the East Gate Keepers--
Whose dead lie still as sleepers!
Let the Canienga fly before our wrath,
Scatter like chaff,
When we Oneidas laugh!
Koue!"
_Tahioni_
"Holder of Heaven,
And every Chief named in the Great Rite!
Dancers Seven!
And the Eight Thunders plumed in white!
At dawn I was a young man,
Who had seen no enemy die.
But my foe was a deer who ran,
And I struck; and let him lie."
_The Screech-owl Dances_
"The Mohawk Nation has fled,
But my war-axe sticks in its head!
Koue!"
_The Water-snake Dances_
"Let the Wild Goose keep to the skies!
Where the Brant alights, he dies!
Koue!"
_Thiohero, their Prophetess_
"The Lodge poles crack in the East!
The Long House falls.
Who calls the Condolence Feast?
Who calls?"
_She Dances Very Slowly_
"Who calls the Roll of the Dead?
Who opens the door?
The Fire in the West burns red,
But our fire-place burns no more!
Thendara--Thendara no more!"
It was plain to me that my Indians meant to make a night of it--even
those who, dog weary, had but now returned with me from the futile brant
chase and sat eating their samp.
The French trappers squatted in a row, smoking their pipes and looking
on with that odd sympathy for any savage rite, which, I think, partly
explains French success among all Indians.
Firelight glimmered red on their weather-ravaged faces, on their gaudy
fringes and moccasins.
Near them, lolling in the warm young grass, sprawled Nick and Godfrey. I
sat down by them, my back against a log. My Saguenay crept to my side. I
gave him to eat, and, for my own supper, ate slowly a handful of parched
corn, watching my young Oneidas around the fire, where they moved in
their slow dance, singing and boasting of their first scalps taken.
The little maid of Askalege came and seated herself close to me on my
right.
"I am weary," she murmured, letting her head fall back against the log.
"Tell me," said I in English, "is there any reason why this Saguenay,
who has proved himself a real man and no wolf, should not sing his own
scalp-song among our Oneidas?"
"None," she repeated. "The Yellow Leaf is a real man."
"Tell him so."
The girl turned her head and spoke to the Saguenay in his own gutturals.
I also watched to see what effect such praise might have.
For a few minutes he sat motionless and without any expression upon his
narrow visage, yet I knew he must be bursting with pride.
"Tahioni!" I called out. "Here, also, is a real man who has taken scalps
in battle. Shall not our _brother_, Yellow Leaf, of the Montagnais, sing
his first scalp-song at an Oneida fire?"
There was a pause, then every Oneida hatchet flashed high in the
firelight.
"Koue!" they shouted. "We give fire right to our brother of the
Montagnais, who is a real man and no wolf!"
At that the Saguenay hunter, who, in a single day, had became a warrior,
leaped lightly to his feet, and began to trot like a timber wolf around
the fire, running hither and thither as an eager, wild thing runs when
searching.
Then he shouted something I did not understand; but Thiohero
interpreted, watching him: "He looks in vain for the tracks of a poor
Saguenay hunter, which once he was, but he can find only the footprints
of a proud Saguenay warrior, which now he has become!"
Now, in dumb show, this fierce and homeless rover enacted all that had
passed,--how he had encountered the Canienga, how they had mocked and
stoned him, how we had captured him, proved kind to him, released him;
how he had returned to warn us of ambuscade.
He drew his war-axe and shouted his snarling battle-cry; and all the
Oneidas became excited and answered like panthers on a dark mountain.
Then Yellow Leaf began to dance an erratic, weird dance--and, somehow, I
thought of dead leaves eddying in a raw wind as he whirled around the
fire, singing his first scalp-song:
"Who are the Yanyengi,[13] that a
Saguenay should fear them?
They are but Mowaks,[14] and
Real men jeer them!
I am a warrior; I wear the lock!
I am brother to the People of the Rock![15]
Red is my hatchet; my knife is red;
Woe to the Mengwe, who wail their dead!
I wear the Little Red Foot and the Hawk;
Death to the Maquas who stone and mock!
Koue! Hai!"
_An Oneida_
"Hah!
Hawasahsai!
Hah!"
_The Saguenay_
"Who are the Yanyengi, that
Real men should obey them?
We People of the Dawn were
Born to slay them!
I eat twigs in winter when there is no game;
What does he eat, the Maqua? What means his name?
To each of us a Little Red Foot! To each his clan!
Let the Mengwe flee when they scent a Man!
Koue! Hai!"
[Footnote 13: The Huron for Canienga.]
[Footnote 14: A Mohican term of insult, but generally used to express
contempt for the Canienga.]
[Footnote 15: Oneida.]
And
"Hah! Hawasahsai!"
chanted the Oneidas, trotting to and fro in the uncertain red light,
while we white men sat, chin on fist, a-watching them; and the little
sorceress of Askalege beat her palms softly together, timing the rhythm
for lack of a drum.
An hour passed: my Indians still danced and sang and bragged of deeds
done and deeds to be accomplished; my young sorceress sat asleep, her
head fallen back against me, her lips just parted. At her feet a toad,
attracted by the insects which came into the fire-ring, jumped heavily
from time to time and snapped them up.
An intense silence brooded over that vast wilderness called the Drowned
Lands; not a bittern croaked, not a wild duck stirred among the reeds.
Very far away in the mist of the tamaracks I heard owls faintly
halooing, and it is a melancholy sound which ever renders me uneasy.
I was weary to the bones, yet did not desire sleep. A vague
presentiment, like a mist on some young peak, seemed to possess my
senses, making me feel as lonely as a mountain after the sun has set.
I had never before suffered from solitude, unless missing the beloved
dead means that.
I missed them now,--parents who seemed ages long absent,--or was it I,
their only son, who tarried here below too long, and beyond a reasonable
time?
* * * * *
I was lonely. I looked at the scalps, all curing on their hoops, hanging
in a row near the fire. I glanced at Nick. He lay on his blanket,
sleeping.... The head of the little Athabasca Sorceress lay heavy on my
shoulder; she made no sound of breathing in her quiet sleep. Both her
hands were doubled into childish fists, thumbs inside.
Johnny Silver smoked and smoked, his keen, tireless eyes on the Scalp
Dancers; Luysnes, also, blinked at them in the ruddy glare, his powerful
hands clasping his knees; de Golyer was on guard.
I caught Godfrey's eye, motioned him to relieve Joe, then dropped my
head once more in sombre meditation, lonely, restless, weary, and
unsatisfied....
And now, again,--as it had been for perhaps a longer period of time than
I entirely comprehended,--I seemed to see darkly, and mirrored against
darkness, the face of the Scottish girl.... And her yellow hair and dark
eyes; ... and that little warning glimmer from which dawned that faint
smile of hers....
That I was lonely for lack of her I never dreamed then. I was content to
see her face grow vaguely; sweetly take shape from the darkness under my
absent gaze;--content to evoke the silent phantom out of the stuff that
ghosts are made of--those frail phantoms which haunt the secret recesses
of men's minds.
* * * * *
I was asleep when Nick touched me. Thiohero still slept against my
shoulder; the Yellow Leaf and the Oneidas still danced and vaunted their
prowess, and they had set a post in the soft earth near the shore, and
had painted it red; and now all their hatchets were sticking in it,
while they trotted tirelessly in their scalping dance, and carved the
flame-shot darkness with naked knives.
Wearily I rose, took my rifle, re-primed it, and stumbled away to take
my turn on guard, relieving Nick, who, in turn, had replaced Godfrey,
whom I had sent after Joe de Golyer.
They had dug our ditch so well that the Vlaie water filled it, making,
with the pointed staves, an excellent abattis against any who came by
stealth along the Sacandaga trail.
Behind this I walked my post, watching the eastern stars, which seemed
paler, yet still remained clearly twinkling. And no birds had yet
awakened, though the owls had become quiet in the tamaracks, and neither
insect nor frog now chanted their endless runes of night.
Shouldering my rifle, I walked to and fro, listening, scanning the
darkness ahead.... And, presently, not lonely; for a slim phantom kept
silent pace with me as I walked my post--so near, at times, that my
nostrils seemed sweet with the scent of apple bloom.... And I felt her
breath against my cheek and heard her low whisper.
Which presently became louder among the reeds--a little breeze which
stirs before dawn and makes a thin ripple around each slender stem.
Tahioni came to relieve me, grave, not seeming fatigued, and, in his
eyes, the shining fire of triumph still unquenched.
I went back to the fire and lay down on my blanket, where now all were
asleep save my Saguenay.
When he saw me he came and squatted at my feet.
"Sleep you, also, brother," said I. "Day dawns and the sunset is far
away."
But the last time I looked before I slept I saw him still squatting at
my feet like a fierce, lean dog, and staring straight before him.
And I remember that the fresh, joyous chorus of waking birds was like
the loud singing of spirit-children. And to the sweet sound of that
blessed choir I surrendered mind and body, and so was borne on wings of
song into the halls of slumber-land.
* * * * *
The sun was high when our sentinel hailed a detail from Fish House,
bringing us a sheep, three sacks of corn, and a keg of fresh milk.
I had bathed me in the Vlaie Water, had eaten soupaan, turned over my
command to Nick, and now was ready to report in person to the Commandant
at Summer House Point.
My Saguenay had slain a gorgeous wood-duck with his arrows; and now,
brave in fresh paint and brilliant plumage, he sat awaiting me in the
patched canoe which had belonged, no doubt, to John Howell.
I went down among the pinxter bushes and tall reeds to the shore; and so
we paddled away on the calm, deep current which makes a hundred
snake-like curls and bends to every mile, so that the mile itself
becomes doubled,--nay, tripled!--ere one attains his destination.
It was strange how I was not yet rid of that vague sense of impending
trouble, nor could account for the foreboding in any manner, being full
of health and now rested.
My mind, occupied by my report, which I was now reading where I had
written it in my _carnet_, nevertheless seemed crowded with other
thoughts,--how we would seem each to the other when we met
again,--Penelope Grant and I. And if she would seem to take a pleasure
in my return ... perhaps say as much ... smile, perhaps.... And we might
walk a little on the new grass under the apple bloom....
A troubled mind! And knew not the why and wherefore of its own
restlessness and apprehension. For the sky was softly blue, and the
water, too; and a gentle wind aided our paddles, which pierced the
stream so silently that scarce a diamond-drop fell from the sunlit
blades.
I could see the Summer House, and a striped jack flying in the sun. The
green and white lodge seemed very near across the marshes, yet it was
some little time before I first smelled the smoke of camp fires, and
then saw it rising above the bushes.
Presently a Continental on guard hailed our canoe. We landed. A corporal
came, then a sergeant,--one Caspar Quant, whom I knew,--and so we were
passed on, my Indian and I, until the gate-guard at the Point halted us
and an officer came from the roadside,--one Captain Van Pelt, whom I
knew in Albany.
Saluted, and the officer's salute rendered, he became curious to see the
fresh scalps flapping at my Saguenay's girdle, and the new war-paint and
the oil smelling rank in the sweet air.
But I told him nothing, asking only for the Commandant, who, he gave
account, was a certain Major Westfall, lodging at the Summer House, and
lately transferred from the Massachusetts Line, along with other Yankee
officers--why?--God and Massachusetts knew, perhaps.
So I passed the gate and walked toward the lodge. Sir John's blooded
cattle were grazing ahead, and I saw Flora at the well, and Colas busy
among beds of garden flowers, spading and weeding under the south porch.
And I saw something else that halted me. For, seated upon a low limb of
an apple tree, her two little feet hanging down, and garbed in
pink-flowered chintz and snowy fichu, I beheld Penelope Grant,
a-knitting.
And by all the pagan gods!--there in a ring around her strolled and
lolled a dozen Continental officers in buff and blue and gold!
There was no reason why, but the scene chilled me.
One o' these dandies had her ball of wool, and was a-winding of it as he
sat cross-legged on the turf, a silly, happy look on his beardless face.
Another was busy writing on a large sheet of paper,--verses, no
doubt!--for he seemed vastly pleased with his progress, and I saw her
look at him shyly under her dark lashes, and could have slain him for
the smirk he rendered. Also, it did not please me that her petticoat was
short and revealed her ankles and slim feet in silver-buckled shoon.
I was near; I could hear their voices, their light laughter; and,
rarely, her voice in reply to some pointed gallantry or jest.
None had perceived me advancing among the trees, nor now noticed me
where I was halted there in the checkered sunshine.
But, as I stirred and moved forward, the girl turned her head, caught a
glimpse of me and my painted Indian, stared in silence, then slid from
her perch and stood up on the grass, her needles motionless.
All the young popinjays got to their feet, and all stared as I offered
them the salute of rank; but all rendered it politely.
"Lieutenant of Rangers Drogue to report to Major Westfall," said I
bluntly, in reply to a Continental Captain's inquiry.
"Yonder, sir, on the porch with Lady Johnson," said he.
I bared my head, then, and walked to Penelope. She curtsied: I bent to
her hand.
"Are you well, my lord?" she asked in a colourless voice, which chilled
me again for its seeming lack of warmth.
"And you, Penelope?"
"I am well, I thank you."
"I am happy to learn so."
That was all. I bowed again. She curtsied. I replaced my mole-skin cap,
saluted the popinjays, and marched forward. My Indian stalked at my
heels.
God knew why, but mine had become a troubled mind that sunny morning.