THE BRIDGE OF ROCK
For twenty days they had followed the Ricahecrians. At times the trail
lay before them so plain that even Landless's unaccustomed eyes could
read it; at times he saw nothing but untrodden ways--no sign to show
that man had been in that wilderness since the beginning of the
world--but the Susquehannock saw and went steadily onward; at times they
lost it altogether, to find it hours, days afterwards.... It had led
them westward, then south to the banks of the Powhatan, then westward
again. At first they had to avoid an occasional clearing with the cabin
of a pioneer rising from it, or some frontier post, or the village of
one of the Powhatan tribes, but that time had long past. The world of
the white man was far behind them, so far that it might have been
another planet for all it threatened them; the Indian villages were few
and far between and inhabited by tribes whose tongue the Susquehannock
did not know. For the most part they gave these villages a wide berth,
but sometimes in the quiet of the evening they entered one, and were met
by the eldest man and conducted to the stranger's lodging, where slim
brown maidens came to them with platters of maize cakes and nuts and
broiled fish, and the warriors and old men gathered around, marveling at
the color of the one and conversing with the other in stately gesture.
Sometimes, crouched in a tangle of vines or behind the giant bole of
some fallen tree they watched a war party file past, noiseless, like
shadows, disappearing in the blue haze that filled the distant aisles of
the forest. Once a band of five attacked them, coming upon them in their
sleep. Three they killed and the others fled. They dipped into the next
stream that crossed their path and swam up it a long distance, then
emerged and went their way, tolerably confident that they had covered
their trail. Sometimes they struggled for hours through coverts of wild
grape, thick with fruit; sometimes they walked for miles down endless
colonnades of pine trees, where the needle-strewn ground was like ice
for slipperiness, and the blue sky gleamed faintly through the far away
tree tops. The wind in the pines rose and fell in long, measured
cadences. It made the only sound there, for the birds forgot to sing and
the insect world kept silence in those vast and sombre cathedrals.
On the afternoon of the twentieth day they came to a halt upon the bank
of a small stream that fell purling over a long, smooth slide of
limestone into the river. Mountains had loomed into existence in the
last few days. In the distance they made a vast blue rampart which
seemed to prop the western skies. When the sun sank behind them it was
as though a mighty warrior had entered his fortress. Nearer at hand they
fell into lofty hills, over which the forest undulated in unbroken
green. In front the river made a sudden turn and was lost to sight,
disappearing through a frowning gateway of gray cliffs as completely as
though it had plunged into the bowels of the earth.... Landless sat down
on the bank of the stream above the fall and, chin in hand, gazed at
the mountain-piled horizon. The Indian, leaning against a great sycamore
whose branches trailed in the water, watched him attentively.
"My brother is tired," he said at last.
Landless shook his head. The Susquehannock paused, still with his eyes
upon the other's face, and then went on, "We have searched and have
found nothing. There have been five suns since the great rains blotted
out the trail. My brother has done very much. Let him say so and we will
go back to the falls of the far west and thence to the northward, to the
pleasant river, to Monakatocka's people, to the graves of his fathers.
And my brother will be welcome to the Conestogas, and he shall be made
one of them, and become a great warrior, and both he and Monakatocka
will forget the evil days when they were slaves--until they meet a
paleface from the great water. My brother has but to speak."
"If these hills in front of us," said Landless with gloomy emphasis,
"were higher than the Alps, I would climb them. If behind them there
were another range, and then another, and another, if we looked upon the
nearest wave of an ocean of mountains, I would climb them all. If they
are before us, sooner or later I shall find them. But not to know that
they are before us! To know that they may be to the north of us, may be
to the south of us! that we may even have passed them! it is maddening!"
"We have not passed them," said his companion slowly, "for--" he stopped
abruptly, broke off a bough from a sumach bush beside him, and falling
on his knees, leaned far out over the stream. There were many tiny
cascades in the brook with little eddies below them where sticks and
leaves circled gaily around before they were drawn on to the next
miniature fall, and into one of these eddies the Indian plunged the
bough. The next moment he drew it carefully towards him, something white
clinging to one of its twigs. It proved to be a fragment of lace--not
more than an inch or two--and it might have been torn from a woman's
kerchief. Landless's hand closed over it convulsively.
"It came down the stream!" he cried.
The other nodded. "Monakatocka saw it slip over that fall. It has not
been in the water long."
"Then--my God!--they are close at hand! They are up this stream!"
The Indian nodded again with a look of satisfaction upon his bronze
features. Landless raised his eyes to the cloudless blue, and his lips
moved. Then, without a word he turned his face up the mountain stream,
and the Indian followed him.
For an hour they crept warily onward, following the stream in its
capricious wanderings. A broken trailer of grapevine, a pine cone that
had been crushed under foot, the print of a moccasin on a bit of muddy
ground told them that they had indeed recovered the long lost trail.
They moved silently, sometimes creeping on hands and knees through the
long grass where the bank was barren of bushes, sometimes gliding
swiftly through a friendly covert of alder or sumach. The hills closed
in upon them, and became more precipitous. The stream made another bend,
and they were in a ravine where the water flowed over a rocky bed
between banks too steep to afford them secure foothold. The
Susquehannock swung himself down into the shallow water, and motioned to
his companion to do likewise. "Monakatocka smells fire," he whispered.
A moment later they rounded an overhanging, fern-clad rock, and came
full upon that at which Landless stared with a sharp intake of his
breath, and which even his impassive guide greeted with a long-drawn
"Ugh!" of amazement.
Towards them brawled the impetuous stream through a wonderful gorge. The
precipitous hillsides, clothed with a stately growth of oak and
chestnut, changed suddenly into a sheer and awful mass of rock. On
either side of the stream towered up the mighty walls until, two hundred
feet above the water, they swept together, spanning the chasm with a
majestic arch. Great trees crowned it; trailers of grape and clematis
made the span one emerald; below, through the vast opening, shone the
evening sky with little, rosy clouds floating across it. A bird,
flashing downwards from the far-off trees, showed black against the
carnation of the heavens.
The Indian uttered another "Ugh!" then stole forward a pace or two,
stood still, and waited for the other to come up. "My brother sees," he
said simply.
From a covert of arbor-vitae they looked directly up the creek and
through the archway. Beneath it, and for a few yards on the hither side,
the water flowed in a narrower channel, leaving a little strip of
boulder-strewn shore. With a leap of his heart Landless saw, rising
from this shore, the blue smoke of a newly kindled fire, and squatting
about it, or flitting from place to place, a dozen or more dark figures.
At a little distance from the fire, close against the wall of rock, had
been hastily constructed a rude shed or arbor. As he gazed at this
frail shelter, he saw the flutter of a white gown pass the opening which
served as door.
"Night soon," said Monakatocka at his ear. "Then will my brother see one
Iroquois cheat all these Algonquin dogs."
They drew further back into the dense shade of the overhanging boughs. A
large flat boulder afforded them a secure resting-place, and drawing
their feet from the stream, the two curled themselves up side by side
upon its friendly surface. The Indian took some slices of venison from
his wallet, and they made a slender meal, then set themselves patiently
to await the night and the time for action. The tiny encampment was
hidden from them by the thick boughs, but through the screen of
delicate, aromatic leaves they could see the bridge of rock. Around them
was the stir and murmur of the summer afternoon--the wind in the trees,
the whir of insects, the song of birds, the babble of the water--but far
above, where the great arch cut the sky, the world seemed asleep. The
trees dreamed, resting against the crimson and gold of the heavens. The
Indian's appreciation of the wonders of nature was limited--with a
grunted, "All safe: wake before moonrise," he turned upon his side, and
was asleep.
His Anglo-Saxon neighbor watched the pensive beauty of the evening with
a softened heart. The glory behind the tremendous rock faded, giving
place to tender tints of pearl and amethyst. Above the distant tree tops
swam the evening star. In the half light the shadowy forest on either
hand blended with the great bridge carved by some mysterious force from
the everlasting hills. Together they made a mountain of darkness
pierced by a titanic gateway through which one looked into heavenly
spaces. The chant of the wind swelled louder. It was like the moan of
distant breakers. The night fell, and the stars came out one by one
until the blue vault was thickly studded. Up and down the sides of the
ravine flickered millions of fireflies. Their restless glimmer wearied
the eyes. Landless raised his to the one star, large, calm and
beautiful, and prayed, then thought of all that star shone upon that
night--most of the white town of his boyhood, lying fair and still like
a dream town, above a measureless, slumberous sea. A great calm was upon
him. Toil and danger were past; passionate hope and settled despair were
past. That he would do what he had come this journey to do, he now had
no doubt,--would not have doubted had there been encamped between him
and the frail shed built against the rock all the Indians this side of
the South Sea.
The stars that shone through the great archway slowly paled, the stream
became dull silver, and down the towering darkness on either hand fell a
soft and tremulous light like a veil of white gauze. Landless put out
his hand to waken the sleeping Indian, and touched bare rock. A moment
later the branches before him parted. He had heard no sound, but there,
within three feet of him, were the high features and the bold eyes of
the Susquehannock.
"Monakatocka has been to the great rock," he said in a guttural whisper.
"The Algonquin dogs sleep sound, for they do not know that a Conestoga
is on their trail. They have camped beneath the rock three days, and
they will move on the morrow. They have built a shed for the maiden
against the rock. About it lie the Ricahecrians, the moccasins of one
touching the scalp lock of another. They keep no watch, but they have
scattered dried twigs over all the ground. Tread on them, and the god of
the Algonquins will make them speak very loud. But a Conestoga is
cunning. Monakatocka has found a way."
"Then let us go," said Landless, rising.
As they crept from out their leafy covert, the moon appeared over the
tree-tops far above them, flooding the glen with light, and making a
restless shimmer of diamonds of the rushing brook. The two men moved
warily up the stream, setting their feet with care upon the slippery
stones. Once Landless stumbled, but caught at a huge boulder, and saved
himself from falling, sending, however, a stone splashing down into the
water. They drew themselves up within the shadow of the rock, and
listened with straining ears, but there came no answering sound save the
cry of a whip-poor-will, and they went on their way. When they were
within a hundred feet of the encampment, the Indian left the stream,
crossed the strip of earth between it and the cliff, and pointed to a
broken and uneven line that ran at a height of some five feet from the
ground along the face of the cliff. Landless looked and saw a very
narrow ledge, a mere projection here and there of jagged and broken
rock, a pathway perilous and difficult as might well be imagined. So
narrow and insignificant it looked, such a mere seam along the vast
wall, that a white man passing through the ravine might never have
noticed it.
"It is our path," said the Susquehannock. "It leads above the heads of
these dogs and their crackling twigs, straight to where lies the
maiden."
Without a word Landless caught at the stem of a cedar projecting from a
fissure in the rock, and swung himself up to the cleft. The Indian
followed, and with silence and caution they commenced their dangerous
journey. Landless was no novice at such work. When a boy, he had often
rounded the face of frowning white cliffs with the sea breaking in
thunder a hundred feet below. Then a bird's nest had been the prize of
high daring, death the penalty of dizziness or a misstep. Now, although
not two yards below him was the solid earth, a misstep would send him
crashing down to a more fearful doom--but the prize! A light was in his
eyes as he crept nearer and nearer to the shed built against the rock.
They passed the smouldering embers of a large fire, and came full upon
the circle of sleeping Indians. They lay in the moonlight like fallen
statues, their bronze limbs motionless, their high, stern features
impassive as death. From their belts came the glint of tomahawk and
scalping knife, and beside each warrior lay his bow and quiver of
arrows. Only one man had a gun. It lay in the hollow of his arm, its
barrel making a gleaming line against his dark skin. The skin was not so
dark as was that of the other recumbent figures, and the face, flung
back and pillowed on the arm, was not the face of an Indian. It was Luiz
Sebastian. He lay somewhat nearer to the shed than did the Ricahecrians,
and directly in front of the doorway; as Landless paused above him, he
turned and laughed in his sleep.
Slowly and cautiously Landless swung himself down from the ledge, his
moccasined feet touching ground that was clear of pebbles and beyond the
line of twigs. He glanced back to see the gigantic figure of the
Susquehannock, standing upright against the rock, knife in hand, and
watchful eyes roving from one to the other of the sleeping warriors,
then stepped lightly across the body of the mulatto, and entered the
hut.
Within it the darkness was gross. Pausing a moment to accustom his eyes
to the blackness, there came to him from without the hoot of an owl. It
was the signal agreed upon between him and his companion, and he wheeled
to face the danger it announced.
The lithe, yellow figure that had lain in front of the doorway had
waked. As Landless gazed, it rose to its knees, then with a quick,
cat-like grace to its feet, stretched itself, cast a listening look
around the sleeping circle, and laid its gun softly down, then with a
noiseless step and a smile upon its evil face, it too entered the hut.
Landless waited until the mulatto was well across the threshold, and
then sprang upon him, dragging him to the ground, where he held him with
his knee against his chest. He writhed and struggled, but the white man
was the stronger, and held him down; he tried to cry out, but the
other's hands were at his throat choking the life from him. Putting all
his strength into one hand, Landless felt with the other for his knife.
The movement brought his face forward into the shaft of moonlight that
trembled through the opening. "You!" said the eyes of the mulatto, and
his clutching hands tore at the hand about his throat. The hand pressed
closer, and with the other Landless struck the knife into the yellow
bosom. When the writhing form was quite still, he rose from his knees,
and looked down upon the evil face flung back to meet the moonlight. The
struggle had lasted but a minute, and had been without sound--not a
sleeping savage had stirred. But he now heard frightened breathing
within the hut. By this time his eyes were accustomed to the darkness,
and he made out something white niched into the corner opposite. As he
advanced towards it, it started away, and would have brushed past him,
but he seized it. "Madam!" he whispered. "Do not scream. It is I,
Godfrey Landless."
In the darkness he felt the rigor of terror leave the form which he
held. It swayed against him, and the head fell back across his arm. He
raised the fainting figure, and stepping across the body of the mulatto
issued from the shed, to find Monakatocka standing beside the entrance,
knife in hand, and watchfully regardful of the sleeping Ricahecrians.