THE SEEKING OF THE TRIBESMEN
Ouenwa and Black Feather turned their faces from the little fort and the
hostile camp beyond the white river, and set bravely forward into the
darkness. Black Feather led the way, avoiding hummocks, bending and
twisting through the coverts, crossing the open glades like a
shadow--and all without any noise except the scarcely audible padding of
his stringed shoes. Ouenwa trod close after. They had not gone far
before the snow began to fall and puff around them in blinding clouds.
The trees bent tensely under the lash of the wind. More than one
frost-embrittled spire came crashing down. Still the warrior and the lad
held on their journey, for they were both fresh and strong, and eager to
widen the spaces of wilderness between themselves and the camp of
Panounia.
Shortly before dawn they dug a trench in the snow on the leeward side of
a thicket of low spruces, broke fir-branches for a bed, built a fire
between the walls of white, and cooked and ate a frugal repast, and
then rolled themselves in their rugs of skin and fell asleep. They had
no fear that any of Panounia's people would disturb their slumbers. They
lay as motionless and unknowing as logs for several hours. Then Ouenwa
turned over and yawned, and Black Feather sat up, wide-awake in an
instant. The morning was bright and unclouded. The white sun was
half-way up the blue shell of the eastern sky. All around the new snow
lay in feathery depths. On the dark firs and spruces it clung in even
masses, which showed that the wind had died down long before the flakes
had ceased to fall. Ouenwa and his comrade ate frugally of cold meat and
bread, swallowed some brandy and water, and resumed their journey.
Not until the afternoon of the third day following their departure from
Fort Beatrix did the travellers sight the smoke of a fire. It was Black
Feather, attaining the summit of a ridge a few paces ahead of Ouenwa,
who caught the first sight of the thin, melting signal of human life. It
wavered up from a wood in a valley a few hundred of yards in front. On
their right hand lay the ice-edged gray waters of an arm of the sea. On
their left stretched dark forest and empty barren to a mountainous
horizon. In front lay hope, and behind the spur of menace.
"Is there a village yonder?" asked Ouenwa.
Black Feather replied negatively.
"The stream is Little Thunder," he said, in his own language, "and there
was no lodge there when last I saw it. We will approach under the
shelter of those spruces in the hollow. It makes the journey a few paces
longer, and perhaps the arrival twenty times safer."
Ouenwa nodded his sympathy with the caution expressed by his friend.
"But let us hurry," he said. "Remember that around the stockade the
black captain is ever stirring the courage of the night-howlers."
At last, creeping on all fours, they peered from the screen of brush
into a tiny clearing on the north bank of Little Thunder. The stream was
not ten yards across at this point. On its white surface ran several
trails of snow-shoes. The smoke which had attracted them to the place
curled up from the apex of a large, bark-roofed wigwam. As the
travellers watched, an old woman appeared in the doorway of the lodge.
Ouenwa recognized her as a wise herb-doctor who had been a friend and
adviser of Soft Hand. He whispered the information to Black Feather.
"Then we may show ourselves," said the other, "for if this woman was
the great chief's friend you may be sure that death has only
strengthened her loyalty. It is so with women--with the wise and the
foolish alike. A man will stand close to his comrade in the days of his
glory and in the press of battle; but it is the squaw who keeps the
fallen shield freshly painted and the cause of the departed ever before
the matters of the present day. A man must have the reward of his
friend's praise and the joy of his companionship; but a woman makes a
god of the departed spirit and looks for her reward beyond the red
gates."
Ouenwa had nothing to say to his friend's sage reflections, for all he
knew of women was that a radiant creature far back in Fort Beatrix had
his heart in thrall. So he led the way from cover, and down the bank, in
silence.
The old squaw in the doorway of the lodge caught sight of them
immediately. She turned into the dark interior of the wigwam, but
appeared before they were half-way across the frozen stream, with a bow
in her hand and an arrow on the string. Black Feather and the lad raised
their right hands, palms forward, above their heads, and continued to
advance. The old hag lowered her weapon, but did not relax her attitude
of vigilance. Close to the rise of the bank the travellers paused, and
the lad called out that he was Ouenwa, grandson of Soft Hand, and that
his companion was Black Feather, the adopted son of Montaw, the
arrow-maker. At that the guardian of the wigwam forsook her post and
advanced to meet them.
The herb-doctor, who had been one of Soft Hand's advisers, was not
attractive to the eye. She was bent hideously, though still of
surprising bodily strength. Her head was uncovered, save for the matted
locks of hair that clung about it and fell over her ears and neck like a
wig of gray tree-moss. Her eyes were deep and black and fierce. One
yellow fang stood like a sentinel in the cavity of her mouth. Her hands
were claws. Her skin was no lighter in hue and no finer in texture than
was the tanned leather of her high-legged moccasins. Her garments were
unusually barbaric--lynx-skins shapelessly stitched together and hung
about with belts and charms, and a great knife of flint nearly as long
as a cutlass. Her corded, scraggy arms hung naked at her sides, as
indifferent to the nip of the frost as to the regard of strange eyes.
"Child," she said, "I heard that you were killed--that Panounia's men
had slain you and a party of English; but that I knew to be false, for I
saw not your spirit with the spirits of your fathers. So I believed
that you had crossed the great salt water with the strangers."
Ouenwa told his story, to which the old woman listened with the keenest
interest and many nods of the head.
"It is well," she said. "They are scattered now, some in hiding, some
sullenly obedient to Panounia, and some in captivity. Your need will
bring them together and awake their sleeping courage. I know of a full
score of stout warriors who will draw no bow for Panounia, and who are
all within a day's journey of this spot, but sadly scattered,--yea,
scattered in every little hollow, like frightened hares."
"Do you live in this great lodge all by yourself?" inquired Black
Feather.
"My sons are in the forest, seeing to their snares," replied the woman,
eying the tall brave sharply, "but within are a sick woman and a small
child who escaped, ten days ago, from one of Panounia's camps."
She stood aside and motioned them to enter the lodge. Ouenwa went ahead,
with Black Feather close at his heels. Within, it took them several
seconds to adjust their eyes to the gloom of smoke and shadow. Presently
they made out a couch of fir-branches and skins beyond the fire, and on
it a woman, half-reclining, with her arm about a child. Both the woman
and the child were gazing at the visitors. The child began to whimper.
Black Feather uttered a low cry, and sprang over the fire. He had found
his squaw and one of his lost children.
The sickness of Black Feather's wife was nothing but the result of
hardship and ill-treatment. Already, under the herb-doctor's care, she
was greatly improved. The meeting with her warrior went far to complete
the cure of the old woman's broths and soft furs. The child was well;
but the woman knew nothing of the whereabouts of their elder offspring.
Ouenwa and Black Feather did not tarry long at the lodge beside Little
Thunder. With the younger of their aged hostess's sons for guide, they
set out that same day to find the hidden warriors who were against the
leadership of Panounia.