THE WILDERNESS TRAIL
The sun was already well above the horizon, but the light that stole
through door and smoke-hole struggled unsuccessfully with the gloom
of the Council House. From my seat of honor opposite the doorway I
could make out only a few of the silent figures of Royanehs and
chieftains sitting in concentric circles around the pit in which
burned the tribal Council Fire of the Senecas. But as I watched, the
direct rays of the sun crept over the earthen threshold, and
Donehogaweh, sitting at my left, extended his sinewy arm and dropped
a handful of tobacco leaves upon the smoldering coals in the
fire-pit. A single column of smoke, hazily blue, rose straight in
the air, and the acrid odor of the tobacco permeated the room.
"Oh, Hawenneyo," intoned the Guardian of the Western Door, "and you,
Tharon, the Sky-holder, and Heno, Master of the Thunder, and Gaoh,
Lord of the Winds, you too, oh, Three Sisters of the Deohako, Our
Supporters, and the Honochenokeh, Aids of the Great Spirit and
Ministers of his Mercy, heed our prayer! Open your ears to the words
we send you by the smoke which rises from our Council Fire!"
He cast aside his skin robe of ceremony, and stood erect in his
place, naked except for breechclout and moccasins, his gaunt body as
straight as a youth's, his voice ringing with the virility that
defies age. He folded his arms upon his chest. His face was raised
to the smoke-hole in the roof.
"We are sending forth upon a journey three of our young men. They
have far to go. It may be that they will trespass upon forbidden
ground. We beseech that you will deal gently with them. If they may
go no further, turn their steps aside, and lead them elsewhere. They
are not foolishly curious. They seek to redress a wrong and to learn
what is in store for their people. That is all.
"We show them to you, now, before the people."
He signaled me to rise, and I swung food-bags in place and stood
beside him, leaning on my musket.
"This is Otetiani, my white son. He is a brave warrior, Oh,
Hawenneyu. His mind is clouded by a great sorrow. Take it from him,
and let him return to live out his life in comfort."
Corlaer rose.
"This is Corlaer, my white brother. He is a big man, oh, Hawenneyu,
and he has a big belly. But if his strength is great, he can subdue
his hunger. He is a good friend and a terrible enemy."
Tawannears rose.
"This is Tawannears, born of the Clan of the Wolf, Warden of the
Door. He is the son of my sister. In him flows all that is left of
my blood. He goes to fill an empty place in his heart. If it be
wise, oh, Hawenneyu, grant him what he seeks.
"_Na-ho!_"
And from the circles of indistinct figures came a muttered chorus--
"_Yo-hay!_"
Donehogaweh turned to us as we stood by the fire-pit whence the smoke
had ceased to rise.
"You are going upon a long journey," he said gravely. "Perhaps many
enemies will assail you. Perhaps you will know great danger.
Perhaps you will be faced by death. But I charge you, do not show
fear. If you return with the scalps of all who oppose you, we will
be proud of you. We will dance for you the Wasaseh, the War Dance.
If you do not return at all, we will remember you, and the women
shall teach the children to honor your memories. But do not return
to us unless you can boast of all that you have done, and be ashamed
of nothing.
"_Na-ho!_"
He caught up his skin-robe and draped it around his shoulders as he
led us from the Council House, the assemblage of Royanehs and chiefs
crowding after us through the narrow door. In the flat, hard-beaten
Dancing Place outside, the center of the wide-spreading Seneca
village of Deonundagaa, stood hundreds of warriors, women, and
leaping, scrambling children. They stretched from the door to the
gaondote, or war-post, its charred, splintered stump rising in the
center of the open space, around which were ranked the ganasotes, or
Long Houses, in which the people dwelt, and from which they took
their name.
Most of them were only idly curious, friendly, but with no personal
interest. But many who knew us pressed forward for a last, informal
word before we left. Guanaea, wife of Donehogaweh--I dislike the
debased word squaw, which is inept for a people like the Iroquois,
who rate their women far higher than we do--snatched at my hand, her
kindly, capable glance examining my equipment. The deerskin garments
I wore had been fashioned by her. She had prepared the provender of
jerked meat and mixed charred corn and maple-sugar which filled my
food-bags. She had contrived my barken box of coarse salt. And she
had done as much for Tawannears and Corlaer, too.
"Good-by, Otetiani, my white son," she said, with tears in her eyes.
"May Hawenneyu have you in his keeping! I have no son of my body to
tell me brave tales of what he has done, and you know that you are
doubly dear to me. You must do as Tawannears and Corlaer when the
snow flies and rub yourself with bear's grease. It is good at all
times, and you should learn to like it. And do not bathe so often.
Hanegoategeh, the Evil Spirit, is always on the watch to send ills to
those who rub their skins. But here!"
She took a small pouch of deerskin from her breast and hung it around
my neck by a strip of rawhide.
"That will protect you against all evils! Keep it always on you."
"What is it?" I asked, slipping it inside my leather shirt.
"A most powerful Orenda," she whispered mysteriously. "I had it made
by Hineogetah, the Medicine Man. It is proof against spirits and
bullets. It will turn a scalping-knife and resist a tomahawk."
"But what is it?" I persisted.
She looked around to make sure that nobody was within hearing
distance. Donehogaweh was holding a final discussion with
Tawannears, and the interest of the crowd was concentrated upon them.
"The fang of a bull rattlesnake," she said, ticking the items off on
her fingers. "That is the spirit to resist evil. The eye-tooth of a
wolf that was slain by Sonosowa of the Turtle Clan, for, of course,
no Wolf could slay a wolf, in act of making his kill. That is the
spirit to resist courage. A coal from the Ever-burning Fire at
Onondago. That is the spirit to resist disease. It is the most
powerful Orenda that Hineogetah has ever made, and I pray that it
will keep you safe, for I think you will need it, Otetiani, a white
man venturing into the Land of Lost Souls, where the wrath of Tharon
may fall at any moment."
"But what of Corlaer?" I asked, amused as well as touched by this
essentially feminine point of view.
"Oh, he is different!" she said.
I would have said more to her, but Tawannears turned from his uncle
and slung his furled buckskin shirt across his naked shoulders.
"Come, brother," he called to me. "We must go."
I stooped quickly and kissed Guanaea on her wrinkled cheek. She drew
back, startled, and raised her hand to the spot my lips had touched.
"What is that, Otetiani?" she asked, bewildered.
"It is the way a white son salutes his mother," I answered.
"Do it again," she commanded.
I did, to the stern amusement of Donehogaweh and his attendant
Royanehs.
"I like it," she said. "It is a good son who gives his mother such
pleasure. Surely, Hawenneyu will send you back to me."
"If his Orenda is strong and his valor great, he will return,"
declared Donehogaweh. "But there has been enough of leavetaking. A
warrior's strength should not be sapped by sorrow before he takes the
war-trail. Good-by, Otetiani, my son. Good-by, Corlaer, my brother.
Good-by, Tawannears, son of my sister. We await your return with
honor."
He raised his right arm in the gesture of farewell. A thicket of
arms sprang up in the Dancing Place and we acknowledged the salute in
kind. Then, without a word, Tawannears turned his back and walked
southward through the village. I walked after him, and Corlaer came
behind me. Not a voice was raised to shout after us. Not a call
came from the surrounding houses. I looked back once--as no Indian
would have done--and saw the assemblage standing immobile,
Donehogaweh, with his robe wrapped around him, his eyes fastened upon
us, his face emotionless. Even Guanaea stood now like a statue.
Then we came to the forest wall, and Deonundagaa became a thing of
roof-tops, occasionally glimpsed through the thickening screen of
greenery.
The trail was the usual Indian footway, a stamped-out slot, a groove
just wide enough for a man to pass, worn in the floor and hacked
through the body of the wilderness. We traversed it in silence,
each, I suppose, immersed in his thoughts. For the most part, I
fixed my eyes upon the sliding muscles of Tawannears' back, rippling
so smoothly under his oiled skin, his effortless stride carrying him
ahead at a steady dog-trot. Behind me I could hear the grunting of
Corlaer and the crackle of branches his broad shoulders pushed
against--and by that I knew that we were in absolutely safe country,
for the big Dutchman could be as quiet and as agile with his
mountainous bulk as Tawannears, himself.
My mind turned to the day, three weeks past, that these two had
reëntered my life, after years of separation, and lifted me at once
by the clean ardor of their personalities out of the miasma of
sickening thoughts in which grief had immersed me.
Much had happened since then. Hasty adjustments of my business;
last-minute conferences with the governor and several merchants,
members of his Council, who had generously volunteered to take over
the conduct of my affairs; drilling of John Allen in various niceties
of the situation; the voyage up Hudson's River by sloop to Albany,
huddled under the protection of Fort Orange below the mouth of the
Mohawk, our main outpost on the frontier; a fortnight on the Great
Trail of the Long House; flitting meetings with old friends; the
aroma of the forest; longer and longer hours of sleep; Deonundagaa
and--this.
I tossed back my head and inhaled the scent of the wild grapevine
that twisted around a giant oak, and my eyes took joy from the
mottling of the sunlight drifting through foliage a hundred feet
overhead and the scuttling of a rabbit across the trail. We passed a
beaver-pond, and I drew a lesson in steadfast courage from the
tireless endurance of these small creatures, forever building and
never dismayed by the most arduous undertaking.
Three weeks! And already I saw myself in prospect of a whole man
again. I straightened with the thought, and took pride in my instant
ability to adjust myself to the Indian's trail pace. Tawannears gave
me a quick smile over his shoulder.
"My brother's heart is glad," he said. "I can tell by the lightness
of his step."
"Truly, I feel as I had never thought to feel again," I returned.
"Who would choose to live in a town if he might roam the forest at
will? And the day is passing fair."
"_Oof!_" grunted Corlaer behind me. "It grows hot."
We made thirty miles that day, and camped with some Seneca hunters
who shared their fresh venison with us. In the morning we continued
on our way, still heading south for the headwaters of the Alleghany
River.
"For the route we take," said Tawannears, in discussing the journey,
"the word of my brother Otetiani shall be law. He has a mission to
perform for Gaengwarago. But if you will listen to me you will
strike south to the Alleghany, and follow that into the Ohio, which,
in turn, flows into the Great River that my people call the Father of
Waters. This way, brother, we shall fetch a wide compass around the
French post at Detroit, and come near enough Vincennes for you to
look at it if you wish. But it will be better for you if the French
do not see you or hear of your mission."
"That is true," I admitted. "But for your plan we must have a canoe."
"I can find one," he answered readily. "I cached it on the Alleghany
the last time I returned from an embassy to the Creeks."
We settled our route according to Tawannears' advice. Traveling by
water, as he also pointed out, meant on the whole a much better rate
of progress than land travel, and likewise made it unnecessary for us
to traverse so many tribal ranges. Tawannears, as a war chief of the
Iroquois, was fairly certain of respectful treatment at the hands of
any well-known tribe north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi.
But many of these Indians had fallen under the influence of the
French, and it was questionable what attitude they might adopt if
they discovered who I was. It was safest for all concerned to pass
as swiftly and quietly as possible through the country this side of
the Mississippi. We have nothing to gain by lingering, and perhaps
everything to lose.
The second day we had no beaten trail to aid us, and a cold rain
pelted from the east. The country was seamed with shallow ravines
and gulleys, and at intervals we came to dense belts of undergrowth,
spurred with thorns and bound together by vines and creepers.
Sometimes we circled these patches. Sometimes we hacked a path with
our war-hatchets. We were exhausted when night fell, and welcomed
the shelter offered us by a party of wandering Mohicans; but in the
morning we took up the trail, despite the recurring rain. Slippery
rocks and ankle-deep mud delayed us. The coarse grass of the
occasional swales was treacherous underfoot. But we kept on. And I
was amazed to discover that the weather had no effect upon my
spirits. I enjoyed the independence of it, the sopping foliage, the
persistent drip-drip of the rain, the fatigue that strained every
muscle. More than all I enjoyed our third camp beneath a bark
lean-to hastily contrived. The roof leaked; our fire lasted barely
long enough to cook the wild turkey our Mohican hosts had given us;
and I was soaked to the skin. Yet I slept through the night to
awaken alert and refreshed in the bright dawning of a new day.
In the forenoon Tawannears made his landfall on a tiny creek that fed
the headwaters of the Alleghany. We reached the main stream in
mid-afternoon, and with one curt glance around, he walked straight to
a grass-covered indentation in the bank.
"Here is the canoe, brothers," he said casually.
"_Nein_," Corlaer, without moving from where he stood, his little
eyes fixed on the hiding-place.
Tawannears drew back from the edge of the inlet, a startled look on
his usually blank face.
"Here I left it, well-concealed," he insisted.
"Smoke, down-rifer," remarked the Dutchman.
Tawannears and I shifted our gaze. The Seneca's eyes reflected a
momentary expression of chagrin that he should not have been the
first to mark this sign.
"We will go to it," he announced briefly. "This land is tributary to
the Long House. We shall see who is bold enough to take the canoe of
a chief of the Long House from the threshold of the Western Door."
Of course, he was speaking figuratively, for we were a long three
days' tramping from Deonundagaa; but it was a striking manifestation
of the proud arrogance of the Iroquois that Tawannears, an Indian to
his backbone, insisted upon walking directly into that encampment,
without going to the preliminaries of scouting the strange community.
A half-grown boy sighted us through the trees while we were still
some distance away, and his shrill cries gave the alarm. As we
stepped from the edge of the forest, a dozen men grouped in front of
the four bark shelters that stood just back from the bank. In the
offing I perceived half as many women and some children. They were a
dark, stumpy people, with low-browed, brutish faces.
Tawannears frowned and pointed to a canoe drawn up on the bank.
"Andastes," he spat contemptuously. "They are dogs and thieves who
have no right here. The Hoyarnagowar has bidden them range in the
Susquehanna Valley."
Musket in the hollow of his arm, he marched into the center of the
dour group, every member of which clutched a fusil, trade musket or
strung bow.
"Andastes," he said, "you have taken my canoe."
"We have only our own canoe," answered a thick-limbed warrior, who
was out-thrust from the dingy throng.
"I say it is mine," returned Tawannears with haughty emphasis.
"You are welcome to camp here if you wish; we will give you food,"
said the Andaste evasively.
Tawannears' eyes sparked fire.
"Dog of an Andaste!" he barked. "Who are you to speak as a master to
the Hodenosaunee? You crawl when the word comes to you from
Onondaga! You eat dirt if a warrior of the Long House commands it!
You are the fathers of all lice!"
The Andastes scowled and bunched closer together, with a tentative
poising of weapons. Tawannears drew his tomahawk and held it aloft.
"I am Tawannears, Warden of the Western Door," he said slowly. "I am
fresh come from Deonundagaa. Say which it is to be, Andastes, peace
or war?"
They shrank away from him. All save two or three disappeared into
the lodges or the forest. But they had no thought of violence. The
heart was taken out of them. Tawannears was more than Tawannears.
He was the embodiment of that dread power which these inferior
savages knew could carry annihilation in any direction and almost to
any distance north, south and west. He stood there, ax upraised, the
spirit of the Long House, which even the white men feared.
The Andaste chief lowered his eyes.
"We do not want war," he answered. "Take the canoe. We found it.
We did not know----"
"You know that you have no rights here," Tawannears cut him off.
"This is the hunting ground of the Long House. Here, too, may come
Mohicans, Eries and the People of the Cat.* But Andastes belong in
the Susquehanna valley. Get back there. If I find you here when I
pass this way again, I will carry fire and tomahawk against you and
all your people."
* Jegosasa, sometimes called Neuter Nation.
He turned on his heel, and with a gesture to us, stalked down to the
shore and pushed the canoe into the water.
"Let us go on, brothers," he urged. "Here the air is unclean."
He took the bow paddle, and I crouched amidships. Corlaer, gentle as
a girl for all his bulk, slipped gingerly into the stern. Their
blades bit into the shallow water, and under the impulse of those
slow, easy strokes, the light craft fairly danced downstream, gaining
speed as it caught the drift of the current. We rounded a curve, and
the Andaste encampment disappeared from view.
"Will they obey you?" I asked Tawannears.
He laughed shortly.
"They will be gone before the sun rises again, brother Otetiani.
They know well that they have no right there, but the place is out of
the way and far from the Door, and they thought they would be safe.
They are a nation of women. We do not even let them fight for us."
Paddling was very different work from wood-ranging, and we made ten
miles before darkness compelled us to land on a miniature island and
pitch camp in the lee of a big rock. We had a small fire so arranged
that its glow could not be seen from either shore, and beside it we
slept under the stars. With the dawn we were up and afloat once
more, munching the burnt corn and maple-sugar from our food-sacks.
This day I observed that Tawannears seemed to redouble his vigilance.
From his position in the bow he studied the shore-line constantly,
and in the afternoon he halted an hour before daylight failed, to
take advantage of an opportunity to camp upon another island.
"Why so careful?" I grumbled. "Do you think these Andastes may be
tracking us, after all!"
He shook his head, smiling.
"No, brother, but we are entering a country where the Long House is
feared, but where its word is no longer law. Anywhere here we may
meet bands of young warriors of a score of tribes who have taken
advantage of the Spring hunting to look for their first scalps. They
would see in us only three victims for killing."
But despite--or it may be because of--our vigilance, we saw no trace
of other men, save once when making a portage around some rapids. As
we were in the act of relaunching our canoe three other craft, each
containing three red warriors, rounded the next bend downstream. We
waited for them, arms ready. But they made the sign of peaceful
intent as they approached, and we held our fire. They were
Cherokees, fine, tall men, very much like the Iroquois, and they told
us frankly that they were an embassy carrying belts to Detroit They
said their people were having trouble with the colonists in the
Carolinas and they desired to take steps to establish an alliance
with the French.
"The French are no different from the English, brothers," replied
Tawannears. "They are both Asseroni.* They are both white. We are
red. There are white men who understand the Indian. Two are my
brothers here. But they have few among their race who agree with
them. You go upon a hopeless errand. The French will make you
promises. They will give you arms, and use you when it suits their
ends, and when they have no use for you they will let you go to the
stake."
* Ax-makers.
The Cherokees, squatting in a half-circle on the shore facing us and
the beached canoes, exchanged uneasy glances.
"Then what does our brother of the Hodenosaunee advise?" asked the
oldest chief. "What policy do his people pursue to uphold
themselves? They are directly between French and English. If there
is no help from one or the other, what is the Indian to do?"
"The Hodenosaunee maintain their place by strength," replied
Tawannears. "They have made their help worthwhile to the English.
But the time will come, brothers, when the English will no longer
need us, when the white man's firewater has debauched our young men,
when so many white men have come over the Great Water that they will
outnumber the Indian. Then the Indian must go."
"Where?" demanded the Cherokee.
Tawannears waved his arm down-stream.
"Brothers," he said, "I journey to find what lies betwixt this and
the sunset--and beyond. It may be that Hawenneyu has set aside a
country for the red man that the white man cannot take."
"If the red man gives ground forever, then surely the white man will
drive him out," declared the Cherokee.
"True," agreed Tawannears. "And if the red men united together, the
white man could never drive them out. Your brothers, the Tuscaroras,
came north in my father's time, driven from their homes by the same
white men who now harass you. We of the Hodenosaunee took them into
our League, and now they are safe. The walls of the Long House
protect them. Perhaps the Hoyarnagowar would decree a lengthening of
the walls if the Cherokees desired to enter the League."
"Yes, as younger brothers to sit outside the Fire Circle, without
casting votes in the Council of Royanehs," returned the Cherokee with
passionate emphasis. "That is what happened to the Tuscaroras. They
are dependents of the Hodenosaunee. We Cherokees are a great people.
Shall we lose ourselves in the fabric of the Long House?"
Tawannears emptied the ashes from his pipe and rose.
"My brother has pointed the reason why the red man cannot stand
against the white man," he said quietly. "Outside of the Long House
the powerful tribes will not hold together. The Hodenosaunee can
conquer people like the Eries or the Mohicans, but we see no interest
in conquering the Cherokees--and if we did not conquer you, you would
not join with us."
"Because we might not join you as equals!" the Cherokee retorted
hotly.
"There is no question of equality or inequality," asserted
Tawannears. "But the Founders of the Great League created only so
many Royanehs, and we who follow in their footsteps may not correct
their work. Go to Onondaga with your belts, and Tododaho, the
greatest of our Royanehs, who warms his mind by the Everlasting Fire,
will make your hearts strong with wise talk. Let him tell you,
better than I can, how to unite for strength."
The Cherokee rose with a stern light of resentment in his face.
"We go to Detroit," he said. "Better be allies of the Frenchman, and
play one race of white man against the other, than be slaves of the
Hodenosaunee."
Tawannears did not answer him and was silent until we had paddled an
hour or more.
"What did you think of our talk, brother Otetiani?" he asked
suddenly, peering over his shoulder at me.
"I thought that you were right," I answered.
"I am so sure I am right that I can see the whole future of the red
man," he cried. "He will perish because he cannot break down his
tribal barriers."
"Der Frenchman, too," spoke up Corlaer behind me.
I turned in mingled amusement and surprise. It was seldom he used
more than monosyllables.
"_Ja_," he continued, "der Englishman, he takes in all, Dutch, Swede,
Cherman, Frenchman. But der Frenchman, he is der Frenchman. Der
Englishman he comes on top. He-mixes. _Ja_."