THE RAIDERS.
Now it may be that the things I have to relate will seem strange and
un-Christian and wondrous, even as they do to me. Yet are they but
the truth. In that far Northern land many such things come to pass,
for there man is very close to the forces of the world, and whether
it be that his mind is quickened by the dread silence of the snows,
or whether there is in truth a nearness to God in that silence, I
know not. It has often vexed me and the answer is not yet.
But this much I do know. Holding to none of the superstitions around
me, I then believed and do still affirm that the whole matter of the
Moose of Mystery, the Mighty One, was under the direction of some
Higher Power, and that Gib o' Clarclach came to his triumph and his
end through that same guidance. Howbeit, I had best leave you to
judge for yourselves.
That storm came upon us and closed us in our lodges for two days. On
the third morning it was decided that we should start forth just as
soon as the crust had formed strong enough to bear dogs and sled. In
the meantime, Uchichak and I went forth upon a last hunt, thinking to
bring in a caribou or elk, for with the winter the bison had drifted
far to the south of us.
Two days of idleness and gorging, as was the custom of the Crees, had
well-nigh finished the stock of food in the village. Therefore most
of the men fared forth on the hunt. Radisson and the two Mohawks
trailed together, admitting none other to their company, and on the
second morning thereafter we four were to set out upon our quest.
According to custom, the warriors set out in small groups or singly,
scattering in all directions. Ruth was engaged in making deerskin
scabbards for the fusils, since in that terrific cold it was
impossible to set fingers to iron.
Uchichak and I were accompanied by a lively young brave named
Wapistan, or The Marten, who had often gone out with us, and whose
tracking powers were remarkable. As ever, we were armed only with
bows and flint-tipped arrows. My own weapon, which I had made with
great care, was a source of great interest to the Crees, for it was
full twice as long and thick as theirs, and even Uchichak could
scarcely bend it, although to me the trick came easily enough. I
would never be as expert as was The Crane, but when it came to
distance I could overshoot him greatly. This, however, was more by
reason of my greater strength, for which quality of body I later
thanked God most heartily.
The fierceness of the storm seemed to have driven most of the larger
animals to the shelter of the hills, and although we circled widely
to the cast of the village and then to the north, by that evening we
had found nothing save a few rabbits, which barely were sufficient
for our own needs. As there was another day ahead of us, we camped
that night beneath some willows on the bank of an ice-clad river. I
urged Uchichak to push forward to the hills in the northeast, but he
refused stoutly.
"Those are the Ghost Hills, brother. There walks the Mighty One, and
the Spirits of the Dead who Dance. We can hear them singing in the
wind. We must not disturb them."
All that evening The Crane was very silent and downcast, and I came
to know that he considered that this was our last trip together. To
his mind, the Great Spirit would never allow me to come back from
that hunt against the Mighty One. The Ghost Hills were sacred, and
were about to be impiously profaned. Indeed, since that meeting of
the Council we had come in for no small share of reverence from all
the warriors, who held that we were bravely going to our deaths. I
learned later that it had been decided that the Yellow Lily should
become the adopted daughter of the tribe, should we fail to return.
Early in the morning the three of us left our brush shelter and
started forth, determined to avoid the disgrace of returning to the
village empty-handed. Now we circled back toward the south again,
overlooking no patch of woods where elk or deer might be sheltering.
The morning was still young when we came to a break of heavy-laden
pines, and started through them warily. Suddenly a cry from
Wapistan, at one side, called us to him.
"Come quickly!"
We found him standing in the midst of some bushes, where the snow had
been kicked away in a wide circle, affording access to the tender
green shoots beneath. But there was no expression of joy on his
face, and as we came up The Crane halted abruptly.
"Let us go away quickly," he muttered. I was amazed at this, for it
was plain to me that here was the bed of a moose, and I stared at the
two men until Wapistan led me over to the side of the little clearing.
"Let my brother look upon the tracks of the Mighty One," was all he
said. There before me were such tracks as I had never seen--great
imprints of sharp hoofs that could only have been made by the giant
moose which had attacked us in the beginning. I have hunted many
moose, since then, but never have I found such a trail as that.
"Listen, Uchichak," I said, trembling with eagerness. "If he is the
Mighty One, he must have been sent to us, for we are far from the
Hills. Let us follow. I will hunt him, you need not."
"The Mighty One walks on the storm," murmured The Crane, glancing
around apprehensively. None the less, my words had impressed him.
"We will see whither the tracks lead. It may be that the Great
Spirit has sent him to his children. He may lead us to a herd of
elk. We will follow a little way."
And therein was the beginning of our strange pilgrimage.
Without delay we started out, Wapistan leading and Uchichak bringing
up the rear. The great caution displayed by these hunters told me
more than any words could have done that our quest was a dangerous
one. With bows strung and ready, every aisle of the forest was
searched ahead of us, and with every crack of sticks and trees in the
great frost I could see Wapistan spring to alertness. But all around
us was nothing save the deathly silence, through which the
frost-crackles and the "sluff-sluff" of our snowshoes sounded loud.
Mile after mile we plowed along, from patch to patch of forest, and
still the deep tracks of the giant beast led us onward. The
fresh-fallen snow had made heavy going for him, since at each step he
plunged through to his knees. The Crees might consider that he
walked on the wind, but for my own part I thought him a feckless
creature to leave the shelter of the Hills in such a storm. And in
that thought I neglected the workings of Providence, as I later
admitted readily enough.
The trail presently led us to a fairly large river, and out across
the ice. The other bank was bordered with thick trees, and as we
neared them I turned to The Crane and smiled.
"If the Mighty One walked on the storm, Uchichak, it looks as though
men had also been able to walk there."
But the Indians had already caught sight of the dark trail on the
farther shore, and with a guttural exclamation of surprise we all
dashed forward. There in the shelter of the trees the snow was not
so deep, and the tracks of the Mighty One led us straight to a deep
trail plowed in the snow, where they were lost.
"Are they other hunters from the village?" I asked in my ignorance.
The two Crees kicked away their snowshoes and crept about examining
the trail, while I leaned on my bow. It was plain enough that the
Moose had gone forward in this path, where the snow had been worn
away and packed deep for him, whereat I began to think better of his
sense.
Uchichak straightened up suddenly, and at sight of his face I knew
that something was wrong--terribly wrong. His usual stolidity had
given place to rage and grief, and he turned to me with a flame in
his dark eyes.
"My brother, we must hasten to the village at once. Men have come
and gone, and they are not of our own people."
Still I realized nothing of what he meant, although his face sobered
me.
"Then do you go," I returned, "while I continue on the trail of the
Mighty One--" But Wapistan had sprung to my side, eager and wrathful.
"Brave Eyes cannot read the trail," he cried sharply. "See, here
have gone many men--two or three tens of men. Their tracks lead away
from the village, and with them goes a dog-sled. They travel toward
the Ghost Hills, and their snowshoes are of Chippewa make. Let us
hasten, my brothers!"
Then I groaned, for I remembered what Radisson had said of Gib,
called The Pike, and his Chippewa followers. If these men had come
to the village when the hunters were away, what had happened?
Right speedily was all thought of the Mighty One forgotten, as we
took up the trail in desperate haste toward the village. Wapistan
went on to say that it was very fresh, that the band had not passed
us more than an hour previously, and in no long time his words were
borne out. For, as we turned a sharp bend in the river-trail, we
came upon two men striding rapidly toward us. They were not more
than a hundred yards away, and I did not need Uchichak's hasty
exclamation to tell me that they were Chippewas. For one was our old
friend Soan-ge-ta-ha, though the other I knew not.
For a bare second we stared at each other, then I saw the Chippewa
chief throw off the coverings of a musket. I dashed my two
companions headlong, just as the weapon roared out and gave vent to a
cloud of smoke. The bullet sang overhead, and at this unprovoked and
cowardly attack I picked up my strung bow and drew it taut.
The two Chippewas had darted aside just after the chief fired, and
were speeding for the shelter of the trees. But my arrow sped faster
than they. Even as Uchichak and Wapistan darted forward, I saw Brave
Heart stumble, and the musket flew far from him. He was up and
running again, however, but the brief pause had given my vengeful
friends a lead. All four disappeared among the trees, with wild
cries that thrilled my heart.
I followed slowly after them, glad that my savage aim had not gone
true, for in all my life I had never shed the heart-blood of a man.
That these Chippewas were enemies there was no doubt, and I prudently
stopped to recover the musket dropped by the chief, for such things
were valuable. A brief wonder came to me that the weapon had not
dismayed the two Crees, but I hastened to follow them in among the
trees. As I did so, I caught a glimpse of something dark speeding
toward us from the direction of the village, but I stopped not to see
what it was.
From the trees and bushes came the sound of men struggling, and when
I had broken through I saw the four in front. Wapistan was calmly
sitting in the snow, wiping his long flint knife, and I turned from
him with a shudder. Soan-ge-ta-ha and Uchichak were at handgrips,
but The Crane plainly had the mastery over the Chippewa chief, in
whose shoulder still stood my arrow. Even as I plunged forward
through the snow, Brave Heart bent backward, the knife dropped from
his nerveless fingers, and Uchichak stood up to meet me.
"It was a good fight, brother!" he said calmly. "This Chippewa dog
is only faint from loss of blood. The Marten has sharp teeth, and is
a warrior. Good!"
I kneeled over Brave Heart, pulled the arrow through his
shoulder-muscles, and roughly bound up the already freezing wound.
As I did so, I told the others of the dark object that I had seen
approaching, and Wapistan slipped away. The Crane aided me in
getting Brave Heart up with his back against a stump, and barely had
we done so when there was a crash of bushes behind us, and in swept
Radisson, The Keeper, and Swift Arrow, leading the same dog-sled
which had been prepared for our hunt of the Mighty One. The Chippewa
chief opened his eyes.
"Soan-ge-ta-ha," burst out Radisson angrily in English, "your heart
is bad! You have led your warriors against the Crees, stealing upon
them in the night, and you shall suffer for it bitterly!"
"What has happened?" I cried out, a great fear rising in me. "What
does it all mean?"
Brave Heart smiled cruelly, the two Mohawks stood impassive.
Radisson turned to me with a sudden sob shaking his great frame, and
his white-bearded face seemed shot with lightnings as he made reply
in Cree, that the warriors might understand.
"What does it mean? It means that The Pike is on his last war-path,
Davie! Last night a band of thirty Chippewas burst on the village.
The few men held them back until most of the women could escape with
some few things, then--then the village was destroyed."
A grunt broke from Uchichak, and his hand went to his knife as he
stood over the wounded chief. But I flung him away, a question hot
on my lips.
"Was it Ruth they were after? Did they harm her?"
"Yes and no, lad. They bore her away captive on a sled.
Fortunately, these dogs and our sled had been hidden out of their
reach. When the Mohawks and I returned we took them and came after.
You shall go forward with us, and we will follow the party."
"What can we do against them?" I exclaimed hopelessly.
"We can watch and wait," returned Radisson grimly, with a significant
look at the two gaunt warriors beside him. "Uchichak, do you take
this Chippewa back and hold him captive. Gather your hunters
speedily--even now they are coming in. Send a runner to the village
of Talking Owl and bid his young men join you. Then follow our
trail, even though it may lead to the Ghost Hills. There, perhaps,
The Pike will imagine that you do not dare follow."
Uchichak said nothing. He and Wapistan jerked Brave Heart to his
feet, replaced his snowshoes for him, and the three departed. So
suddenly and unexpectedly had the dire news broken upon me, that I
stood as if dazed. Radisson came and put a kindly hand on my
shoulder.
"Come, lad, all is not lost. They will not harm the little maid, and
we must hasten on their trail. Not even The Pike would dare harm her
while their chief is a captive. Come, there is work for us ahead.
Now tell me your tale as we go forward."
Brokenly, I told him how we had come upon the trail. When I
finished, Radisson's face was lit with a stern glow, and he raised a
hand to the Mohawks.
"My brothers, the Great Spirit is fighting for us! The Mighty One
has led Brave Eyes to the trail. He will lead us on where the trail
is lost!"
And that was the manner in which the madness of Radisson began--a
madness, I think, which was sent by the Great Spirit of whom he spoke.