"Iroquois smoke!"
How he could tell the difference between one smoke and another the lads
could never make out, for he seemed unable to explain it to them; but
that he did know, and could often tell something of the people who fed
the fire by the tell-tale column of smoke, they never doubted.
Once, as the White Eagle looked long and keenly at a very faint column
of blue smoke, about half-a-mile inland, Jamie thought that for an
instant he could trace a somewhat puzzled and anxious look clouding the
face of the chief; but it passed as quickly as it came, and the faintest
promise of a smile spread over his countenance, as though the smoke
recalled pleasant memories.
"Is that Iroquois smoke, too, chief?" he asked.
"No Iroquois smoke this time," he replied
"Can it be an enemy, then?"
"No enemy."
"Then who can he be who has lit that fire?"
"Paleface!" ejaculated the chief.
*CHAPTER X*
*A LONELY FRONTIERSMAN*
"Paleface?" exclaimed the lads, standing up in the canoe, and straining
their eyes as if to catch a glimpse of that mysterious stranger who was
hidden in the depth of the forest.
"Aren't you afraid that we may be attacked?"
"Ugh!" replied the warrior, without moving a muscle of his dark face, or
showing the slightest trace of alarm. "Him--great paleface hunter.
Friend of the Iroquois. Smoke peace-pipe with the White Eagle."
As they paddled quickly past the spot Jamie turned again and again to
look at that faint column of receding smoke, now growing fainter and
fainter.
"Who can this paleface hunter be, so far away from his home and friends,
dwelling alone in these dark forests? Perhaps he is an exile from his
country!" murmured the lad to himself. Then a strange yearning came
over him. He longed to go ashore, that he might join this lonely
frontiersman, and share his hardships and his perils, but he hesitated
to suggest it to the chief, whose face now bore such a stolid, mask-like
look. And soon the long, swift strokes of the paddles bore them past
the spot.
There must be something in nature--though perfectly inexplicable to us,
who know so little of the unseen verities--that transmits through the
ether that surrounds us, feelings of sympathy and love to kindred souls,
just as in these later days of our civilisation the wireless message is
flung from ship to ship and coast to coast. For the fact remains, that
just at this moment the sturdy paleface hunter, as he stooped to place
more pine-wood on his blazing fire, felt at his very heart a twinge of
pain, so that for an instant his eyes were blurred, and he saw no longer
the blazing fire, the dark forest, or the pile of beaver skins that his
skilful hands had taken, for another vision rose before his face.
'Twas the vision of an old-world village, in a sweet little island that
rose out of the main, far-off; and to him 'twas "Home, sweet home"
still, though his feet must never tread that land again, for he was an
exile, a victim to the cruel game-laws, that had banished him from his
country. Here, 'twas true, the whole forest was his, with all it
contained. The beaver, the otter, the fish in the streams, and even the
red-spotted deer were his for the taking; but still his heart stole back
again to that forbidden land.
"Oh, that I might drop a tear and plant a flower on thy grave, Lisbeth!
Thou wert all the world to me--a true wife and a friend. And the bairn?
Oh, my God! the bairn! Where is he?"
And here this strong man, hardened by nature to all the toils and
dangers of the forest, the rapids, the wild beasts, and the scalping
parties of red foes, broke down in an agony of tears and wept, for he
thought of his little blue-eyed laddie of two years; the poor motherless
bairn, as he had last seen him, with his flaxen curls nestling in his
arms.
How often he had longed to go home and find his boy, to find even if he
were yet alive; but the thought came to him each time--
"How have they taught the lad to regard his father? Perhaps they have
told him that I am dead! Well, maybe 'tis better so! Or perhaps they
have said, 'He is an exile in a far-off land, and he will return no
more, for in the eyes of the law he is a criminal.' Then so it must
remain, lest the father's curse should blight the lad; but what would I
not give to see my child again after all these years."
Then he flung himself down upon a pile of skins and wept again. That
night sleep fled from his eyelids, as it had often done before when
these longings for the homeland had come over him, but never, never
before had his agony been so great. He prayed his God for something he
had never dared to ask before. It was that he might be permitted,
before he died, to look upon the face of his child again, even though
the lad should not know him. And his prayer was answered, for an angel
from the stars above came down and kissed him, as he lay beneath the
silent pines, and whispered--
"It shall be!"
And he slept, for his cares had fled, and a deep peace had filled his
soul.
Such were thy sons, oh, England! Their bold, proud spirits chafed and
were cramped within thy narrow limits, and narrower laws, made by and
for the selfish few, in days, happily, long past. And yet they loved
their native land, though exiled from hearth and home; and when duty
called, they lined thy distant frontiers; they held thy far-flung
borders, and were content to leave their bones to bleach beside some
lonely outpost of the Empire they helped to build. But let us for a
while leave this lonely frontiersman, and return to our friends and
their Iroquois companions.
Four days had been spent in navigating Lake Ontario, and they were now
approaching Niagara, below whose thunderous rapids stood the French fort
that guarded both the river and the lakes.
Towards evening on the fourth day a distant speck was seen approaching
from the westward, and the White Eagle, standing in the bow of the
foremost canoe, as he gazed into the face of the setting sun, permitted
a sudden cry of surprise to escape from his lips--
"Algonquins!"
'Twas only too true, for there, rapidly approaching and hugging the
southern shore of the lake, was a large party of their hated foes, in
their big canoes of elm-bark.
The discovery appeared to be mutual, for both parties rent the air with
their respective war-cries, and hastened ashore to make ready for the
coming battle. Darkness soon settled over forest and lake, but all
through the night the woods resounded with the dreadful war-whoops of
the Indians, as they chanted their war-songs, and worked themselves into
a frenzy of fury.
What a night that was for the two young paleface warriors! The war
fever of the Iroquois had in a measure entered into their blood, for
they saw in the Algonquins the allies of France and the enemies of
England, so they prepared to defend themselves in the morning.
Day dawned at last, and White Eagle and his braves pressed forward to
battle; not shoulder to shoulder, nor in unresisting phalanx, as the
soldiers of the palefaces fought, but in true Indian fashion the
dark-skinned warriors leapt from tree to tree, and cover to cover.
Showers of arrows and bullets rattled amongst the trees and rocks, and
the wild yells became every moment fiercer and fiercer. Several warriors
had fallen on each side, and a dozen scalps had been taken, as the
frequent yells of triumph announced.
Deeds of desperate valour were recklessly performed. Homeric contests,
ending in frightful wounds or instant death were frequently engaged in,
when suddenly, from behind the cover of a huge elm-tree, the Algonquin
chief, his plume of black raven feathers nodding with his frenzied
action, rushed into the open and challenged the Iroquois leader to
single combat.
With a yell of delight White Eagle bounded into the clearing, and
accepted the offer. Then, instantly, as if by instinct, every weapon was
lowered, and the non-combatants ranged themselves on either side, in a
rude semicircle, with a rising back-ground of tall pines and elms, to
watch this gladiatorial contest, which threatened to be both brief and
sanguinary.
Then followed a pause, during which the two chiefs addressed each other
in the figurative but boastful braggadocia, in the use of which the red
men excelled all the other nations of the world. The Algonquin chief,
whose name was "Black Raven," began as follows--
"Mingo dog! where are the scalps of the Iroquois warriors who came to
the Canada River? Ten of them have not returned to their tribe, since
the snows melted. My children went to the lodges of the Maquas and the
Oneidas, but they found only squaws and children. The scalps of the
Iroquois are in the wigwams of the Canadas, and the Canada Father has
rewarded his children with many hatchets, and powder to burn in the face
of their enemies, because they have cleared the snakes from the woods!
The moccasins of the Iroquois cannot be found in the forest. They have
been driven from the hunting-grounds of their fathers, never, never to
return----!"
"Skunk of the Algonquins!" retorted the Iroquois, "your tongue is
forked, like the serpent that hides its head in the grass, and your arm
is feeble as the squaw of the Delaware. The singing-birds have called
your young men from their Canada lodges, so that my warriors may take
their scalps, for before the sun is amongst the pines, your warriors
will have followed him into the hunting-grounds of the Great Spirit."
"Iroquois muskrat! Your tongue is sharper than your knife!"
"Hark! What is that sound that I hear? 'Tis the wailing of the squaws
in your Canada lodges, because their young men return no more."
"Iroquois snake! Skulking fox!" retorted the Algonquin. "'Tis to you
that the singing-birds have spoken, but they have spoken falsely.
Slaves of the Yengeese! Never more will your war-whoop be heard in the
woods; never more will you fish the streams and hunt the deer, for
before the sun shall rise the girdles of my young men will be heavy with
your scalps. 'Tis the Mingoes who are women, like the Delawares. They
killed my young men when the face of the Manitou was turned away from
His children in anger, but now the Great Spirit has delivered you into
our hands, and nevermore shall your squaws behold you."
"Dogs of the Canadas! The Iroquois are free and strong as the eagle
that soars to the clouds, but the Algonquins are skunks and muskrats.
They are slaves to the Canada palefaces. Go hunt the deer and the moose
for your French Father, and when, for your portion, he throws you the
offals--be grateful."
The tomahawk of the French Indian whirled in the air, as, stung by this
biting insult to his tribe, he hurled it at his enemy, and so true was
the aim that it only missed the scalp of the Iroquois by an inch, for it
carried away half his plume of eagle feathers.
A loud cry of vengeance arose from his warriors as this deadly missile
whizzed past their leader.
The next instant the wild scream of an eagle, which was the peculiar
war-cry of this renowned chief, rang through the glades and across the
lake as the leaders closed in deadly combat. Like the leap of the
panther, when robbed of its young, was the fierce onset of the Iroquois
chief. Fifty gleaming knives were snatched from their sheaths, and held
aloft; but before the warriors on either side could reach the spot, the
tomahawk of the White Eagle had stretched his opponent upon the ground,
and with keen knife he had already snatched away the trophy that honour
demanded.
Then, amid war-whoops and wild yells of savage fury, the fierce passions
of the warriors became undammed, and a short but sanguinary conflict
occurred. The Algonquins, despite the loss of their leader, fought
bravely for a while, but were at length overwhelmed by the relentless
fury of the Iroquois. Then they quickly broke and scattered through the
forest, pursued by their enemy.
Thus ended another of those fierce fights, so common amongst the Indians
tribes in the middle of the eighteenth century, while all the time the
armies of the two paleface nations from towards the sun-rising were
preparing for that final death grapple, which was to settle for ever the
destiny of the northern half of that mighty continent; and to drive the
scattered tribes of the children of the Manitou ever westward towards
the setting sun.
In this brief fight the youths had remained little more than passive
spectators, for they soon saw how the conflict must end, and that
without their help the Iroquois, although outnumbered, would secure the
victory.
"I do wish, Jack, that our allies would desist from that barbarous
practice of taking scalps. See there! a dozen scalps already hang at
the girdles of our comrades, and even yet they are not satisfied, but
must pursue their wretched victims into the woods. Bah! My heart
sickens at the sight!"
"'Tis Indian nature, Jamie. Victory brings them no honour unless the
victim's scalp be taken. Even the squaws look askance at the warrior
who returns from the war-path without these hideous trophies hanging at
his belt."
"There seems little honour to me in mangling the corpse of a fallen
victim."
"Why, the youth is scarcely regarded as a man till he has brought home
his first scalp. Their belief is, that the spirit and strength of the
dead man enters into the victorious brave, and, horrible as it is, and
God knows how I hate it all, 'tis not more horrible than the deeds of
some of the paleface pirates in the Southern Seas, who sometimes treat
their unfortunate victims in a cruel and barbarous manner."
They had been leaning on their rifles, on a little rising ground near
the lake, watching the fight and the pursuit, when suddenly from out the
dark aisles of the forest there came the piercing scream of the eagle
once more.
"What can be the matter now? Surely the enemy are not returning,
reinforced!" cried Red Feather, quickly bringing his rifle to the ready.
"No. 'Tis the signal for the return of the braves; evidently White
Eagle scents a new danger, and is anxious to get away."
"What new danger can there be?"
"Why, don't you see that the Algonquins have taken the route that will
lead them to the French fort at Niagara, where almost every soldier will
turn out to their assistance, when they hear that the renowned White
Eagle is within twenty miles of the fort? At least, I assume that is
the cause; but look! Here comes the chief himself, and he is making for
the canoes. Let us speak with him."
*CHAPTER XI*
*THE SMOKE-SIGNAL*
"What is the matter, chief?" asked Jack. "What new danger has my red
brother discovered?"
"Look!" replied White Eagle, pointing in the direction of the fort and
along the shore of the lake. "What does my paleface brother see
yonder?"
Jack strained his eyes in the direction indicated, but for some seconds
even his keen eyes did not notice anything unusual. At length, however,
he perceived a thin column of smoke far away in the distance, rising
above the forest and lake; then a second and a third column, but so
faint as to be nearly indistinguishable.
"I see the smoke from the camp-fires of a party of hunters, perhaps
Yengeese trappers, but nothing that threatens danger."