A TRYST
Above the White Plains the territory was supposed to be our own. Below,
seventeen thousand red-coats held the city of New York; and their
partisans, irregulars, militia, refugee-corps, and Legion-horsemen,
harried the lines. Yet, except the enemy's cruisers which sometimes
strayed far up the Hudson, like impudent hawks circling within the very
home-yard, we saw nothing of red-rag or leather-cap north of our lines,
save only once, when Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe nearly caught us.
His Excellency's army lay in position all around us, now, from West
Point down the river; and our light-horsemen patrolled as far south as
the unhappy country from which we had retired through the smoke of
Bedford's burning farms and the blaze of church and manor at
Poundridge. That hilly strip was then our southern frontier, bravely
defended by Thomas and Lockwood, shamefully neglected by Sheldon, as we
had seen. For which he was broke, poor devil, and a better man set
there to watch the red fox Tarleton, to harry Emmeriek, and to throw
the fear o' God into that headlong blockhead, Simcoe, a brave man, but
so possessed by hatred for "Mr." Washington that every move he made was
like a goaded bull--his halts merely the bewilderment of baffled fury,
his charges blind and bellowing.
I know how he conducted, not from hearsay alone, but because at sunrise
on our second day northward, before we struck the river-road, we had
like to have had a brush with him, his flankers running afoul of us not
far beyond a fortified post heavily held by our Continentals.
It was the glimpse of cannon and levelled bayonets that bewildered him;
and his bawling charge sheered wide o' the shabby Continental
battle-line, through which we galloped into safety, our Indian sticking
to my crupper like a tree-cat with every claw. And I remember still the
grim laughter that greeted us from those unshaven, powder-blackened
ranks, and how they laughed, too, as they fired by platoons at the far
glimmer of Simcoe's helmets through the chestnut trees.
And in the meantime, all the while, even from the very first evening
when we off-saddled in the rocky Westchester woods and made our first
flying-camp, I had become uneasy concerning the Siwanois--uncertain
concerning his loyalty to the very verge of suspicion.
I said nothing of this to Lieutenant Boyd, having nothing definite to
communicate. Nor did I even hint my suspicions, because distrust in the
mind of such a man as Boyd would be very difficult to eradicate, and
the slightest mishandling of our delicate situation might alienate the
Sagamore forever.
Yet, of one thing I had become almost convinced: the Siwanois, while we
slept, met and held communication with somebody outside our camp.
On the first night this had happened; for, awaking and missing the
Sagamore, who had been left on guard, I lay a-watching under my
blanket, and when he came in to the fire once more, it seemed to me
that far in the woods I heard the faint sound of another person
retiring stealthily through the tell-tale bushes that choke all second
growth hereabouts.
On the second day we crossed to the other side of the Hudson in flat
boats, with our horses. But on that night it was the same, I feigning
sleep when it came time for the Siwanois to relieve the man on guard.
And once again, after he had silently inspected us all, the Sagamore
stole away into leafy depths, but halted as before within earshot
still. And once again some nascent sense within me seemed to become
aware of another human being somewhere moving in the woods outside our
fire.
How I divined it I do not know, because this time I could hear no sound
in the starry obscurity of the Western Catskills, save only those
familiar forest sounds which never cease by night--unseen stirrings of
sleeping birds, the ruffle, of feathers, the sudden rustle of some
furry thing alarmed, the scratchings and pickings in rotting windfalls,
the whisper of some falling leaf severed by insects or relaxing its
brief clasp of the mother stem in the precocity of a maturity premature.
Yet, so strong now had become my suspicions that I was already
preparing to unroll my blanket, rise, and creep after the Siwanois,
when his light and rapid footfall sounded on the leaves close to my
head; and, as before, while again I feigned sleep, far in the thicket
somebody moved, cautiously retreating into tangled depths. But whether
I really heard or only guessed, I do not know down to this very day.
On the third night it rained and we made a bark hut. Perhaps the
Siwanois did his talking with this unseen visitor while away in
pretense of peeling bark, for he did not creep abroad that night. But,
somehow, I knew he had kept some tryst.
Now, on this fourth day, and our journey drawing to its end, I resolved
to follow the Siwanois if he stirred from our fire, and discover for
myself with what manner of visitor he held these stealthy councils.
During the long day's march I lagged and watched and listened in vain
for any follower along our route. Sometimes I even played at flanker,
sometimes rode far on ahead, and, at times, stuck to the Indian hour
after hour, seeming not to watch him, but with every sense alert to
surprise some glance, some significant movement, some cunning and
treacherous signal, to convince me that the forest had eyes that marked
us, and ears which heard us, and that the Siwanois knew it, and aided
and abetted under our very gaze.
But I had seen him do nothing that indicated him to be in secret
communication with anybody. He marked neither tree nor stone, nor leaf
nor moss, as far as I could see; dropped nothing, made no sound at all
save when he gravely answered some observation that we offered. Once,
even, I found a pretext to go back on the trail, searching to find some
sign he might have left behind him: and had my journey for my pains.
Now, had this same Indian been an Iroquois I might have formed some
reasonable judgment concerning his capacity for treachery; but I had
seen few Delawares in my life, and had never heard them speak at all,
save to boast in their cups of Uncas, Tamanund, and Miontonomoh. As for
a Siwanois Mohican, this Sagamore of the Magic Clan was the first of
his tribe and ensign that I had ever beheld. And with every motive and
every interest and desire in the world to believe him honest--and even
in my secret heart believing him to be so--yet I could not close eyes
and ears to what so stealthily was passing in the midnight woods around
me. And truly it was duty, nor any motive baser, that set me after him
that starlit night, when, as before, being on guard, he left the fire
about midnight: and I out of my blanket and after him in a trice.
The day was the 7th of July, a Wednesday, I remember, as I had writ it
in my journal, my habit being to set down every evening, or as near the
date as convenient, a few words which briefly recorded the day's events.
The night before we had camped in the woods along the Catskill road
leading toward Cobus-kill; this night, being fine and warm, we made
open camp along a stream, within a few miles' journey of the Middle
Fort; and, soupaan being eaten, let the coals die and whiten into
ashes. This, partly because we needed not the warmth, partly from
precaution. For although on the open roads our troops in detachments
were now concentrating, moving on Otsego Lake and the upper waters of
the Delaware and Susquehanna, this was no friendly country, and we knew
it. So the less firelight, the snugger we might lie in case of some
stray scalping party from the west or north.
Now, as I say, no sooner did the Siwanois leave his post and go
a-roving than I went after him, with infinite precaution; and I flatter
myself that I made no more noise on the brookside moss than the
moon-cast shadow of a flying cloud. Guy Johnson was no skilful
woodsman, but his Indians were; and of them I learned my craft. And
scout detail in Morgan's Rifles, too, was a rare school to finish any
man and match him with the best who ran the woods.
Too near his heels I dared not venture, as long as his tall form passed
like a shadow against the white light that the stars let in through the
forest cleft, where ran the noisy stream. But presently he turned off,
and for a moment I thought to lose him in the utter blackness of the
primeval trees. And surely would have had I not seen close to me a vast
and smoothly slanting ledge of rock which the stars shining on made
silvery, and on which no tree could grow, scarce even a tuft of fern,
so like a floor it lay in a wide oval amid the forest gloom.
Somewhere upon that dim and sparkling esplanade the Siwanois had now
seated himself. For a while, straining my eyes where I lay flat among
the taller fringing ferns, I could just make out a blot in the greyness
where he sat upright, like a watching catamount under the stars.
Then, across the dimness, another blot moved to join him; and I felt my
hair stir as chilling certainty shocked from me my lingering hope that
I had been mistaken.
Faintly--oh, scarce audible at all--the murmur of two voices came to me
there where I lay under the misty lustre of the stars. Nearer, nearer I
crept, nearer, nearer, until I lay flat as a shadow there, stark on the
shelf of rock. And, as though they had heard me, and as if to spite me,
their voices sank to whispers. Yet, I knew of a certainty that I had
neither been observed nor heard.
Hushed voices, whispers, undertones as soft as summer night winds--that
was all I heard, all I could make of it; and sniffed treason as I lay
there, making no question of the foulness of this midnight tryst.
It was an hour, I think, they sat there, two ghostly figures formless
against the woods; then one rose, and presently I saw it was the
Sagamore.
Noiselessly he retraced his steps across the silvery esplanade of rock;
and if my vague, flat outline were even visible to him I passed for a
shadow or a cleft beneath his notice--perhaps for a fallen branch or
heap of fern and withered leaf--I know not. But I let him go,
unstirring, my eyes riveted upon the other shape, seated there like
some grey wraith upon a giant's tombstone, under the high stars.
Beyond the ferns I saw the shadow of the Sagamore against the stream
pass toward our camp. Then I addressed myself to the business before
me; loosened knife and hatchet in their beaded sheaths, stirred, moved
forward inch by inch, closer, closer, then to the left to get behind,
nearer, ever nearer, till the time had come for me to act. I rose
silently to my moccasined feet, softly drew my heavy knife against
events, and lightly struck the ringing blade against my hatchet.
Instantly the grey shape bounded upright, and I heard a whispering cry
of terror stifled to a sob.
And then a stunning silence fell between us twain.
For I was staring upon the maid who had brought the Sagamore to us, and
she was looking back at me, still swaying on her feet and all a-tremble
from the dreadful fear that still possessed her.
"Lois?" I made out to whisper.
She placed one hand against her side, fighting for breath; and when she
gained it sighed deeply once or twice, with a low sound like the
whimpering wings of doves.
At her feet I saw a cup of water shining, a fragment of corn bread and
meat. Near these lay a bundle with straps on it.
"In God's name," I said in a ghostly voice, "what does this mean? Why
have you followed us these four days past? Are you mad to risk a
scalping party, or, on the open road, hazard the rough gallantries of
soldiers' bivouacs? If you had business in these parts, and desired to
come, why did you not tell me so and travel with us?"
"I did not wish to ask that privilege of----" She hesitated, then bent
her head. "----of any man. What harm have I caused you by following?"
I said, still amazed and wondering:
"I understand it all now. The Sagamore brings you food. Is that true?"
"Yes," she said sullenly.
"And you have kept in touch with us ever since we started?"
"With Mayaro."
"Why?"
"I have told you that I had no wish to travel in your company."
"But for protection----"
"Protection! I have heard that, too, from men. It is ever on men's
lips--that word meaning damnation. I thank you, Mr. Loskiel, I require
no protection."
"Do you distrust Lieutenant Boyd or me? Or what?"
"Men! And you twain are two of them."
"You fear such men as we are!" I demanded impatiently.
"I know nothing of you," she answered, "save that you are men."
"Do you mean Mr. Boyd--and his thoughtless gallantry----"
"I mean men! All men! And he differs in nothing from the rest that I
can see. Which is why I travel without your leave on my own affairs and
by myself--spite of the Iroquois." She added bitterly; "And it is known
to civilization that the Iroquois are to be trusted where the white man
is not!"
Her meaning was plain enough now. What this young girl had seen and
suffered and resented amid a world of men I did not know. Boyd's late
gallantry, idle, and even ignoble as it had appeared to me, had
poisoned her against me also, confirming apparently all she ever had
known of men.
If this young, lonely, ragged thing were what her attitude and words
made plain, she had long endured her beauty as a punishment. What her
business might be in lingering around barracks and soldiers' camps I
could not guess; but women who haunted such resorts seldom complained
of the rough gallantries offered. And if their charms faded, they
painted lip and cheek, and schooled the quivering mouth to smile again.
What her business might now be in following our little detail northward
I could not surmise. Here was no barracks wench! But wench or gypsy or
what not, it was impossible that I should leave her here alone. Even
the thought of it set one cold.
"Come into camp this night," I said.
"I will not."
"You must do so. I may not leave you here alone."
"I can care for myself."
"Yes--as you cared for yourself when I crept up behind you. And if I
had been a savage--then what?"
"A quick end," she said coolly.
"Or a wretched captivity--perhaps marriage to some villainous
Iroquois----"
"Yes, sir; but nothing worse than marriage!"
"Child!" I exclaimed. "Where have you lived to belie the pitiful youth
of you with such a worldly-worn and bitter tongue? I tell you all men
are not of that stripe! Do you not believe me?"
"Birds sing, sir."
"Will you come into camp?" I repeated hotly.
"And if I will not?"
"Then, by heaven, I'll carry you in my arms! Will you come?"
She laughed at me, dangerously calm, seated herself, picked up the
partly eaten food, and began to consume it with all the insolent
leisure in the world.
I stood watching her for a few moments, then sat down cross-legged
before her.
"Why do you doubt me, Lois?" I asked.
"Dear sir, I do not doubt you," she answered with faintest malice.
"I tell you I am not of that stripe!" I said angrily.
"Then you are not a man at all. I tell you I have talked with men as
good as you, and heard them protest as you do--yes, with all the gentle
condescension that you use, all of your confidence and masterful
advice. Sooner or later all have proved the same," she shrugged;
"----proved themselves men, in plainer words."
She sat eating thoughtfully, looking aloft now and then at the thick
splendor of the firmament.
Then, breaking a bit of corn bread, she said gravely:
"I do not mean that you have not been kind, as men mean kindness. I do
not even mean that I blame men. God made them different from us. And
had He made me one, doubtless I had been as all men are, taking the
road through life as gaily, sword on thigh and hat in hand to every
pretty baggage that a kindly fate made wayfarer with me. No, I have
never blamed a man; only the silly minx who listens."
After a short silence, I said: "Who, in the name of heaven, are you,
Lois?"
"Does that concern you?"
"I would have it concern me--if you wish."
"Dear sir," she said very coolly, "I wish nothing of the kind."
"You do not trust me."
"Why, yes, as I trust every man--except a red one."
"Yet, I tell you that all that animates me is a desire to render you a
comrade's service----"
"And I thank you, Mr. Loskiel, because, like other men, you mean it
generously and well. Yet, you are an officer in the corps d'élite; and
you would be ashamed to have the humblest bugler in your regiment see
you with such a one as I."
She broke another morsel from her bread:
"You dare not cross a camp-parade beside me. At least the plaything of
an officer should walk in silk, whatever clothes a soldier's trull.
Sir, do you suppose I do not know?"
She looked up at the stars, and then quietly at me.
"The open comradeship of any man with me but marks us both. Only his
taste is criticized, not his morals. But the world's judgment leaves me
nothing to cover me except the silk or rags I chance to wear. And if I
am brave and fine it would be said of me, 'The hussy's gown is brave
and fine!' And if I go in tatters, 'What slattern have we here,
flaunting her boldness in the very sun?' So a comradeship with any man
is all one to me. And I go my way, neither a burden nor a plaything, a
scandal only to myself, involving no man high or low save where their
advances wrong us both in the world's eyes--as did those of your
friend, yonder by a dead fire asleep."
"All men are not so fashioned. Can you not believe me?"
"You say so, sir."
"Yes; and I say that I am not."
"Birds sing."
"Lois, will you let me aid you?"
"In what? The Sagamore feeds me; and the Middle Fort is not so far."
"And at the Middle Fort how will you live?"
"As I have lived; wash for the soldiers; sew for them--contrive to find
a living as I journey."
"Whither?"
"It is my own affair."
"May I not aid?"
"You could not if you would; you would not if you could."
"Ask me, Lois."
"No." She shook her head. Then, slowly: "I do thank you for the wish,
Mr. Loskiel. But the Siwanois himself refuses what I ask. And you
would, also, did you know my wish."
"What is your wish?"
She shook her head: "It is useless to voice it--useless."
She gathered the scant fragments of her meal, wrapped them in a bit of
silver birch-bark, unrolled her bundle, and placed them there. Then she
drained the tin cup of its chilly water, and, still sitting there
cross-legged on the rock, tied the little cup to her girdle. It seemed
to me, there in the dusk, that she smiled very faintly; and if it was
so it was the first smile I had had of her when she said:
"I travel light, Mr. Loskiel. But otherwise there is nothing light
about me."
"Lois, I pray you, listen. As I am a man, I can not leave you here."
"For that reason, sir, you will presently take your leave."
"No, I shall remain if you will not come into camp with us."
She said impatiently:
"I lie safer here than you around your fire. You mean well; now take
your leave of me--with whatever flight of fancy," she added mockingly,
"that my present condition invests me with in the eyes of a very young
man."
The rudeness of the fling burnt my face, but I answered civilly:
"A scalping party may be anywhere in these woods. It is the season; and
neither Oneida Lake nor Fort Niagara itself are so distant that their
far-hurled hatchets may not strike us here."
"I will not go with you," said she, making of her bundle a pillow.
Then, very coolly, she extended her slim body and laid her head on the
bundle.
I made no answer, nor any movement for fully an hour. Then, very
stealthily, I leaned forward to see if she truly slept. And found her
eyes wide open.
"You waste time mounting sentry over me," she said in a low voice.
"Best employ your leisure in the sleep you need."
"I can not sleep."
"Nor I--if you remain here awake beside me."
She raised herself on her elbow, peering through the darkness toward
the stream.
"The Siwanois has been standing yonder by the stream watching us this
full hour past. Let him mount sentry if he wishes."
"You have a tree-cat's eyes," I said. "I see nothing."
Then I rose and unbuckled my belt. Hatchet and knife dangled from it. I
stooped and laid it beside her. Then, stepping backward a pace or two,
I unlaced my hunting shirt of doe-skin, drew it off, and, rolling it
into a soft pillow, lay down, cradling my cheek among the thrums.
I do not know how long I lay there before I fell asleep from very
weariness of the new and deep emotions, as strange to me as they were
unwelcome. The restlessness, the misgivings which, since I first had
seen this maid, had subtly invaded me, now, grown stronger, assailed me
with an apprehension I could neither put from me nor explain. Nor was
this vague fear for her alone; for, at moments, it seemed as though it
were for myself I feared--fearing myself.
So far in my brief life, I had borne myself cleanly and upright, though
the times were loose enough, God knows, and the master of Guy Park had
read me no lesson or set me no example above the morals and the customs
of his class and of the age.
It may have been pride--I know not what it was, that I could notice the
doings of Sir John and of young Walter Butler and remain aloof, even
indifferent. Yet, this was so. Never had a woman's beauty stirred me
otherwise than blamelessly, never had I entertained any sentiment
toward fashionable folly other than aversion and a kind of shamed
contempt.
Nor had I been blind at Guy Park and Butlersbury and Tribes Hill, nor
in Albany, either. I knew Clarissa Putnam; I also knew Susannah
Wormwood and her sister Elizabeth, and all that pretty company; and
many another pretty minx and laughing, light-minded lass in county
Tryon. And a few in Cambridge, too. So I was no niais, no naive country
fool, unless to remain aloof were folly. And I often wondered to myself
how this might really be, when Boyd rallied me and messmates laughed.
And now, as I lay there under the clustered stars, my head pillowed on
my deer-skin shirt, my mind fell a-groping for reason to bear me out in
my strained and strange perplexity.
Why, from the time I first had spoken to her, should thoughts of this
strange and ragged maid have so possessed me that each day my memory of
her returned, haunting me, puzzling me, plaguing my curiosity till
imagination awoke, spurring my revery to the very border of an unknown
land where rides Romance, in armour, vizor down.
Until this night I had not crossed that border, nor ever thought to, or
dreamed of doing it. No beggar-maiden-seeking king was I by nature, nor
ever felt for shabby dress and common folk aught but the mixture of
pity and aversion which breeds a kind of charity. And, I once supposed,
were the Queen of Sheba herself to pass me in a slattern's rags, only
her rags could I ever see, for all her beauty.
But how was it now with me that, from the very first, I had been first
conscious of this maid herself, then of her rags. How was it that I
felt no charity, nor pity of that sort, only a vague desire that she
should understand me better--know that I meant her kindness--God knows
what I wished of her, and why her grey eyes haunted me, and why I could
not seem to put her from my mind.
That now she fully possessed my mind I convinced myself was due to my
very natural curiosity concerning her; forgetting that a week ago I
should not have condescended to curiosity.
Who and what was she? She had been schooled; that was plain in voice
and manner. And, though she used me with scant courtesy, I was
convinced she had been schooled in manners, too, and was no stranger to
usages and customs which mark indelibly where birth and breeding do not
always.
Why was she here? Why alone? Where were her natural protectors then?
What would be her fate a-gypsying through a land blackened with war, or
haunting camps and forts, penniless, in rags--and her beauty ever a
flaming danger to herself, despite her tatters and because of them.
I slept at last; I do not know how long. The stars still glittered
overhead when I awoke, remembered, and suddenly sat upright.
She was gone. I might have known it. But over me there came a rush of
fear and anger and hurt pride; and died, leaving a strange, dull aching.
Over my arm I threw my rifle-frock, looked dully about to find my belt,
discovered it at my feet. As I buckled it, from the hatchet-sling
something fell; and I stooped to pick it up.
It was a wild-rose stem bearing a bud unclosed. And to a thorn a shred
of silver birch-bark clung impaled. On it was scratched with a knife's
keen point a message which I could not read until once more I crept in
to our fire, which Mount had lighted for our breakfast.
And there I read her message: "A rose for your ring, comrade. And be
not angry with me."
I read it again, then curled it to a tiny cylinder and placed it in my
pouch, glancing sideways at the reclining Mohican. Boyd began to murmur
and stretch in his blanket, then relaxed once more.
So I lay down, leaving Jack Mount a-cooking ashen cakes, and yawning.