Part 15

"No. I was helpless. 'Twas the Mistress--she bade me call her Ga-ha-no--thought of everything."

Ta-wan-ne-ars stopped in his stride.

"What of Ga-ha-no?" he demanded sternly.

She glanced fearfully backward along the way we had come.

"We may not stay," she answered rapidly. "I will talk as we run. Oh, haste, haste, or all will be lost!"

The Seneca resumed his steady gait, but the moonlight filtering through the branches revealed the agony in his face, an agony which the ordeal at the stake had not been able to produce.

"Ga-ha-no thought of all," gasped our companion, her voice strangely muffled by the mask. "She came to me this morning--whilst I was pleading with them--told me how it might be done--fetched me here--procured me the mask and costume--taught me the dance. 'Twas she secured the delay--in your torture--made them send you food--bolstered your strength."

"Where is she now?" asked Ta-wan-ne-ars hardly.

She looked sidewise at him--I think in pity.

"With the Chevalier de Veulle," she said reluctantly.

Then with quick earnestness:

"'Twas part of her plan. It might not--otherwise be done."

He was silent, and we ran on for as much as a quarter-hour, coming then to the bank of a small stream, where a trail marked a ford.

"Under those bushes," she said, pointing, "you will find your clothes and weapons. We hid them this evening."

I scurried into the undergrowth and started to don the tattered leather garments which were fastened in a bundle to the barrel of my musket--the musket that Juggins had given to me, years and years ago, it seemed, in London, and which I had expected never to see again. But she halted me.

"No, no, Mr. Ormerod!" she exclaimed. "There is not time. You must go on alone, the two of you. They will expect you to strike into the Doom Trail. 'Tis the quickest way to the settlements. Ga-ha-no bade me tell you to go west instead, making for Oswego at the mouth of the Onondagas River. So you may shake off the pursuit of the Keepers."

"But you?" I cried, standing up, bundle and musket in hand.

"'Tis my part to lead them into the Doom Trail."

Ta-wan-ne-ars joined with me in a violent protest. But she waved us aside.

"There is no other way."

"We can fight them off," I asserted.

"But I do not wish to leave," she said.

"What? You would stay here in this place of evil, knowing what goes on!"

"There is no other way," she repeated. "I will have learned much since my coming here, Master Ormerod, and amongst other things, to think the less harshly of you."

"For that I am thankful," I replied, "but sure, you must let us take you back to Fort Orange. Governor Burnet will care for you."

"It can not be," she insisted. "My place is here. Wicked as they be, these men here--and he who is called my father is not the cleanest of them--they work in a good cause. 'Tis for me to stay by and see they do what is expected of them for it."

"We will force you to come with us," I declared hotly.

She shook her cumbrous mask.

"You would not do so. Now be off, sir. The False Faces will be on us any moment--and I am not wishing to be caught by them, even though they would not venture to do me harm."

A burst of ferocious yelling came from the heart of the pine wood.

"They have seen traces of us in the open space by the altar," interpreted Ta-wan-ne-ars.

He swung musket and bundle to his shoulder, and faced the bear-mask, a splendid figure in bronze.

"Sister Ne-e-ar-go-ye," he said gravely, "did Ga-ha-no give you any message for Ta-wan-ne-ars?"

She hesitated.

"She said that if you asked for her I was to tell you to forget Ga-ha-no, that she was unworthy of your memory. But you were to believe that what she did for you tonight was in reparation for her first great wrong."

He bowed his head.

"And oh, Ta-wan-ne-ars," she went on impulsively, "she pays a bitter price. Forgive her."

Ta-wan-ne-ars looked up.

"Say this to Ga-ha-no," he answered. "Say Ta-wan-ne-ars thinks of her as a Lost Soul, tarrying for a while with Ata-ent-sic, and in the end he will come for her and bring her home again to his lodge. Say that Ta-wan-ne-ars never forgets."

He raised his right arm in the gesture of farewell, and stepped into the current of the stream.

"We part once more, Marjory," I said, offering my hand.

She took it.

"For certain words I have spoken to you, I am sorry," she said. "I know more now. You may be my enemy, but I believe you not to be a traitor."

"Thank you. And is that all you have to say to me?"

"That is all," she replied softly, withdrawing her hand.

"Do you take this knife, then," I said, sparring for time against my judgment and all expediency.

She refused it.

"If I am caught they will not harm me."

I shivered at thought of the hands of the brutal priests of So-a-ka-ga-gwa on her unsullied body.

"I will not leave you," I cried, and made to walk with her along the trail.

But she pushed me back.

"You will not be helping me by so acting," she insisted in her quaint Gaelic speech which had won me when I first heard it. "And--and some day I may need your help more than I do tonight."

"Will you call upon me then?"

"Yes."

The yelling of the False Faces burst forth much nearer in the wood.

"Please go, Master Ormerod," she begged. "If I am not overtaken, this mask will protect me as far as the chapel, where my own clothes are awaiting me. They dare not enter there."

I captured her hand again and carried it to my lips.

"My name is Harry," I answered. "And I have never forgotten the song in the cabin of the New Venture."

"Thank you, Harry," she returned with a trill of elfin laughter. "And I do assure you I know other songs."

With that she was gone. Yet I had a feeling I had never known before that she was still with me, and I stepped into the water with joy in my heart.

A score of paces down the bank I found Ta-wan-ne-ars, and we crouched under the pendant branches of a willow to see what would happen, muskets primed and ready.

The yelling in the wood increased in volume as the False Faces followed the course we had taken by broken branches and footprints in the pinemold. A misshapen figure with the head of some fabled beast squattered into the trail and galloped around, nose to ground like a hound seeking a lost scent. In a moment the ugly head was lifted, and a howl of satisfaction greeted the other monstrous shapes which joined it. The whole pack gave tongue and vanished up the trail after Marjory.

Ta-wan-ne-ars waited to give the stragglers time to appear, then rose and led the way along the bed of the stream westward.

"Can you pick your path at night?" I inquired anxiously.

He pointed upward to a group of four stars that sparkled in the velvet blue of the Summer sky.

"So long as Gwe-o-ga-ah[1] shines Ta-wan-ne-ars can not be lost," he answered.

[1] The Loon.

We walked in the water for more than a mile, when the stream turned to the north and we stepped out upon a rock and dressed. Afterward we caught the overhanging bough of a tree and swung ourselves on to dry ground above the bank, never leaving a trace of our course up to that time. From this point we traveled on through the forest, pursuing no settled path, but holding to the westward in the direction of Oswego on the shore of the Cadarakui Lake.

We did not stop until after midday. Ta-wan-ne-ars knocked over a wild turkey with his tomahawk, kindled a fire of dry sticks and broiled the juicy bird before the coals. He insisted that I should sleep first, promising to arouse me at the end of two hours--he reckoned time, I should explain, by the declension of the sun. But when he finally did arouse me the sun was close to setting, and I saw by the sunken look of his eyes that he had not slept during his watch.

"Why did you not wake me?" I asked angrily.

"Ta-wan-ne-ars had no wish for sleep," he returned.

"Nonsense," I retorted. "You can not go indefinitely without rest."

"I had my thoughts for company," he said simply. "They are not happy thoughts, brother. They would not let me sleep."

I was shaken by a profound revulsion of feeling. It came over me that I had never fully appreciated the extreme degree of the mental suffering to which he had been exposed.

"Your sorrow is great," I acknowledged, "but sure you know that she for whom you mourn----"

"She is a sick soul," he said. "She has offended the Great Spirit, and he has permitted Ha-ne-go-ate-geh to cast his shadow over her. But some day she will have performed the penance Ha-wen-ne-yu asks of her, and in that day he will permit Ta-wan-ne-ars to reclaim her."

"I hope so," I replied, stunned by the amazing confidence in eternal justice, the Christian charity, of this man who was, properly speaking, a lettered savage.

"Ta-wan-ne-ars knows it," he asserted confidently. "But I can not help thinking of the wickedness of my enemy."

His hand flew to his knife-hilt.

"I am confident of what will come, but I sorrow over what has been and is."

"I wish I had not spared him when his life was in my hand," I cried.

"My brother did not know," answered Ta-wan-ne-ars. "And already then the harm was done, the evil was sowed, the soul was corrupted."

He smiled gravely.

"Your search is ended, brother," he added.

"What do you mean?"

"The soul you sought has been found. It is no longer sick."

"Mayhap," I agreed, "but none the less 'tis out of reach and in great danger."

"We shall save it," he encouraged me. "Ta-wan-ne-ars knows. We must wait. The time will come."

He refused again to sleep, and we ate the remainder of the turkey--our hunger was prodigious--and pushed on, traveling most of the night. Not once did we see a trace of the Keepers, and when we halted Ta-wan-ne-ars said that we were on the marches of the hunting-grounds of the Mohawks. We slept together the remainder of that night, without a fire and on the top of a steep rock which was set with boulders which the foot of any climber must set in motion.

In the late morning we killed a rabbit, broiled and ate it and tramped the virgin forest until long past sunset. That day we ventured to discharge our firearms, and to my vast pride I killed a small deer. The following afternoon we caught our first view of the inland sea from a height of land, and the next morning we sighted the stockade of Oswego, the fort which Governor Burnet had established on the shores of the lake in his effort to divert the far-western fur-trade from the French posts.

The gate was closed, but as we approached it opened, and an enormous, pot-bellied figure in buckskin and fur cap sauntered out to meet us.

"Ja, idt is you," Corlaer hailed us. "I knew that Joncaire was oop to another of his tricks."

"What do you mean?" I asked as he turned to walk back beside us, his fat face as solemn as ever.

"I hafe hadt a scare," he said. "I came back to De-o-nun-da-ga-a from a hundting-party to find a Tahsagrondie messenger from Joncaire who says he is to tell me you fooled der Gofernor of Jagara, but now you are caught andt hafe gone to La Vierge du Bois. Andt der Tahsagrondie says Joncaire is sorry. Ha, ha! I thought it was a funny message."

"Funny mayhap," I replied feelingly. "But 'twas amazingly true."

Ta-wan-ne-ars nodded confirmation, and for an instant I thought Corlaer was going to betray surprize. But he shut his gaping mouth with resolution.

"What has happened?" he demanded. "I hafe come here to scout der Doom Trail andt learn how you diedt--andt you are alife."

So we told him, whilst the lieutenant in command of the post and his garrison of twenty lusty frontiersmen gathered in a knot to listen over each other's shoulders.

"Budt--budt," expostulated Peter, "you hafe been in La Vierge du Bois!"

"True."

"Budt nobody has efer been in La Vierge du Bois----"

"And come out alive," I amended. "I fear many poor souls have been sacrificed by those fiendish priests."

"Andt you fooled Joncaire!" repeated Peter admiringly.

'Twas that indeed which pleased him most. He insisted upon our repeating the tale with all details, and I believe he would have required a third account had it not been for the interruption which came during the afternoon.

We were sitting in the commandant's quarters on the upper floor of the block-house when the sentries on the stockade announced a large fleet of canoes approaching from the west. The lieutenant promptly issued orders to get out the trade-goods, and prepared for an impressive reception of the savages, deeming them emissaries of some tribe come to exchange their fur-catch of the Winter.

But the leading canoes held on past the fort, and none of those which followed gave indication of intent to steer inshore.

"Hafe you a canoe?" asked Corlaer of the bewildered lieutenant. "_Ja_? Well, my friendts andt I will go andt ask what this means."

We launched the canoe from the water-gate, and with Peter and Ta-wan-ne-ars at the paddles, sped out into the lake. Some distance from shore we overhauled the rear squadron of the fleet, every canoe loaded deep with packages of furs.

"Ho, brothers," called Ta-wan-ne-ars. "Who are you?"

The nearest canoe hove to.

"We are Necariagues," answered a paddler. "In front of us are Ottawas and Missisakies."

"The Chief of the English fort, who commands here in the name of Ga-en-gwa-ra-go, invites you to come ashore and trade with him."

Up stood a large, stout man with lanky black hair, dressed in the uniform of the French marine troops, who had been ensconced behind a bale of furs.

"Ha, 'tis my friend from Arles," he shouted, "and his companion, the noble warchief! So the Keepers did not keep you?"

"No, Monsieur de Joncaire," I replied. "We are still alive to plague you."

"_Venire St. Remi_, 'tis not sorry I am! Try it again, my lad. Only try it again!"

"And what are you doing with these people?"

He roared with laughter.

"No more than shepherding them past the temptations of this English."

Ta-wan-ne-ars called again to the Indians in the canoes.

"Come ashore, brothers. We have rich goods to trade with you."

"We do not need to trade with the English," replied the Necariague who had spoken before. "We are glad we can trade with our fathers, the French. They have plenty of goods to offer us. Onontio has sent word he will pay better than the English now."

"Ha, ha, ha," exploded Joncaire. "Ho, ho, ho! _Mort de ma vie_! _Tonerr-rr-re de Dieu_! 'Tis an odd world! The boot is on the other leg, Monsieur l'Arlesien!

"Present my compliments to Monsieur Burnet, Peter Corlaer. You may tell him I am not so discouraged as I once was. No, no, many things have happened.

"_Au revoir_--and avoid the Keepers. Avoid the keepers by all means. I am told they keep a strict watch upon the Doom Trail these days."

His paddlers dipped their blades, and his bellows of laughter were wafted back to us as his canoe followed the fur argosy down the lake toward the French posts on the St. Lawrence--posts whose magazines were already beginning to swell with the life-blood of English trade which was pouring over the Doom Trail.

XXI

A SCOUT OF THREE

"We must scout the Doom Trail," I said as we carried the canoe through the water-gate and deposited it within the stockade. "I will write the governor at once of affairs at Jagara and La Vierge du Bois. But this last business makes it necessary he should have sure intelligence of what passes to Canada."

"_Ja_," agreed Corlaer slowly. "Budt I hafe another scheme we might try first--tonight."

"What?"

He surveyed the scores of dwindling canoes, their silvery birchen sides agleam in the sunlight, their dripping paddle-blades shining as the paddlers drove them along.

"They will make camp by sunset at der point of der three rocks. Am I right, Ta-wan-ne-ars?"

The Seneca assented.

"That is eight--ten--miles from here. _Ja_, we can make it."

"Make what?" I asked impatiently.

"Der distance. Andt my plan."

"What plan, man?"

"To put der grin on der other side of Joncaire's face, by ----! Now you listen."

And he outlined an undertaking which seemed absurdly simple until I chanced to look up and see that fleet of canoes clouding the eastern horizon of the lake.

"They are too many for us," I objected.

"_Ja_, if they know we come," he admitted. "Budt they do not. Andt I hafe seen brandy-kegs in among der furs."

"It is well worth trying," said Ta-wan-ne-ars deliberately. "If it succeeds it will set back the plans of Onontio and Murray."

"Andt if it does not, then you tell der Gofernor Peter Corlaer tried once too often to get der joke back on Joncaire."

With which sage comment, Peter took himself off to arrange with the post commandant for drawing certain supplies we should require for this new expedition.

Two hours later an express left Oswego with dispatches for Governor Burnet, describing the situation at Jagara and our experiences at La Vierge du Bois, as well as the passage of Joncaire's argosy of furs, the greatest haul which had so far been made by either country that year on the frontier. Before the gate was slammed shut again we three slipped out and waved good-by to the garrison on the walls.

We traveled parallel with the shore of the lake and made no effort to set a fast pace. Ta-wan-ne-ars and I were still tired from our exertions in escaping the hellish abode of the False Faces. We were glad to halt when we glimpsed the glow of fires on the beach ahead of us.

From this point our advance was more cautious, and we parted company with Corlaer in some bushes, whence we could distinguish figures dancing around the flames and hear the distant yells of the guests of Joncaire as they caroused on his thoughtful provision of brandy. The Dutchman stripped to his belt. Ta-wan-ne-ars relieved him of his musket, powder-horn and bullet-pouch, and I shouldered his clothes and pack.

"By der blasted pine--a goodt mile beyondt der other side," whispered Peter as he waded into the water.

"You are sure you can stay afloat so long!" I asked with some misgiving.

"_Ja_," he said scornfully. "When you hear a noise like a fish rising three times, that is Peter."

He settled knife and tomahawk against either thigh, slung a spare flask of powder beside them, sank forward to his chin and began to cleave the water with powerful, overhand strokes.

"A merry evening to you," I called gently.

A grunt was my answer.

"We must hurry, brother," admonished Ta-wan-ne-ars.

He started off at right angles with the path we had been following, and we fetched a circle around the group of fires, coming ultimately to a high point above the shore half a mile beyond them. Here we rested, both because our weariness was very great and because we desired to witness Peter's exploit, and, if need be, be prepared to aid him.

It was past midnight, and the fires had burned low and the brandy-drinkers soaked themselves stupid. Not a sound came to us, except for the calling of a wolf from the heavy timber inshore and the croaking of water-birds.

'Twas Ta-wan-ne-ars' eagle vision which saw the danger-signal. He gripped my arm.

"Look, brother," he hissed.

I looked, and a flame spurted upward between the fires and the water. There was a sharp explosion. A long minute elapsed, and then a chorus of excited yells rose, dropped and was sustained.

The flame mounted higher, and we could see figures running this way and that in confusion. A musket barked. Others echoed it.

"They saw him in the water," remarked Ta-wan-ne-ars.

"Do you think he escaped?" I asked.

"We should hear the scalp-yell if he was taken or killed. Hark! They still babble like animals."

We listened for ten minutes, and whilst the yelling continued, with intermittent shooting, there was nothing to indicate triumph or satisfaction. In the meantime the flames which Peter had kindled, after flourishing grandly, gradually died out as the awakened savages removed those canoes which had not caught fire and threw water on such as were only smoldering.

We waited another five minutes to make sure the search did not trend in our direction, but the bewildered tools of Joncaire were convinced the attack had come from Oswego and the shouting and firing shifted away from us toward the fort. So we picked up our burdens and descended between boulders and stunted trees to a little bay which was marked by the shattered stump of a pine.

Half an hour passed uneventfully. Then the steady lapping of the water against the beach was disturbed by the splash a fish makes in rising. It was repeated twice. Ta-wan-ne-ars leaned over and splashed the water thrice with his hand. A grunt boomed out of the darkness. Ripples spread in a widening circle, and a huge form stepped noiselessly ashore, ignoring our helping hands.

"Oof, that was a goodt joke on Joncaire," muttered Peter. "Some canoes I smash with der ax andt some I blow up with der powder andt more are burnedt. Where are my clothes? I am soaked like der muskrat. _Ja_, when we get to der woods I findt me a bear and gife myself a rub with grease. I hafe bubbles under my skin."

"You were long in coming," said Ta-wan-ne-ars. "My brother is not hurt?"

"_Nein, nein_. Those drunken swine couldt not hit me. I swam far oudt andt at der first up der lake to fool them. Then I turned andt swam back under der water. Ooof, what a swim! I tell you I hafe bubbles under my skin! _Ja_!"

"Did you damage them much?" I asked eagerly.

Peter suspended the operation of struggling into his shirt and chuckled shrilly.

"I wouldt gife much to see der face of that Joncaire when he counts his canoes andt der fur-packs he has left. Twice now we get der joke on him."

Wet as he was, with the water dripping from his lank hair, he insisted upon quitting that dangerous locality at once. We tramped across country until the sun was high, and we stumbled upon an isolated family of Onondagas, who made us free of their _ga-no-sote_. They relieved Peter's principal want by furnishing him bear's grease, with which he anointed himself vigorously before sleeping.

We spent two days with these people, recuperating in preparation for the stern task ahead of us. After parting with them we continued in leisurely fashion eastward, keeping well to the north of the Great Trail of the Long House and avoiding as much as possible contact with the Onondagas, Oneidas and Mohawks whose countries we traversed. Some ten days after leaving Oswego we found ourselves on the verge of that untracked domain which was roamed by the Keepers of the Doom Trail.

Here we paused to take counsel with one another.

"Somewhere this side of the Mohawk the Trail begins," said Ta-wan-ne-ars. "Shall we follow the river and scout for signs there?"

"'Tis there the Keepers must be most vigilant," I suggested.

"_Ja_," spoke up Peter, "andt if we do not come to harm, yet Murray will know we watch."

"What then?" asked Ta-wan-ne-ars.

"Let us scout der country well back from der river. You know aboudt where lies La Vierge du Bois. It shouldt not be difficult to strike der line of der Trail."

This plan we agreed upon, and, so that we might not be constrained to use our muskets in the forbidden territory, we obtained from a Mohawk village a quantity of jerked meat and parched corn mixed with maple sugar ample to sustain us for a week or more. And in order to assure that our departure would be free from the observation of spies we left our last camp after dark and in two parties, Ta-wan-ne-ars and myself going in one direction and Peter in another.

Our meeting-place was a grove on the bank of a creek, one of the tributaries of the Mohawk. We reached it without observation, and lay in concealment most of the day, starting again in the late afternoon and moving warily through the forest, following no particular course, but addressing ourselves rather to the effacement of all evidence of our passage.