Weak and chilled from the long swim through the cold water they dragged themselves across the narrow beach to the bushes that hung over the bank. Menard and Father Claude supported the maid, who was trembling and clinging to them. At the bank she sank to the ground.
“It is hard, Mademoiselle, but we must not stop. It is better to be weary than to rest in this condition. It would mean sickness.”
“Yes,” she said; “I know. In a moment I can go on.” She looked up and tried to smile. “It is so cold, M’sieu.”
Menard turned to Teganouan.
“How far is it to the villages of the Cayugas?”
“Not far. Half a sleep.”
“Is there a trail?”
“The trail is far. It passes the end of the Long Lake.” He raised his head and looked at the stars, then pointed to the southwest. “The nearest village lies there. If we go through the forest toward the setting sun, we shall meet the trail.”
“You think it will be wise to go to the Cayugas, M’sieu?” asked Father Claude.
“I think so. The chiefs must have returned before this time, or at least by the morrow.” He dropped into the Iroquois tongue. “Is not this so, Teganouan? Would the chiefs of the Cayugas linger among the Onondagas after the close of the council?”
“The Cayuga warriors await the word of the Long House. They know that their chiefs would hasten to bring it back to them.”
“Yes. It must be so, Father. And we can trust them to aid us. Perhaps they will give us a canoe. Teganouan must tell them he is our guide, sent by the Big Throat and the chiefs of the Onondagas to take us safely to Frontenac.”
The maid was struggling to keep awake, but her lids were heavy. Menard came to her and stood, hesitating. She knew that he was there; she could hear the rustle of his wet clothes, and his heavy breathing, but she did not look up.
“Come,” he said, lightly touching her shoulder, “we cannot wait here. We must go.”
She did not reply, and he hesitated again. Then he stooped and lifted her in his arms.
“You will go ahead, Teganouan,” he said, “and you, too, if you will, Father Claude. Choose an easy trail if you can, and be careful that no twig flies back.”
They set out slowly through the forest. The priest and the Indian laboriously broke a way, and Menard followed, holding the maid tenderly, and now and then, in some lighter spot where a beam of moonlight fell through the foliage, looking down at her gentle, weary face. She was sleeping; and he prayed that no sad dreams might come to steal her rest. His arms ached and his knees gave under him, but he had hardly a thought for himself. At last, after a long, silent march, the priest stopped, and said, supporting himself with one thin hand against a tree:–
“You are weary, M’sieu. You must let me take Mademoiselle.”
“No, Father, no. I have been thinking. I am afraid it is not right that she should sleep now. Even though she fail in the effort, exercise of her muscles is all that will prevent sickness. And yet I cannot,”–he looked again at her face as it rested against his shoulder,–“I cannot awaken her now.”
The Father saw the sorrow in the Captain’s eyes, and understood.
“I will take her, M’sieu.”
Carefully Menard placed her in Father Claude’s arms and turned away.
“Teganouan,” he said, trying to recover his self-possession, “should we not be near the trail?”
“Yes, more than half the way.”
“Can we reach it more quickly by heading a little to the north?”
“We would reach the trail, yes; but the way would be longer.”
“Never mind; once on the trail it will be easier than in this forest. Turn to the north, Teganouan.”
He could hear the maid’s voice, protesting sleepily, and Father Claude talking quietly to her. He looked around. The priest said in a low tone:–
“Come, M’sieu, it is hard to awaken her.”
“We must frighten her, then.”
He caught her shoulders and shook her roughly. Slowly her eyes opened, and then the two men dragged her forward. At first she thought herself back among the Onondagas, and she begged them not to take her away, hanging back and forcing them almost to carry her. It cut Menard to the heart, but he pushed steadily forward. Later she yielded, and with a dazed expression obeyed. Once or twice she stumbled, and would have fallen but for the strong hands that held her. Father Claude rested his hand on her forehead as they walked, and Menard gave him an anxious, questioning glance. The priest shook his head.
“No,” he said, “there is no fever. I trust that it is nothing worse than exhaustion.”
Menard went on with relief in his eyes.
In less than half an hour after reaching the trail, they came upon the outlying huts of the village. Over the hills to the east the dawn was breaking, and all the sleeping birds and beasts and creeping things of the forest were stirring into life and movement. Teganouan went ahead of the party and soon roused a member of the Cayuga branch of his clan, the family of the Bear. Through the yawning services of this warrior they were guided to an unused hut. Teganouan searched farther, and returned with a heap of blankets for the maid, who had dropped to the ground before the hut. Menard carried her within and made her as comfortable as possible, then withdrew and closed the door.
“Have the chiefs returned from the council at the village of the Onondagas?” he asked of the warrior, who stood at one side watching them with curiosity in his gaze.
The Cayuga bowed.
“Will my brother carry a message from the White Chief, the Big Buffalo, to his chiefs? Will he tell them, as soon as the sun has risen, that the Big Buffalo has come to talk with them?”
The warrior bowed and walked away.
“We are safe now, I think, Father. We must get what little sleep we can between now and sunrise.”
“Should not one of us watch, M’sieu?”
“We are not fit for it. We have hard work before us, and many a chance yet to run.”
“Teganouan will watch,” said the Indian.
Menard’s face showed surprise, but Father Claude whispered, “He has learned at the mission to understand our language.”
They lay on the ground before the hut, in their wet clothes, and in a moment were asleep. Teganouan built a fire close at hand, and sat by it without a motion, excepting the alert shifting glances of his bead-like eyes, until, when the colours in the east had faded into blue and the sun was well above the trees, he saw the chiefs of the village coming slowly toward him between the huts, a crowd of young men following behind them, and a snarling pack of dogs running before. He aroused Menard and Father Claude.
The chiefs sat in a circle about the fire, the two white men among them. The other Indians sat and stood in a wider circle, just within earshot, and waited inquisitively for the White Chief to state his errand.
“My brothers, the white men, have asked to speak with the chiefs of the Cayugas,” said the spokesman, a wrinkled old warrior, whom Menard recognized as one of the speakers at the Long House.
“The Big Buffalo is on his way to the stone house of Onontio. He is far from the trail. His muskets and his knives and hatchets were taken from him by the Onondagas and were not returned to him. He asks that the chiefs of the Cayugas permit him to use one of their many canoes, that he may hasten to carry to Onontio the word of the Long House.”
“The White Chief comes to the Cayugas, who live two sleeps away from their brothers, the Onondagas, to ask for aid. Have the Onondagas then refused him? Why is my brother so far from the trail?”
“The chiefs of the Cayugas sat in the Long House; they heard the words of the great council, that the Big Buffalo and the holy Father and the white maiden should be set free. They know that what is decided in the council is the law of the nation, that no warrior shall break it.”
The little circle was silent with attention, but none of the chiefs replied.
“It was still in the dark of the night when the Big Throat came to the lodge of the Big Buffalo, and gave him the pledge of the council that he should be free with the next sun. The Big Buffalo once learned to believe the pledge of the Iroquois. When the mighty Big Throat said that he was free, he believed. He did not set a guard to sit with wakeful eyes through the night in fear that the pledge was not true. No, the Big Buffalo is a warrior and a chief; he is not a woman. He trusted his red brothers, and rested his head to sleep. Then in the dark came a chief, a dog of a traitor, and took away his white brother and his white sister while their eyes were still heavy with sleep, and carried them far over the hills to the lake of the Cayugas. Here they hid like serpents in the long grass, and thought that they would kill them. But the Big Buffalo is a warrior. Without a knife or a musket or a hatchet he killed the Long Arrow and came across the Long Lake. He knew that the Cayugas were his brothers, that they would not break the pledge of the Long House.”
The grave faces of the Indians showed no surprise, save for a slight movement of the eyes on the part of one or two of the younger men, when the Long Arrow was mentioned. Most of them had lighted their pipes before sitting down, and now they puffed in silence.
“The White Chief speaks strangely,” the spokesman said at last. “He tells the Cayugas that their brothers, the Onondagas, have broken the pledge of the council.”
“Yes.”
“He asks for aid?”
“No,” said Menard, “he does not ask for aid. He asks that the Iroquois nation restore to him what the dogs of the Long Arrow have taken away. He has spoken to the Long House in the voice of the Great Mountain. He has the right of a free man, of a chief honoured by the council, to go freely and in peace. What if those who do not respect the law of the council shall rob him of his rights? Must he go on his knees to the chiefs? Must he ask that he be allowed to live? Must he go far back on his trail to seek aid of the Onondagas, because the Cayugas will not hold to the law?”
One of the great lessons learned during Menard’s work under Governor Frontenac had been that the man who once permits himself to be lowered in the eyes of the Indians has forever lost his prestige. Now he sat before the chiefs of a great village, weak from the strain of the long days and nights of distress and wakefulness and hunger, his clothing still wet and bedraggled, with no weapon but a knife, no canoe, not to speak of presents,–with none of the equipment which to the Indian mind suggested authority,–and yet made his demands in the stern voice of a conqueror. He knew that these Indians cared not at all whether the word of the council to him had been broken or kept, unless he could so impress them with his authority that they would fear punishment for the offence.
“The Big Buffalo is a mighty warrior,” said the spokesman. “His hard hands are greater than the muskets and hatchets of the Cayugas. He fights with the strength of the winter wind; no man can stand where his hand falls. He speaks wisely to the Cayugas. They are sorry that their brothers, the Onondagas, have so soon forgotten the word of the great council, Let the Big Buffalo rest his arms. The warriors of the Cayugas shall be proud to offer him food.”
They all rose, and after a few grunted words of friendship, filed away to go over the matter in private council. Menard saw that they were puzzled; perhaps they did not believe that he had killed the Long Arrow. He turned to Teganouan, who had been sitting a few yards away.
“Teganouan, will you go among the braves of the village and tell them that the Big Buffalo is a strong fighter, that he killed the Long Arrow with his hands? It may be that they have not believed.”
This was the kind of strategy Teganouan understood. He walked slowly away, puffing at his pipe, to mingle among the people of the village and boast in bold metaphors the prowess of his White Chief.
“They will give us a canoe,” said Father Claude.
“Yes, they must. Now, let us sleep again.”
They dropped to the ground, and Menard looked warningly at the circle of young boys who came as close as they dared to see this strange white man, and to hear him talk in the unpronounceable language. Father Claude’s eyes were first to close. The Captain was about to join him in slumber when a low voice came from the door.
“M’sieu.”
He started up and saw the maid holding the door ajar and leaning against it, her pale face, framed in a tangle of soft hair, showing traces of the wearing troubles of the days just passed.
“Ah, Mademoiselle, you must not waken. You must sleep long, and rest, and grow bright and young again.”
She smiled, and looked at him timidly.
“I have been dreaming, M’sieu,” she said, and her eyes dropped, “such an unpleasant dream. It was after we had crossed the lake–We did cross it, M’sieu, did we not? That, too, was not a dream? No–see, my hair is wet.”
“No,” he said, “that was not a dream.”
“We were on the land, and I was so tired, and you talked to me–something good–I cannot remember what it was, but I know that you were good. And I thought that I–that I said words that hurt you, unkind words. And when I wished and tried to speak as I felt, only the other words would come. That was a dream, M’sieu, was it not? It has been troubling me. You have been so kind, and I could not sleep thinking that–that–”
“Yes,” he said, “that was a dream.”
She looked at him with relief, but as she looked she seemed to become more fully awake to what they were saying. Her eyes lowered again, and the red came over her face.
“I am glad,” she said, so low that he hardly heard.
“And now you will rest, Mademoiselle?”
She smiled softly, and drew back within the hut, closing the heavy door. And Menard turned away, unmindful of the wide-eyed boys who were staring from a safe distance at him and at the door where the strange woman had appeared. He sat with his back against the logs of the hut, and looked at the ants that hurried about over the trampled ground.
The sun was high when he was aroused by Teganouan, who had spent the greater part of the morning among the people of the village.
“Have you any word, Teganouan?”
“Yes. The warriors have learned of the strength of the Big Buffalo, and his name frightens them. They bow to the great chief who has killed the Long Arrow without a hatchet. They say that the Onondagas should be punished for their treachery.”
“Good.”
“Teganouan has been talking long with a runner of the Seneca nation.”
“Ah, he brings word of the fight?”
“Yes. The Senecas have suffered under the iron hand of the Great Mountain. A great army takes up the hatchet when he goes on the war-path, more than all the Senecas and Cayugas and Onondagas together when every brave who can hold in his hand a bow or a musket has come to fight with his brothers. There were white warriors so many that the runner could not have counted them with all the sticks in the Long House. There were men of the woods in the skins and beads of the redmen; there were Hurons and Ottawas and Nipissings, and even the cowardly Illinois and the Kaskaskias and the Miamis from the land where the Great River flows past the Rock Demons. The Senecas fought with the strength of the she-bear, but their warriors were killed, their corn was trampled and cut, their lodges were burned.”
“Did the Great Mountain pursue them?”
“He has gone back to his stone house across the great lake, leaving the land black and smoking. The Senecas have come to the western villages of the Cayugas.”
“There are none in this village?”
“No. But the chiefs have sent blankets to their brothers, and as much corn as a hundred braves could carry over the trail. They have taken from their own houses to give to the Senecas.”
A few moments later two young men came with baskets of sagamity and smoked meat. Menard received it, and rising, knocked gently at the door.
“Yes, M’sieu,–I am not sleeping.”
He hesitated, and she came to the door and opened it.
“Ah, you have food, M’sieu! I am glad. I have been so hungry.”
“Come, Father,” said the Captain, and they entered and sat on the long bench, eating the smoky, greasy meat as eagerly as if it had been cooked for the Governor’s table. Their spirits rose as the baskets emptied, and they found that they could laugh and joke about their ravenous hunger.
The chiefs returned shortly after, and came stooping into the hut in the free Indian fashion. The old chief spoke:–
“The Big Buffalo has honoured the lodges of the Cayugas; he has made the village proud to offer him their corn and meat. It would make their hearts glad if he would linger about their fires, with the holy Father and the squaw, that they might tell their brothers of the great warrior who dwelt in their village. But the White Chief bears the word of the Long House. He goes to the stone house to tell his white brothers, who fight with the thunder, that the Cayugas and the Onondagas are friends of the white men, that they have given a pledge which binds them as close as could the stoutest ropes of deerskin. And so with sad hearts they come to say farewell to the Big Buffalo, and to wish that no dog may howl while he sleeps, that no wind may blow against his canoe, that no rains may fall until he rests with his brothers at the great stone house beyond the lake.”
“The Big Buffalo thanks the mighty chiefs of the Cayugas,” replied Menard. “He is glad that they are his friends. And when his mouth is close to the ear of the Great Mountain, he will tell him that his Cayuga sons are loyal to their Father.”
The chief had lighted a long pipe. After two deliberate puffs, the first upward toward the roof of the hut, the second toward the ground, he handed it to Menard, who followed his example, and passed it to the chief next in importance. As it went slowly from hand to hand about the circle, the Captain turned to the maid, who sat at his side.
“Do they mean it, M’sieu?” she whispered.
For an instant a twinkle came into his eye; she saw it, and smiled.
“Careful,” he whispered.
Before she could check the smile, a bronze hand reached across to her with the pipe. She started back and looked down at it.
“You must smoke it,” Menard whispered. “It is a great honour. They have admitted you to their council.”
“Oh, M’sieu–I can’t–” she took the pipe and held it awkwardly; then, with an effort, raised it to her mouth. It made her cough, and she gave it quickly to the Captain.
The Indians rose gravely and filed out of the hut.
“Come, Mademoiselle, we are to go.”
The smoke had brought tears to her eyes, and she was hesitating, laughing in spite of herself.
“Oh, M’sieu, will–will it make me sick?”
He smiled, with a touch of the old light humour.
“I think not. We must go, or they will wonder.”
They found the chiefs waiting before the hut, Father Claude and Teganouan among them. As soon as they had appeared, the whole party set out through the village and over a trail through the woods to the eastward. The ill-kept dogs played about them, and plunged, barking, through the brush on either side. Behind, at a little distance, came the children and hangers-on of the village, jostling one another to keep at the head where they could see the white strangers.
When they reached the bank of the lake, they found two canoes drawn up on the narrow strip of gravel, and a half-dozen well-armed braves waiting close at hand. The chief paused and pointed toward the canoes.
“The Cayugas are proud that the White Chief will sail in their canoes to the land of the white men. The bravest warriors of a mighty village will go with them to see that no Onondaga arrow flies into their camp by night.”
He signalled to a brave, who brought forward a musket and laid it, with powder-horn and bullet-pouch, at the Captain’s feet.
“This musket is to tell the Big Buffalo that no wild beast shall disturb his feast, and that meat in plenty shall hang from the smoking-pole in his lodge.”
The canoes were carried into the water and they embarked,–Menard, the maid, and two braves in one, Father Claude and four braves in the other. They swung out into the lake, the wiry arms and shoulders of the canoemen knotting with each stroke of the paddles; and the crowd of Indians stood on the shore gazing after until they had passed from view beyond a wooded point.
A few hours should take them to the head of the lake. They had reached perhaps half the distance, when Menard saw that two of his canoemen had exchanged glances and were looking toward the shore. He glanced along the fringe of trees and bushes, a few hundred yards distant, until his eyes rested on three empty canoes. He called to Father Claude’s canoe, and both, at his order, headed for the shore. As they drew near, half a score of Indians came from the brush.
“Why,” said the maid, “there are some of the men who brought us to the lake.”
“Yes,” replied Menard, “it is the Long Arrow’s band.”
He leaped out of the canoe before it touched the beach, and walked sternly up to the group of warriors. He knew why they were there. It was what he had expected. When they had discovered the death of the Long Arrow there had been rage and consternation. Disputes had followed, the band had divided, and a part had crossed the lake to hunt the trail of the Big Buffalo. He folded his arms and gave them a long, contemptuous look.
“Why do the Onondagas seek the trail of the Big Buffalo? Do they think to overtake him? Do they think that all their hands together are strong enough to hold him? Did they think that they could lie to the White Chief, could play the traitor, and go unpunished?”
Only one or two of the Onondagas had their muskets in their hands. They all showed fright, and one was edging toward the wood. The Cayugas in the canoes, at a word from Father Claude, had raised their muskets. Menard saw the movement from the corner of his eye, and for the moment doubted the wisdom of the action. It was a question whether the Cayugas could actually be brought to fire on their Onondaga brothers. Still, this band had defied the law of the council, and might, in the eyes of the Indians, bring down another war upon the nation by their act. While he spoke, the Captain had been deciding on a course. He now walked boldly up to the man who was nearest the bushes, and snatched away his musket. There was a stir and a murmur, but without heeding, he took also the only other musket in the party, and stepped between the Indians and the forest.
“Stand where you are, or I will kill you. One man”–he pointed to a youth–“will go into the forest and bring your muskets to the canoes.”
They hesitated, but Menard held his piece ready to fire, and the Cayugas did the same. At last the youth went sullenly into the bushes and brought out an armful of muskets.
“Count them, Father,” Menard called in French.
The priest did so, and then ran his eye over the party on the beach.
“There are two missing, M’sieu.”
Menard turned to the youth, who, though he had not understood the words, caught their spirit and hurried back for the missing weapons. Then the Captain walked coolly past them, and took his place in the canoe. For a long time, as they paddled up the lake, they could see the Onondagas moving about the beach, and could hear their angry voices.