The Shadow of the North: A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign, Altsheler [reading eggs books txt] 📗

"What they tell of you is true," he said. "In truth that was a most gorgeous and rounded speech you made about your friend. I don't recall finer and more flowing periods! What vividness! What imagery! I'm proud to know you, Lennox!"

Robert reddened and then laughed.

"I do grow enthusiastic when I talk about Tayoga," he said, "but you'll see that what I predict will come to pass. He's probably told Willet just when he'll be back at Fort Refuge. We'll ask him."

The hunter informed them that Tayoga intended to take exactly ten days.

"This is Monday," he said. "He'll be here a week from next Thursday at noon."

"But suppose something happens to detain him," said Wilton, "suppose the weather is too bad for traveling, or suppose a lot of other things that can happen easily."

Willet shrugged his shoulders.

"In such a case as this where Tayoga is concerned," he said, "we don't suppose anything, we go by certainties. Before he left, Tayoga settled the day and the hour when he would return and it's not now a problem or a question. He has disposed of the subject."

"I can't quite see it that way," said Wilton tenaciously. "I admit that Tayoga is a wonderful fellow, but he cannot possibly tell the exact hour of his return from such a journey as the one he has undertaken."

"You wait and see," said the hunter in the utmost good nature. "You think you know Tayoga, but you don't yet know him fully."

"If I were not a Quaker I'd wager a small sum of money that he does not come at the time appointed," said Wilton.

"Then it's lucky for your pocket that you're a Quaker," laughed
Willet.

It turned much colder that very afternoon, and the raw edge of winter showed. The wind from the northwest was bitter and the dead leaves fell in showers. At dusk a chilling rain began, and the young soldiers, shivering, were glad enough to seek the shelter of the blockhouse, where a great fire was blazing on the broad hearth. They had made many rude camp stools and sitting down on one before the blaze Wilton let the pleasant warmth fall upon his face.

"I'm sorry for Tayoga," he said to Robert. "Just when you and Willet were boasting most about him this winter rain had to come and he was no more than fairly started. He'll have to hunt a den somewhere in the forest and crouch in it wrapped in his blanket."

Robert smiled serenely.

"Den! Crouch! Wrapped in his blanket! What do you mean?" he asked in his mellow, golden voice. "Are you speaking of my friend, Tayoga, of the Clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee? Can it be possible, Wilton, that you are referring to him, when you talk of such humiliating subterfuges?"

"I refer to him and none other, Lennox. I see him now, stumbling about in the deep forest, looking for shelter."

"No, Wilton, you don't see Tayoga. You merely see an idle figment of a brain that does not yet fully know my friend, the great young Onondaga. But I see him, and I see him clearly. I behold a tall, strong figure, head slightly bent against the rain, eyes that see in the dark as well as yours see in the brightest sunlight, feet that move surely and steadily in the path, never stumbling and never veering, tireless muscles that carry him on without slackening."

"Dithyrambic again, Lennox. You are certainly loyal to your friend. As for me, I'm glad I'm not out there in the black and wet forest. No human being can keep to his pace at such a time."

Robert again smiled serenely, but he said nothing more. His confidence was unlimited. Presently he wrapped around his body a rude but serviceable overcoat of beaver skin that he had made for himself, and went out. The cold, drizzling icy rain that creeps into one's veins was still falling, and he shivered despite his furs. He looked toward the northeast whither Tayoga's course took him, and he felt sorry for his red comrade, but he never doubted that he was speeding on his way with sure and unfaltering step.

The sentinels, mounted on the broad plank that ran behind the palisade, were walking to and fro, wrapped to their eyes. A month or two earlier they might have left everything on such a night to take care of itself, but now they knew far better. Captain Colden, with the terrible lesson of the battle in the bush, had become a strict disciplinarian, and Willet was always at his elbow with unobtrusive but valuable advice which the young Philadelphian had the good sense to welcome.

Robert spoke to them, and one or two referred to the Indian runner who had gone east, saying that he might have had a better night for his start. The repetition of Wilton's words depressed Robert for a moment, but his heart came back with a bound. Nothing could defeat Tayoga. Did he not know his red comrade? The wilderness was like a trimmed garden to him, and neither rain, nor hail, nor snow could stop him.

As he said the word "hail" to himself it came, pattering upon the dead leaves and the palisade in a whirlwind of white pellets. Again he shivered, and knowing it was no use to linger there returned inside, where most of the men had already gone to sleep. He stretched himself on his blanket and followed them in slumber. When he awoke the next morning it was still hailing, and Wilton said in a serious tone that he hoped Tayoga would give up the journey and come back to Fort Refuge.

"I like that Onondaga," he said, "and I don't want him to freeze to death in the forest. Why, the earth and all the trees are coated with ice now, and even if a man lives he is able to make no progress."

Once more Robert smiled serenely.

"You're thinking of the men you knew in Philadelphia, Will," he said. "They, of course, couldn't make such a flight through a white forest, but Tayoga is an altogether different kind of fellow. He'll merely exert himself a little more, and go on as fast as ever."

Wilton looked at the vast expanse of glittering ice, and then drew the folds of a heavy cloak more closely about his body.

"I rejoice," he said, "that it's the Onondaga and not myself who has to make the great journey. I rejoice, too, that we have built this fort. It's not Philadelphia, that fine, true, comfortable city, but it's shelter against the hard winter that I see coming so fast."

Colden, still following the advice of Willet, kept his men busy, knowing that idleness bred discontent and destroyed discipline. At least a dozen soldiers, taught by Willet and Robert, had developed into excellent hunters, and as the game was abundant, owing to the absence of Indians, they had killed deer, bear, panther and all the other kinds of animals that ranged these forests. The flesh of such as were edible was cured and stored, as they foresaw the day when many people might be in Fort Refuge and the food would be needed. The skins also were dressed and were put upon the floor or hung upon the walls. The young men working hard were happy nevertheless, as they were continually learning new arts. And the life was healthy to an extraordinary degree. All the wounded were as whole as before, and everybody acquired new and stronger muscles.

Their content would have been yet greater in degree had they been able to learn what was going on outside, in that vast world where France and Britain and their colonies contended so fiercely for the mastery. But they looked at the wall of the forest, and it was a blank. They were shut away from all things as completely as Crusoe on his island. Nor would they hear a single whisper until Tayoga came back—if he came back.

On the second day after the Onondaga's departure the air softened, but became darker. The glittering white of the forest assumed a more somber tinge, clouds marched up in solemn procession from the southwest, and mobilized in the center of the heavens, a wind, touched with damp, blew. Robert knew very well what the elements portended and again he was sorry for Tayoga, but as before, after the first few moments of discouragement his courage leaped up higher than ever. His brilliant imagination at once painted a picture in which every detail was vivid and full of life, and this picture was of a vast forest, trees and bushes alike clothed in ice, and in the center of it a slender figure, but straight, tall and strong, Tayoga himself speeding on like the arrow from the bow, never wavering, never weary. Then his mind allowed the picture to fade. Wilton might not believe Tayoga could succeed, but how could this young Quaker know Tayoga as he knew him?

The clouds, having finished their mobilization in the center of the heavens, soon spread to the horizon on every side. Then a single great white flake dropped slowly and gracefully from the zenith, fell within the palisade, and melted before the eyes of Robert and Wilton. But it was merely a herald of its fellows which, descending at first like skirmishers, soon thickened into companies, regiments, brigades, divisions and armies. Then all the air was filled with the flakes, and they were so thick they could not see the forest.

"The first snow of the winter and a big one," said Wilton, "and again I give thanks for our well furnished fort. There may be greater fortresses in Europe, and of a certainty there are many more famous, but there is none finer to me than this with its' stout log walls, its strong, broad roofs, and its abundance of supplies. Once more, though, I'm sorry for your friend, Tayoga. A runner may go fast over ice, if he's extremely sure of foot and his moccasins are good, but I know of no way in which he can speed like the gull in its flight through deep snow."

"Not through the snow, but he may be on it," said Robert.

"And how on it, wise but cryptic young sir?"

"Snow shoes."

"But he took none with him and had none to take."

"Which proves nothing. The Indians often hide in the forest articles they'll need at some far day. A canoe may be concealed in a thicket at the creek's edge, a bow and arrows may be thrust away under a ledge, all awaiting the coming of their owner when he needs them most."

"The chance seems too small to me, Lennox. I can't think a pair of snow shoes will rise out of the forest just when Tayoga wants 'em, walk up to him and say: 'Please strap us on your feet.' I make concession freely that the Onondaga is a most wonderful fellow, but he can't work miracles. He does not hold such complete mastery over the wilderness that it will obey his lightest whisper. I read fairy tales in my youth and they pleased me much, but alas! they were fairy tales! The impossible doesn't happen!"

"Who's the great talker now? Your words were flowing then like the trickling of water from a spout. But you're wrong, Will, about the impossible. The impossible often happens. Great spirits like Tayoga love the impossible. It draws them on, it arouses their energy, they think it worth while. I've seen Tayoga more than once since he started, as plainly as I see you, Will. Now, I shut my eyes and I behold him once more. He's in the forest. The snow is pouring down. It lies a foot deep on the ground, the boughs bend with it, and sometimes they crack under it with a report like that of a rifle. The tops of the bushes crowned with white bend their weight toward the ground, the panthers, the wolves, and the wildcats all lie snug in their dens. It's a dead world save for one figure. Squarely in the center of it I see Tayoga, bent over a little, but flying straight forward at a speed that neither you nor I could match, Will. His feet do not sink in the snow. He skims upon it like a swallow through the air. His feet are encased in something long and narrow. He has on snow shoes and he goes like the wind!"

"You do have supreme confidence in the Onondaga, Lennox!"

"So would you if you knew him as I