The Hunters of the Hills, Joseph A. Altsheler [ereader ebook TXT] 📗

Courcelles, not pressing a third attack, entered with Jumonville upon his duties as host. Both were graceful, easy, assured, and they fulfilled Robert's conception of French officers, as men of the world who knew courts and manners. It was a time when courts were more important than they are today, and they were recognized universally as the chief fountains from which flowed honor and advancement.

Robert did not like them as well as St. Luc, but he found a certain charm in their company. They could talk of things that interested him, and they exerted themselves, telling indirectly of the glories of Quebec and alluding now and then to the greater splendors of Paris and Versailles. It was a time when the French monarchy loomed as the greatest power in the world. The hollowness and decay of the House of Bourbon were not yet disclosed, even to the shrewdest observers, and a spell was cast upon all the civilized nations by the gorgeous and glittering world of fashion and the world of arms. The influence reached even into the depths of the vast North American wilderness and was felt by Robert as he sat beside the camp fire in the savage woods with the Frenchmen.

He drank a little of the red wine, but only a very little, and Tayoga would not touch it at all. Willet took a small leather cup of it, but declined a second. The food was good, better cooked than it usually was among the English colonists, where the table was regarded as a necessity, and in no particular as a rite. Robert, despite his habitual caution, found his heart warming toward his French hosts. It could not be possible that the Indians had been set upon his comrades and himself by the French! The warmth of his heart increased when one of the Canadians took a violin from a cloth cover and began to play wailing old airs. Like so many others, Robert was not made melancholy by melancholy music. Instead, he saw through a pleasing glow and the world grew poetic and tender. The fire sank and Americans, French, Canadians and Indians listened with the same silent interest. Presently the violinist played a livelier tune and the habitants sang to the music:

   "Malbrouck, s'en va t-en guerre
   Mironton, mironton, mirontaine;
   Malbrouck s'en va t-en guerre
   Ne sait quand reviendra."

Then he left Malbrouck, and it was:

   "Hier sur le pont d'Avignon
   J'ai oui chanter la belle
           Lon, la,
   J'ai oui chanter la belle
   Elle chantait d'un ton si doux
       Comme une demoiselle
           Lon, la,
       Comme une demoiselle."

The Canadians sang well, particularly in "The Bridge of Avignon," and the dying fire, the black woods around them and the sighing wind created an effect that no stage scenery could ever have given it. When the last note melted with the wind de Courcelles sighed a little and stared into the sinking fire.

"It is a fair country, sweet France," he said; "I myself have stood upon the bridge of Avignon, and I have watched the pretty girls. It may be that I have had a kiss or two, but all that is far away now. This is a bolder country than France, Mr. Lennox, larger, more majestic, but it is wild and savage, and will be so for many years to come. Nor can the rules that apply to old and civilized Europe apply here, where the deeds of men, like the land, are wilder, too."

Robert was conscious of some meaning in his words, perhaps a trace of apology for a deed that he had done or would do, but in the mind of young Lennox men's standards should be the same, whether in the wilderness of New York and Canada or in the open fields of France and England. De Courcelles, thoughtful for a moment, turned suddenly to the man with the violin and cried:

"Play! Play again!"

The man played quaint old airs, folk songs that had been brought from Normandy and Brittany, and the habitants sang them in low voices or rather hummed them in the subdued manner that seemed fitting to the night, since the black shadows were creeping up closer, leaving only the fire, as a core of light with the dusky figures around it. During all the talk the Indians had been silent. They had eaten their food and remained now, sitting in Turkish fashion, the flickering flames that played across their faces giving to them a look sinister and menacing to the last degree.

The Frenchmen, too, fell silent, as if their courtesy was exhausted and conversation had become an effort. The last of the old French airs was finished, and the player put his violin away. Jumonville, who had spoken but little, threw a fresh stick on the fire and looked at the black wall of circling forest.

"I can never get quite used to it," he said. "The wilderness is so immense, so menacing that when I am in it at night a little shiver will come now and then. I suppose our remote ancestors who lived in caves must have had fear at their elbows all their lives."

"Very likely," said de Courcelles, thoughtfully, staring into the coals. "It isn't strange that many people have worshiped fire as God. Why shouldn't they when it brings light in the dark, and lifts up our souls, when it warms us and makes us feel strong, when it cooks our food and when in the earlier day it drove away the great wild animals, with which man was not able to fight on equal terms?"

"I am not one to undervalue fire," said Robert.

"Few of us do in the forest. The night grows chill, but two of our good Canadians will keep the coals alive until morning. And now I suppose you are weary with your day's travels and wish sleep. I see that you have blankets of your own or I should offer you some of ours."

Tayoga had been sitting before the fire, as silent as the Canadian Indians, his rifle across his knees, his eyes turned toward the blaze. The glow of the flames fell upon him, disclosing his lofty countenance, his splendidly molded figure, and his superiority to the other Indians, who were not of the Hodenosaunee and who to him were, therefore, as much barbarians as all people who were not Greeks were barbarians to the ancient Greeks. Not a word of kinship or friendship had passed between him and them. For him, haughty and uncompromising, they did not exist. For a long time his deep unfathomable eyes had never turned from the fire, but now he rose suddenly and said:

"Someone comes in the forest!"

De Courcelles looked up in surprise.

"I hear nothing," he said.

"Someone comes in the forest!" repeated Tayoga with emphasis.

De Courcelles glanced at his own Indians. They had not yet moved, but in a moment or two they too rose to their feet, and then he knew that the Onondaga was right. Now Robert also heard a moccasined and light footstep approaching. A darker shadow appeared against the darkness, and the figure of an Indian, gigantic and sinister, stepped within the circle of the firelight.

It was Tandakora, the Ojibway.

CHAPTER VII NEW FRANCE

The huge and savage warrior had never looked more malignant. His face and his bare chest were painted with the most hideous devices, and his eyes, in the single glance that he cast upon Robert and his comrades, showed full of black and evil passions. Then, as if they were no longer present, he stalked to the fire, took up some cooked deer meat that lay beside it, and, sitting down Turkish fashion like the other Indians, began to eat, not saying a word to the Frenchmen.

It was the action of a savage of the savages, but Robert, startled at first by the unexpected appearance of such an enemy, called to his aid the forest stoicism that he had learned and sat down, calm, outwardly at least. The initiative was not his now, nor that of his comrades, and he glanced anxiously at de Courcelles to see how he would take this rude invasion of his camp. The French colonel looked at Tandakora, then at Jumonville, and Jumonville looked at him. The two shrugged their shoulders, and in a flash of intuition he was convinced that they knew the Ojibway well.

Whatever anger de Courcelles may have felt at the manners of the savage he showed none at all. All the tact and forbearance which the French used with such wonderful effect in their dealings with the North American Indians were summoned to his aid. He spoke courteously to Tandakora, but, as his words were in the Ojibway dialect, Robert did not understand them. The Indian made a guttural reply and continued to gnaw fiercely at the bone of the deer. De Courcelles still took no offense, and spoke again, his words smooth and his face smiling. Then Tandakora, in his deep guttural, spoke rapidly and with heat. When he had finished de Courcelles turned to his guests, and with a deprecatory gesture, said:

"Tandakora's heart burns with wrath. He says that you attacked him and his party in the forest and have slain some of his warriors."

"Tandakora lies!"

It was the Onondaga who spoke. His voice was not raised, but every syllable was articulated clearly, and the statement came with the impact of a bullet. The tan of de Courcelles' face could not keep a momentary flush from breaking through, but he kept his presence of mind.

"It is easy enough to call a man a liar," he said, "but it is another thing to prove it."

"Since when," said Tayoga, haughtily, "has the word of an Ojibway, a barbarian who knows not the law, been worth more than that of one who is a member of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee?"

He spoke in English, which Robert knew the Ojibway understood and which both Frenchmen spoke fluently. The great hand of Tandakora drifted down toward the handle of his tomahawk, but Tayoga apparently did not see him, his fathomless eyes again staring into the fire. Robert looked at Willet, and he saw the hunter's eye also fall upon the handle of his tomahawk, a weapon which he knew the Great Bear could hurl with a swiftness and precision equal to those of any Indian. He understood at once that Tayoga was protected by the hunter from any sudden movement by the Ojibway and his great strain relaxed.

De Courcelles frowned, but his face cleared in an instant. Robert, watching him now, believed he was not at all averse to a quarrel between the Onondaga and the Ojibway.

"It is not a question for me to decide," he replied. "The differences of the Hodenosaunee and the western tribes are not mine, though His Majesty, King Louis of France, wishes all his red brethren to dwell together in peace. Yet I but tell to you, Tayoga, what Tandakora has told to me. He says that you three attacked him and peaceful warriors back there in a gorge of the river, and slew some of his comrades."

"Tandakora lies," repeated Tayoga in calm and measured tones. "It is true that warriors who were with them fell beneath our bullets, but they came swimming in the night, seeking to murder us while we slept, and while there is yet no war between us. An Onondaga or a Mohawk or any warrior of the Hodenosaunee hates and despises a snake."

The words, quiet though they were, were fairly filled with concentrated loathing. The eyes of the huge Ojibway flashed and his clutch on the handle of his tomahawk tightened convulsively, but the fixed gaze of the hunter seemed to draw him at that moment. He saw that Willet's eyes were upon him, that every muscle was attuned and that the tomahawk would leap from his belt like a flash of lightning, and seeing, Tandakora paused.

The two Frenchmen looked at Tayoga, at Tandakora and at Willet. Then they looked at each other, and being acute men with a full experience of forest life, they understood the silent drama.

"I don't undertake to pass any judgment here," said de Courcelles, after a pause. "It is the word of one warrior against another, and I cannot say which is the better. But since you are going to the Marquis Duquesne at Quebec, Mr. Lennox, the matter may be laid before him, and it is for those who make charges to bring proof."

The words were silky, but Robert saw that they were intended to weave a net.

"We are on an official mission from the Governor of the Province of New York to