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

young Philadelphian wondered. Had Robert seen a sign, a sign that had escaped all others? He searched the forest everywhere with his own eyes, but he could detect nothing unusual. There were the French, and there were the Indians. There were the new warriors, and there were the three runners resting by the fires.

The runners rose presently, and the one who had come out of the north talked with Tandakora, the one who had come out of the west stood near the edge of the forest with an Abenaki chief and looked at the fort. The one who had come out of the east joined De Courcelles himself and they came nearer to the fort than any of the others, although they remained just beyond rifle shot. Evidently De Courcelles was explaining something to the Indian as once he pointed toward the blockhouse.

Wilton heard Robert beside him draw a deep breath, and he turned in surprise. The face of young Lennox was tense and his eyes fairly blazed as he gazed at De Courcelles and the warrior. Then looking back at the forest Robert uttered a sudden sharp, Ah! the release of uncontrollable emotion, snapping like a pistol shot.

"Did you see it, Will? Did you see it?" he exclaimed. "It was quicker than lightning!"

The Indian runner stooped, snatched the pistol from the belt of De Courcelles, struck him such a heavy blow on the head with the butt of it that he fell without a sound, and then his brown body shot forward like an arrow for the fort.

"Open the gate! Open the gate!" thundered Willet, and strong arms unbarred it and flung it back in an instant. The brown body of Tayoga flashed through, and, in another instant, it was closed and barred again.

"He is here with five minutes to spare!" said Robert as he left the palisade with Wilton, and went toward the blockhouse to greet his friend.

Tayoga, painted like a Micmac and stooping somewhat hitherto, drew himself to his full height, held out his hand in the white man's fashion to Robert, while his eyes, usually so calm, showed a passing gleam of triumph.

"I said, Tayoga, that you would be back on time, that is by noon today," said Robert, "and though the task has been hard you're with us and you have a few minutes to spare. How did you deceive the sharp eyes of Tandakora?"

"I did not let him see me, knowing he would look through my disguise, but I asked the French colonel to come forward with me at once and inspect the fort, knowing that it was my only chance to enter here, and he agreed to do so. You saw the rest, and thus I have come. It is not pleasant to those who besiege us, as your ears tell you."

Fierce yells of anger and disappointment were rising in the forest. Jumonville and two French soldiers had rushed forward, seized the reviving De Courcelles and were carrying him to one of the fires, where they would bind up his injured head. But inside the fort there was only exultation at the arrival of Tayoga and admiration for his skill. He insisted first on being allowed to wash off the Micmac paint, enabling him to return to his true character. Then he took food and drink.

"Tayoga," said Wilton, "I believed you could not come. I said so often to Lennox. You would never have known my belief, because Lennox would not have told it to you, but I feel that I must apologize to you for the thought. I underrated you, but I underrated you because I did not believe any human being could do what you have done."

Tayoga smiled, showing his splendid white teeth. "Your thoughts did me no wrong," he said in his precise school English, "because the elements and chance itself seemed to have conspired against me."

Later he told what he had heard in the vale of Onondaga where the sachems and chiefs kept themselves well informed concerning the movements of the belligerent nations. The French were still the more active of the rival powers, and their energy and conquests were bringing the western tribes in great numbers to their flag. Throughout the Ohio country the warriors were on the side of the French who were continuing the construction of the powerful fortress at the junction of the Alleghany and the Monongahela. The French were far down in the province of New York, and they held control of Lake Champlain and of Lake George also. More settlements had been cut off, and more women and children had been taken prisoners into Canada.

But the British colonies and Great Britain too would move, so Tayoga said. They were slow, much slower than Canada, but they had the greater strength and the fifty sachems in the vale of Onondaga knew it. They could not be moved from their attitude of friendliness toward the English, and the Mohawks openly espoused the English side. The American, Franklin, was very active, and a great movement against Fort Duquesne would be begun, although it might not start until next spring. An English force under an English general was coming across the sea, and the might of England was gathering for a great blow.

The Onondaga had few changes in the situation to report, but he at least brought news of the outside world, driving away from the young soldiers the feeling that they were cut off from the human race. Wilton was present when he was telling of these things and when he had finished Robert asked:

"How did you make your way through the great snow, Tayoga?"

"It is well to think long before of difficulties," he replied. "Last year when the winter was finished I hid a pair of snow shoes in this part of the forest, and when the deep snow came I found them and used them."

Robert glanced at Wilton, whose eyes were widening.

"And the great rain and flood, how did you meet that obstacle?" asked
Robert.

"That, too, was forethought. I have two canoes hidden in this region, and it was easy to reach one of them, in which I traveled with speed and comfort, until I could use it no longer. Then I hid it away again that it might help me another time."

"And what did you do when the hurricane came, tearing up the bushes, cutting down the trees, and making the forest as dangerous as if it were being showered by cannon balls?"

"I crept under a wide ledge of stone in the side of a hill, where I lay snug, dry and safe."

Wilton looked at Tayoga and Robert, and then back at the Onondaga.

"Is this wizardry?" he cried.

"No," replied Robert.

"Then it's singular chance."

"Nor that either. It was the necessities that confronted Tayoga in the face of varied dangers, and my knowledge of what he would be likely to do in either case. Merely a rather fortunate use of the reasoning faculties, Will."

Willet, who had come in, smiled.

"Don't let 'em make game of you, Mr. Wilton," he said, "but there's truth in what Robert tells you. He understands Tayoga so thoroughly that he knows pretty well what he'll do in every crisis."

After the Onondaga had eaten he wrapped himself in blankets, went to sleep in one of the rooms of the blockhouse and slept twenty-four hours. When he awoke he showed no signs of his tremendous journey and infinite dangers. He was once more the lithe and powerful Tayoga of the Clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga of the great League of the Hodenosaunee.

The besiegers meanwhile undertook no movement, but, as if in defiance, they increased the fires in the red ring around the fort and they showed themselves ostentatiously. Robert several times saw De Courcelles with a thick bandage about his head, and he knew that the Frenchman's mortification and rage at being tricked so by the Onondaga must be intense.

Now the weather began to grow very cold again, and Robert saw the number of tepees in the forest increase. The Indians, not content with the fires, were providing themselves with good shelters, and to every one it indicated a long siege. There was neither snow, nor hail, but clear, bitter, intense cold, and again the timbers of the blockhouse and outbuildings popped as they contracted under the lower temperature.

The horses were pretty well sheltered from the cold, and Willet, with his usual foresight, had suggested before the siege closed in that a great deal of grass be cut for them, though should the French and Indians hang on for a month or two, they would certainly become a problem. Food for the men would last indefinitely, but a time might arrive when none would be left for the horses.

"If the pinch comes," said Willet, "we know how to relieve it."

"How?" asked Colden.

"We'll eat the horses."

Colden made a wry face.

"It's often been done in Europe," said the hunter. "At the famous sieges of Leyden and Haarlem, when the Dutch held out so long against the Spanish, they'd have been glad enough to have had horseflesh."

"I look ahead again," said Robert, hiding a humorous gleam in his eyes from Colden, "and I see a number of young men behind a palisade which they have held gallantly for months. They come mostly from Philadelphia and they call themselves Quakers. They are thin, awfully thin, terribly thin, so thin that there is scarcely enough to make a circle for their belts. They have not eaten for four days, and they are about to kill their last horse. When he is gone they will have to live on fresh air and scenery."

"Now I know Lennox that you're drawing on your imagination and that you're a false prophet," said Colden.

"I hope my prediction won't come true, and I don't believe it will," said Robert cheerfully.

Several nights later when there was no moon, and no stars, Willet and Tayoga slipped out of the fort. Colden was much opposed to their going, fearing for their lives, and knowing, too, how great a loss they would be if they were taken or slain, but the hunter and the Onondaga showed the utmost confidence, assuring him they would return in safety.

Colden became quite uneasy for them after they had been gone some hours, and Robert, although he refused to show it, felt a trace of apprehension. He knew their great skill in the forest, but Tandakora was a master of woodcraft too, and the Frenchmen also were experienced and alert. As he, Colden, Wilton and Carson watched at the palisade he was in fear lest a triumphant shout from the Indian lines would show that the hunter and the Onondaga had been trapped.

But the long hours passed without an alarm and about three o'clock in the morning two shadows appeared at the palisade and whispered to them. Robert felt great relief as Willet and Tayoga climbed silently over.

"We're half frozen," said the hunter. "Take us into the blockhouse and over the fire we'll tell you all we've seen."

They always kept a bed of live coals on the hearth in the main building, and the two who had returned bent over the grateful heat, warming their hands and faces. Not until they were in a normal physical condition did Colden or Robert ask them any questions and then Willet said:

"Their ring about the fort is complete, but in the darkness we were able to slip through and then back again. I should judge that they have at least three hundred warriors and Tandakora is first among them. There are about thirty Frenchmen. De Courcelles has taken off his bandage, but he still has a bruise where Tayoga struck him. Peeping from the bushes I saw him and his face has grown more evil. It was evident to me that the blow of Tayoga has inflamed his mind. He feels mortified and humiliated at the way in which he was outwitted, and, as Tandakora also nurses a personal hatred against us, it's likely that they'll keep up the siege all winter, if they think in the end they can get us.

"Their camp, too, shows increasing signs of permanency. They've built a dozen bark huts in which all the French, all the chiefs and some of the warriors sleep, and there are skin lodges for the rest. Oh, it's quite a village! And they've accumulated game, too, for a long time."

Colden looked depressed.

"We're not fulfilling our mission," he said. "We've come out here to protect the settlers on the border, and give them a place of refuge. Instead, it looks as if we'd pass