The Scouts of the Valley

“I think,” said Wyatt, “that Hyde did not manage it himself, all alone. How could he? He was bound both hand and foot; and I’ve learned, too, Blackstaffe, that four of the best Iroquois rifles have been taken. That means one apiece for Hyde and the three prisoners that are left.”

The two exchanged looks of meaning and understanding.

“It must have been the boy Ware who helped Hyde to get away,” said Blackstaffe, “and their taking of the rifles means that he and Hyde expect to rescue the other three in the same way. You think so, too?”

“Of course,” replied Wyatt. “What makes the Indians, who are so wonderfully alert and watchful most of the time, become so careless when they have a great feast?”

Blackstaffe shrugged his shoulders.

“It is their way,” he replied. “You cannot change it. Ware must have noticed what they were about, and he took advantage of it. But I don’t think any of the others will go that way.”

“The boy Cotter is in here,” said Braxton Wyatt, tapping the side of a small hut. “Let’s go in and see him.”

“Good enough,” said Blackstaffe. “But we mustn’t let him know that Hyde has escaped.”

Paul, also bound hand and foot, was lying on an old wolfskin. He, too, was pale and thin-the strict confinement had told upon him heavily-but Paul’s spirit could never be daunted. He looked at the two renegades with hatred and contempt.

“Well, you’re in a fine fix,” said Wyatt sneeringly. “We just came in to tell you that we took Henry Ware last night.”

Paul looked him straight and long in the eye, and he knew that the renegade was lying.

“I know better,” he said.

“Then we will get him,” said Wyatt, abandoning the lie, “and all of you will die at the stake.”

“You, will not get him,” said Paul defiantly, “and as for the rest of us dying at the stake, that’s to be seen. I know this: Timmendiquas considers us of value, to be traded or exchanged, and he’s too smart a man to destroy what he regards as his own property. Besides, we may escape. I don’t want to boast, Braxton Wyatt, but you know that we’re hard to hold.”

Then Paul managed to turn over with his face to the wall, as if he were through with them. They went out, and Braxton Wyatt said sulkily:

“Nothing to be got out of him.”

“No,” said Blackstaffe, “but we must urge that the strictest kind of guard be kept over the others.”

The Iroquois were to remain some time at the village, because all their forces were not yet gathered for the great foray they had in mind. The Onondaga runners were still carrying the wampum belts of purple shells, sign of war, to distant villages of the tribes, and parties of warriors were still coming in. A band of Cayugas arrived that night, and with them they brought a half starved and sick, Lenni-Lenape, whom they had picked up near the camp. The Lenni-Lenape, who looked as if he might have been when in health a strong and agile warrior, said that news had reached him through the Wyandots of the great war to be waged by the Iroquois on the white settlements, and the spirits would not let him rest unless he bore his part in it. He prayed therefore to be accepted among them.

Much food was given to the brave Lenni-Lenape, and he was sent to a lodge to rest. To-morrow he would be well, and he would be welcomed to the ranks of the Cayugas, a Younger nation. But when the morning came, the lodge was empty. The sick Lenni-Lenape was gone, and with him the boy, Paul, the youngest of the prisoners. Guards bad been posted all around the camp, but evidently the two had slipped between. Brave and advanced as were the Iroquois, superstition seized upon them. Hah-gweli-da-et-gah was at work among them, coming in the form of the famished Lenni-Lenape. He had steeped them in a deep sleep, and then he had vanished with the prisoner in Se-oh (The Night). Perhaps lie had taken away the boy, who was one of a hated race, for some sacrifice or mystery of his own. The fears of the Iroquois rose. If the Spirit of Evil was among them, greater harm could be expected.

But the two renegades, Blackstaffe and Wyatt, raged. They did not believe in the interference of either good spirits or bad spirits, and just now their special hatred was a famished Lenni-Lenape warrior.

“Why on earth didn’t I think of it?” exclaimed Wyatt. “I’m sure now by his size that it was the fellow Hyde. Of Course he slipped to the lodge, let Cotter out, and they dodged about in the darkness until they escaped in the forest. I’ll complain to Timmendiquas.”

He was as good as his word, speaking of the laxness of both Iroquois and Wyandots. The great White Lightning regarded him with an icy stare.

“You say that the boy, Cotter, escaped through carelessness?” he asked.

“I do,” exclaimed Wyatt.

“Then why did you not prevent it?”

Wyatt trembled a little before the stern gaze of the chief.

“Since when,” continued Timmendiquas, “have you, a deserter front your own people, had the right to hold to account the head chief of the Wyandots?” Braxton Wyatt, brave though he undoubtedly was, trembled yet more. He knew that Timmendiquas did not like him, and that the Wyandot chieftain could make his position among the Indians precarious.

“I did not mean to say that it was the fault of anybody in particular,” he exclaimed hastily, “but I’ve been hearing so much talk about the Spirit of Evil having a hand in this that I couldn’t keep front saying something. Of course, it was Henry Ware and Hyde who did it!”

“It may be,” said Timmendiquas icily, “but neither the Manitou of the Wyandots, nor the Aieroski of the Iroquois has given to me the eyes to see everything that happens in the dark.”

Wyatt withdrew still in a rage, but afraid to say more. He and Blackstaffe held many conferences through the day, and they longed for the presence of Simon Girty, who was farther west.

That night an Onondaga runner arrived from one of the farthest villages of the Mohawks, far east toward Albany. He had been sent from a farther village, and was not known personally to the warriors in the great camp, but he bore a wampum belt of purple shells, the sign of war, and he reported directly to Thayendanegea, to whom he brought stirring and satisfactory words. After ample feasting, as became one who had come so far, he lay upon soft deerskins in one of the bark huts and sought sleep.

But Braxton Wyatt, the renegade, could not sleep. His evil spirit warned him to rise and go to the huts, where the two remaining prisoners were kept. It was then about one o’clock in the morning, and as he passed he saw the Onondaga runner at the door of one of the prison lodges. He was about to cry out, but the Onondaga turned and struck him such a violent blow with the butt of a pistol, snatched from under his deerskin tunic, that he fell senseless. When a Mohawk sentinel found and revived him an hour later, the door of the hut was open, and the oldest of the prisoners, the one called Ross, was gone.

Now, indeed, were the Iroquois certain that the Spirit of Evil was among them. When great chiefs like Timmendiquas and Thayendanegea were deceived, how could a common warrior hope to escape its wicked influence!

But Braxton Wyatt, with a sore and aching head, lay all day on a bed of skins, and his friend, Moses Blackstaffe, could give him no comfort.

The following night the camp was swept by a sudden and tremendous storm of thunder and lightning, wind and rain. Many of the lodges were thrown down, and when the storm finally whirled itself away, it was found that the last of the prisoners, he of the long arms and long legs, had gone on the edge of the blast.

Truly the Evil Spirit had been hovering over the Iroquois village.

CHAPTER VII. CATHARINE MONTOUR

The five lay deep in the swamp, reunited once more, and full of content. The great storm in which Long Jim, with the aid of his comrades, had disappeared, was whirling off to the eastward. The lightning was flaring its last on the distant horizon, but the rain still pattered in the great woods.

It was a small hut, but the five could squeeze in it. They were dry, warm, and well armed, and they had no fear of the storm and the wilderness. The four after their imprisonment and privations were recovering their weight and color. Paul, who had suffered the most, had, on the other hand, made the quickest recovery, and their present situation, so fortunate in contrast with their threatened fate a few days before, made a great appeal to his imagination. The door was allowed to stand open six inches, and through the crevice he watched the rain pattering on the dark earth. He felt an immense sense of security and comfort. Paul was hopeful by nature and full of courage, but when he lay bound and alone in a hut in the Iroquois camp it seemed to him that no chance was left. The comrades had been kept separate, and he had supposed the others to be dead. But here he was snatched from the very pit of death, and all the others had been saved from a like fate.

“If I’d known that you were alive and uncaptured, Henry,” he said, “I’d never have given up hope. It was a wonderful thing you did to start the chain that drew us all away.”

“It’s no more than Sol or Tom or any of you would have done,” said Henry.

“We might have tried it,” said Long Jim Hart, “but I ain’t sure that we’d have done it. Likely ez not, ef it had been left to me my scalp would be dryin’ somewhat in the breeze that fans a Mohawk village. Say, Sol, how wuz it that you talked Onondaga when you played the part uv that Onondaga runner. Didn’t know you knowed that kind uv Injun lingo.”

Shif’less Sol drew himself up proudly, and then passed a thoughtful hand once or twice across his forehead.

“Jim,” he said, “I’ve told you often that Paul an’ me hez the instincts uv the eddicated. Learnin’ always takes a mighty strong hold on me. Ef I’d had the chance, I might be a purfessor, or mebbe I’d be writin’ poetry. I ain’t told you about it, but when I wuz a young boy, afore I moved with the settlers, I wuz up in these parts an’ I learned to talk Iroquois a heap. I never thought it would be the use to me it hez been now. Ain’t it funny that sometimes when you put a thing away an’ it gits all covered with rust and mold, the time comes when that same forgot little thing is the most vallyble article in the world to you.”

“Weren’t you scared, Sol,” persisted Paul, “to face a man like Brant, an’ pass yourself off as an Onondaga?”

“No, I wuzn’t,” replied the shiftless one thoughtfully, “I’ve been wuss scared over little things. I guess that when your life depends on jest a motion o’ your hand or the turnin’ o’ a word, Natur’ somehow comes to your help an’ holds you up. I didn’t get good an’ skeered till it wuz all over, an’ then I had one fit right after another.”

“I’ve been skeered fur a week without stoppin’,” said Tom Ross; “jest beginnin’ to git over it. I tell you, Henry, it wuz pow’ful lucky fur us you found them steppin’ stones, an’ this solid little place in the middle uv all that black mud.”

“Makes me think uv the time we spent the winter on that island in the lake,” said Long Jim. “That waz shorely a nice place an’ pow’ful comf’table we wuz thar. But we’re a long way from it now. That island uv ours must be seven or eight hundred miles from here, an’ I reckon it’s nigh to fifteen hundred to New Orleans, whar we wuz once.”

“Shet up,” said Tom Ross suddenly. “Time fur all uv you to go to sleep, an’ I’m goin’ to watch.”

“I’ll watch,” said Henry.

“I’m the oldest, an’ I’m goin’ to have my way this time,” said Tom.

“Needn’t quarrel with me about it,” said Shif’less Sol. “A lazy man like me is always willin’ to go to sleep. You kin hev my watch, Tom, every night fur the next five years.”

He ranged himself against the wall, and in three minutes was sound asleep. Henry and Paul found room in the line, and they, too, soon slept. Tom sat at the door, one of the captured rifles across his knees, and watched the forest and the swamp. He saw the last flare of the distant lightning, and he listened to the falling of the rain drops until they vanished with the vanishing wind, leaving the forest still and without noise.

Tom was several years older than any of the others, and, although powerful in action, he was singularly chary of speech. Henry was the leader, but somehow Tom looked upon himself as a watcher over the other four, a sort of elder brother. As the moon came out a little in the wake of the retreating clouds, he regarded them affectionately.

“One, two, three, four, five,” he murmured to himself. “We’re all here, an’ Henry come fur us. That is shorely the greatest boy the world hez ever seed. Them fellers Alexander an’ Hannibal that Paul talks about couldn’t hev been knee high to Henry. Besides, ef them old Greeks an’ Romans hed hed to fight Wyandots an’ Shawnees an’ Iroquois ez we’ve done, whar’d they hev been?”

Tom Ross uttered a contemptuous little sniff, and on the edge of that sniff Alexander and Hannibal were wafted into oblivion. Then he went outside and walked about the islet, appreciating for the tenth time what a wonderful little refuge it was. He was about to return to the hut when he saw a dozen dark blots along the high bough of a tree. He knew them. They were welcome blots. They were wild turkeys that had found what had seemed to be a secure roosting place in the swamp.

Tom knew that the meat of the little bear was nearly exhausted, and here was more food come to their hand. “We’re five pow’ful feeders, an’ we’ll need you,” he murmured, looking up at the turkeys, “but you kin rest thar till nearly mornin’.”

He knew that the turkeys would not stir, and he went back to the hut to resume his watch. Just before the first dawn he awoke Henry.

“Henry,” he said, “a lot uv foolish wild turkeys hev gone to rest on the limb of a tree not twenty yards from this grand manshun uv ourn. ‘Pears to me that wild turkeys wuz made fur hungry fellers like us to eat. Kin we risk a shot or two at ‘em, or is it too dangerous?”

“I think we can risk the shots,” said Henry, rising and taking his rifle. “We’re bound to risk something, and it’s not likely that Indians are anywhere near.”

They slipped from the cabin, leaving the other three still sound asleep, and stepped noiselessly among the trees. The first pale gray bar that heralded the dawn was just showing in the cast.

“Thar they are,” said Tom Ross, pointing at the dozen dark blots on the high bough.

“We’ll take good aim, and when I say ‘fire!’ we’ll both pull trigger,” said Henry.

He picked out a huge bird near the end of the line, but he noticed when he drew the bead that a second turkey just behind the first was directly in his line of fire. The fact aroused his ambition to kill both with one bullet. It was not a mere desire to slaughter or to display marksmanship, but they needed the extra turkey for food.

“Are you ready, Tom?” he asked. “Then fire.”

They pulled triggers, there were two sharp reports terribly loud to both under the circumstances, and three of the biggest and fattest of the turkeys fell heavily to the ground, while the rest flapped their wings, and with frightened gobbles flew away.

Henry was about to rush forward, but Silent Tom held him back.

“Don’t show yourself, Henry! Don’t show yourself!” he cried in tense tones.

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked the boy in surprise.

“Don’t you see that three turkeys fell, and we are only two to shoot? An Injun is layin’ ‘roun’ here some whar, an’ he drawed a bead on one uv them turkeys at the same time we did.”

Henry laughed and put away Tom’s detaining hand.

“There’s no Indian about,” he said. “I killed two turkeys with one shot, and I’m mighty proud of it, too. I saw that they were directly in the line of the bullet, and it went through both.”

Silent Tom heaved a mighty sigh of relief, drawn up from great depths.

“I’m tre-men-jeous-ly glad uv that, Henry,” he said. “Now when I saw that third turkey come tumblin’ down I wuz shore that one Injun or mebbe more had got on this snug little place uv ourn in the swamp, an’ that we’d hev to go to fightin’ ag’in. Thar come times, Henry, when my mind just natchally rises up an’ rebels ag’in fightin’, ‘specially when I want to eat or sleep. Ain’t thar anythin’ else but fight, fight, fight, ‘though I ‘low a feller hez got to expect a lot uv it out here in the woods?”

They picked up the three turkeys, two gobblers and a hen, and found them large and fat as butter. More than once the wild turkey had come to their relief, and, in fact, this bird played a great part in the life of the frontier, wherever that frontier might be, as it shifted steadily westward. As they walked back toward the hut they faced three figures, all three with leveled rifles.

“All right, boys,” sang out Henry. “It’s nobody but Tom and myself, bringing in our breakfast.”

The three dropped their rifles.

“That’s good,” said Shif’less Sol. “When them shots roused us out o’ our beauty sleep we thought the whole Iroquois nation, horse, foot, artillery an’ baggage wagons, wuz comin’ down upon us. So we reckoned we’d better go out an’ lick ‘em afore it wuz too late.

“But it’s you, an’ you’ve got turkeys, nothin’ but turkeys. Sho’ I reckoned from the peart way Long Jim spoke up that you wuz loaded down with hummin’ birds’ tongues, ortylans, an’ all them other Roman and Rooshian delicacies Paul talks about in a way to make your mouth water. But turkeys! jest turkeys! Nothin’ but turkeys!”

“You jest wait till you see me cookin’ ‘em, Sol Hyde,” said Long Jim. “Then your mouth’ll water, an’ it’ll take Henry and Tom both to hold you back.”

But Shif’less Sol’s mouth was watering already, and his eyes were glued on the turkeys.

“I’m a pow’ful lazy man, ez you know, Saplin’,” he said, “but I’m goin’ to help you pick them turkeys an’ get ‘em ready for the coals. The quicker they are cooked the better it’ll suit me.”

While they were cooking the turkeys, Henry, a little anxious lest the sound of the shots had been heard, crossed on the stepping stones and scouted a bit in the woods. But there was no sign of Indian presence, and, relieved, he returned to the islet just as breakfast was ready.

Long Jim had exerted all his surpassing skill, and it was a contented five that worked on one of the turkeys—the other two being saved for further needs.

“What’s goin’ to be the next thing in the line of our duty, Henry?” asked Long Jim as they ate.

“We’ll have plenty to do, from all that Sol tells us,” replied the boy. “It seems that they felt so sure of you, while you were prisoners, that they often talked about their plans where you could hear them. Sol has told me of two or three talks between Timmendiquas and Thayendanegea, and from the last one he gathered that they’re intending a raid with a big army against a place called Wyoming, in the valley of a river named the Susquehanna. It’s a big settlement, scattered all along the river, and they expect to take a lot of scalps. They’re going to be helped by British from Canada and Tories. Boys, we’re a long way from home, but shall we go and tell them in Wyoming what’s coming?”

“Of course,” said the four together.

“Our bein’ a long way from home don’t make any difference,” said Shif’less Sol. “We’re generally a long way from home, an’ you know we sent word back from Pittsburgh to Wareville that we wuz stayin’ a while here in the east on mighty important business.”

“Then we go to the Wyoming Valley as straight and as fast as we can,” said Henry. “That’s settled. What else did you bear about their plans, Sol?”

“They’re to break up the village here soon and then they’ll march to a place called Tioga. The white men an’ I hear that’s to be a lot uv ‘em-will join ‘em thar or sooner. They’ve sent chiefs all the way to our Congress at Philydelphy, pretendin’ peace, an’ then, when they git our people to thinkin’ peace, they’ll jump on our settlements, the whole ragin’ army uv ‘em, with tomahawk an’ knife. A white man named John Butler is to command ‘em.”

Paul shuddered.

“I’ve heard of him,” he said. “They called him ‘Indian’ Butler at Pittsburgh. He helped lead the Indians in that terrible battle of the Oriskany last year. And they say he’s got a son, Walter Butler, who is as bad as he is, and there are other white leaders of the Indians, the Johnsons and Claus.”

“‘Pears ez ef we would be needed,” said Tom Ross.

“I don’t think we ought to hurry,” said Henry. “The more we know about the Indian plans the better it will be for the Wyoming people. We’ve a safe and comfortable hiding place here, and we can stay and watch the Indian movements.”

“Suits me,” drawled Shif’less Sol. “My legs an’ arms are still stiff from them deerskin thongs an’ ez Long Jim is here now to wait on me I guess I’ll take a rest from travelin.”

“You’ll do all your own waitin’ on yourself,” rejoined Long Jim; “an’ I’m afraid you won’t be waited on so Pow’ful well, either, but a good deal better than you deserve.”

They lay on the islet several days, meanwhile keeping a close watch on the Indian camp. They really had little to fear except from hunting parties, as the region was far from any settled portion of the country, and the Indians were not likely to suspect their continued presence. But the hunters were numerous, and all the squaws in the camp were busy jerking meat. It was obvious that the Indians were preparing for a great campaign, but that they would take their own time. Most of the scouting was done by Henry and Sol, and several times they lay in the thick brushwood and watched, by the light of the fires, what was passing in the Indian camp.

On the fifth night after the rescue of Long Jim, Henry and Shif’less Sol lay in the covert. It was nearly midnight, but the fires still burned in the Indian camp, warriors were polishing their weapons, and the women were cutting up or jerking meat. While they were watching they heard from a point to the north the sound of a voice rising and failing in a kind of chant.

“Another war party comin’,” whispered Shif’less Sol, “an’ singin’ about the victories that they’re goin’ to win.”

“But did you notice that voice?” Henry whispered back. “It’s not a man’s, it’s a woman’s.”

“Now that you speak of it, you’re right,” said Shif’less Sol. “It’s funny to hear an Injun woman chantin’ about battles as she comes into camp. That’s the business o’ warriors.”

“Then this is no ordinary woman,” said Henry.

“They’ll pass along that trail there within twenty yards of us, Sol, and we want to see her.”

“So we do,” said Sol, “but I ain’t breathin’ while they pass.”

They flattened themselves against the earth until the keenest eye could not see them in the darkness. All the time the singing was growing louder, and both remained, quite sure that it was the voice of a woman. The trail was but a short distance away, and the moon was bright. The fierce Indian chant swelled, and presently the most singular figure that either had ever seen came into view.

The figure was that of an Indian woman, but lighter in color than most of her kind. She was middle-aged, tall, heavily built, and arrayed in a strange mixture of civilized and barbaric finery, deerskin leggins and moccasins gorgeously ornamented with heads, a red dress of European cloth with a red shawl over it, and her head bare except for bright feathers, thrust in her long black hair, which hung loosely down her back. She held in one hand a large sharp tomahawk, which she swung fiercely in time to her song. Her face had the rapt, terrible expression of one who had taken some fiery and powerful drug, and she looked neither to right nor to left as she strode on, chanting a song of blood, and swinging the keen blade.

Henry and Shif’less Sol shuddered. They had looked upon terrible human figures, but nothing so frightful as this, a woman with the strength of a man and twice his rage and cruelty. There was something weird and awful in the look of that set, savage face, and the tone of that Indian chant. Brave as they were, Henry and the shiftless one felt fear, as perhaps they had never felt it before in their lives. Well they might! They were destined to behold this woman again, under conditions the most awful of which the human mind can conceive, and to witness savagery almost unbelievable in either man or woman. The two did not yet know it, but they were looking upon Catharine Montour, daughter of a French Governor General of Canada and an Indian woman, a chieftainess of the Iroquois, and of a memory infamous forever on the border, where she was known as “Queen Esther.”