CHAPTER X

A LONELY FRONTIERSMAN

"Paleface?" exclaimed the lads, standing up in the canoe, and straining their eyes as if to catch a glimpse of that mysterious stranger who was hidden in the depth of the forest.

"Aren't you afraid that we may be attacked?"

"Ugh!" replied the warrior, without moving a muscle of his dark face, or showing the slightest trace of alarm. "Him--great paleface hunter. Friend of the Iroquois. Smoke peace-pipe with the White Eagle."

As they paddled quickly past the spot Jamie turned again and again to look at that faint column of receding smoke, now growing fainter and fainter.

"Who can this paleface hunter be, so far away from his home and friends, dwelling alone in these dark forests? Perhaps he is an exile from his country!" murmured the lad to himself. Then a strange yearning came over him. He longed to go ashore, that he might join this lonely frontiersman, and share his hardships and his perils, but he hesitated to suggest it to the chief, whose face now bore such a stolid, mask-like look. And soon the long, swift strokes of the paddles bore them past the spot.

There must be something in nature--though perfectly inexplicable to us, who know so little of the unseen verities--that transmits through the ether that surrounds us, feelings of sympathy and love to kindred souls, just as in these later days of our civilisation the wireless message is flung from ship to ship and coast to coast. For the fact remains, that just at this moment the sturdy paleface hunter, as he stooped to place more pine-wood on his blazing fire, felt at his very heart a twinge of pain, so that for an instant his eyes were blurred, and he saw no longer the blazing fire, the dark forest, or the pile of beaver skins that his skilful hands had taken, for another vision rose before his face.

'Twas the vision of an old-world village, in a sweet little island that rose out of the main, far-off; and to him 'twas "Home, sweet home" still, though his feet must never tread that land again, for he was an exile, a victim to the cruel game-laws, that had banished him from his country. Here, 'twas true, the whole forest was his, with all it contained. The beaver, the otter, the fish in the streams, and even the red-spotted deer were his for the taking; but still his heart stole back again to that forbidden land.

"Oh, that I might drop a tear and plant a flower on thy grave, Lisbeth! Thou wert all the world to me--a true wife and a friend. And the bairn? Oh, my God! the bairn! Where is he?"

And here this strong man, hardened by nature to all the toils and dangers of the forest, the rapids, the wild beasts, and the scalping parties of red foes, broke down in an agony of tears and wept, for he thought of his little blue-eyed laddie of two years; the poor motherless bairn, as he had last seen him, with his flaxen curls nestling in his arms.

How often he had longed to go home and find his boy, to find even if he were yet alive; but the thought came to him each time--

"How have they taught the lad to regard his father? Perhaps they have told him that I am dead! Well, maybe 'tis better so! Or perhaps they have said, 'He is an exile in a far-off land, and he will return no more, for in the eyes of the law he is a criminal.' Then so it must remain, lest the father's curse should blight the lad; but what would I not give to see my child again after all these years."

Then he flung himself down upon a pile of skins and wept again. That night sleep fled from his eyelids, as it had often done before when these longings for the homeland had come over him, but never, never before had his agony been so great. He prayed his God for something he had never dared to ask before. It was that he might be permitted, before he died, to look upon the face of his child again, even though the lad should not know him. And his prayer was answered, for an angel from the stars above came down and kissed him, as he lay beneath the silent pines, and whispered--

"It shall be!"

And he slept, for his cares had fled, and a deep peace had filled his soul.

Such were thy sons, oh, England! Their bold, proud spirits chafed and were cramped within thy narrow limits, and narrower laws, made by and for the selfish few, in days, happily, long past. And yet they loved their native land, though exiled from hearth and home; and when duty called, they lined thy distant frontiers; they held thy far-flung borders, and were content to leave their bones to bleach beside some lonely outpost of the Empire they helped to build. But let us for a while leave this lonely frontiersman, and return to our friends and their Iroquois companions.

Four days had been spent in navigating Lake Ontario, and they were now approaching Niagara, below whose thunderous rapids stood the French fort that guarded both the river and the lakes.

Towards evening on the fourth day a distant speck was seen approaching from the westward, and the White Eagle, standing in the bow of the foremost canoe, as he gazed into the face of the setting sun, permitted a sudden cry of surprise to escape from his lips--

"Algonquins!"

'Twas only too true, for there, rapidly approaching and hugging the southern shore of the lake, was a large party of their hated foes, in their big canoes of elm-bark.

The discovery appeared to be mutual, for both parties rent the air with their respective war-cries, and hastened ashore to make ready for the coming battle. Darkness soon settled over forest and lake, but all through the night the woods resounded with the dreadful war-whoops of the Indians, as they chanted their war-songs, and worked themselves into a frenzy of fury.

What a night that was for the two young paleface warriors! The war fever of the Iroquois had in a measure entered into their blood, for they saw in the Algonquins the allies of France and the enemies of England, so they prepared to defend themselves in the morning.

Day dawned at last, and White Eagle and his braves pressed forward to battle; not shoulder to shoulder, nor in unresisting phalanx, as the soldiers of the palefaces fought, but in true Indian fashion the dark-skinned warriors leapt from tree to tree, and cover to cover. Showers of arrows and bullets rattled amongst the trees and rocks, and the wild yells became every moment fiercer and fiercer. Several warriors had fallen on each side, and a dozen scalps had been taken, as the frequent yells of triumph announced.

Deeds of desperate valour were recklessly performed. Homeric contests, ending in frightful wounds or instant death were frequently engaged in, when suddenly, from behind the cover of a huge elm-tree, the Algonquin chief, his plume of black raven feathers nodding with his frenzied action, rushed into the open and challenged the Iroquois leader to single combat.

With a yell of delight White Eagle bounded into the clearing, and accepted the offer. Then, instantly, as if by instinct, every weapon was lowered, and the non-combatants ranged themselves on either side, in a rude semicircle, with a rising back-ground of tall pines and elms, to watch this gladiatorial contest, which threatened to be both brief and sanguinary.

Then followed a pause, during which the two chiefs addressed each other in the figurative but boastful braggadocia, in the use of which the red men excelled all the other nations of the world. The Algonquin chief, whose name was "Black Raven," began as follows--

"Mingo dog! where are the scalps of the Iroquois warriors who came to the Canada River? Ten of them have not returned to their tribe, since the snows melted. My children went to the lodges of the Maquas and the Oneidas, but they found only squaws and children. The scalps of the Iroquois are in the wigwams of the Canadas, and the Canada Father has rewarded his children with many hatchets, and powder to burn in the face of their enemies, because they have cleared the snakes from the woods! The moccasins of the Iroquois cannot be found in the forest. They have been driven from the hunting-grounds of their fathers, never, never to return----!"

"Skunk of the Algonquins!" retorted the Iroquois, "your tongue is forked, like the serpent that hides its head in the grass, and your arm is feeble as the squaw of the Delaware. The singing-birds have called your young men from their Canada lodges, so that my warriors may take their scalps, for before the sun is amongst the pines, your warriors will have followed him into the hunting-grounds of the Great Spirit."

"Iroquois muskrat! Your tongue is sharper than your knife!"

"Hark! What is that sound that I hear? 'Tis the wailing of the squaws in your Canada lodges, because their young men return no more."

"Iroquois snake! Skulking fox!" retorted the Algonquin. "'Tis to you that the singing-birds have spoken, but they have spoken falsely. Slaves of the Yengeese! Never more will your war-whoop be heard in the woods; never more will you fish the streams and hunt the deer, for before the sun shall rise the girdles of my young men will be heavy with your scalps. 'Tis the Mingoes who are women, like the Delawares. They killed my young men when the face of the Manitou was turned away from His children in anger, but now the Great Spirit has delivered you into our hands, and nevermore shall your squaws behold you."

"Dogs of the Canadas! The Iroquois are free and strong as the eagle that soars to the clouds, but the Algonquins are skunks and muskrats. They are slaves to the Canada palefaces. Go hunt the deer and the moose for your French Father, and when, for your portion, he throws you the offals--be grateful."

The tomahawk of the French Indian whirled in the air, as, stung by this biting insult to his tribe, he hurled it at his enemy, and so true was the aim that it only missed the scalp of the Iroquois by an inch, for it carried away half his plume of eagle feathers.

A loud cry of vengeance arose from his warriors as this deadly missile whizzed past their leader.

The next instant the wild scream of an eagle, which was the peculiar war-cry of this renowned chief, rang through the glades and across the lake as the leaders closed in deadly combat. Like the leap of the panther, when robbed of its young, was the fierce onset of the Iroquois chief. Fifty gleaming knives were snatched from their sheaths, and held aloft; but before the warriors on either side could reach the spot, the tomahawk of the White Eagle had stretched his opponent upon the ground, and with keen knife he had already snatched away the trophy that honour demanded.

Then, amid war-whoops and wild yells of savage fury, the fierce passions of the warriors became undammed, and a short but sanguinary conflict occurred. The Algonquins, despite the loss of their leader, fought bravely for a while, but were at length overwhelmed by the relentless fury of the Iroquois. Then they quickly broke and scattered through the forest, pursued by their enemy.

Thus ended another of those fierce fights, so common amongst the Indians tribes in the middle of the eighteenth century, while all the time the armies of the two paleface nations from towards the sun-rising were preparing for that final death grapple, which was to settle for ever the destiny of the northern half of that mighty continent; and to drive the scattered tribes of the children of the Manitou ever westward towards the setting sun.

In this brief fight the youths had remained little more than passive spectators, for they soon saw how the conflict must end, and that without their help the Iroquois, although outnumbered, would secure the victory.

"I do wish, Jack, that our allies would desist from that barbarous practice of taking scalps. See there! a dozen scalps already hang at the girdles of our comrades, and even yet they are not satisfied, but must pursue their wretched victims into the woods. Bah! My heart sickens at the sight!"

"'Tis Indian nature, Jamie. Victory brings them no honour unless the victim's scalp be taken. Even the squaws look askance at the warrior who returns from the war-path without these hideous trophies hanging at his belt."

"There seems little honour to me in mangling the corpse of a fallen victim."

"Why, the youth is scarcely regarded as a man till he has brought home his first scalp. Their belief is, that the spirit and strength of the dead man enters into the victorious brave, and, horrible as it is, and God knows how I hate it all, 'tis not more horrible than the deeds of some of the paleface pirates in the Southern Seas, who sometimes treat their unfortunate victims in a cruel and barbarous manner."

They had been leaning on their rifles, on a little rising ground near the lake, watching the fight and the pursuit, when suddenly from out the dark aisles of the forest there came the piercing scream of the eagle once more.

"What can be the matter now? Surely the enemy are not returning, reinforced!" cried Red Feather, quickly bringing his rifle to the ready.

"No. 'Tis the signal for the return of the braves; evidently White Eagle scents a new danger, and is anxious to get away."

"What new danger can there be?"

"Why, don't you see that the Algonquins have taken the route that will lead them to the French fort at Niagara, where almost every soldier will turn out to their assistance, when they hear that the renowned White Eagle is within twenty miles of the fort? At least, I assume that is the cause; but look! Here comes the chief himself, and he is making for the canoes. Let us speak with him."