CHAPTER 21
"If you find a man there, he shall die a flea's death." --Merry Wives of Windsor.
The party had landed on the border of a region that is, even to thisday, less known to the inhabitants of the States than the desertsof Arabia, or the steppes of Tartary. It was the sterile and ruggeddistrict which separates the tributaries of Champlain from those of theHudson, the Mohawk, and the St. Lawrence. Since the period of our talethe active spirit of the country has surrounded it with a belt of richand thriving settlements, though none but the hunter or the savage isever known even now to penetrate its wild recesses.
As Hawkeye and the Mohicans had, however, often traversed the mountainsand valleys of this vast wilderness, they did not hesitate to plungeinto its depth, with the freedom of men accustomed to its privationsand difficulties. For many hours the travelers toiled on their laboriousway, guided by a star, or following the direction of some water-course,until the scout called a halt, and holding a short consultation withthe Indians, they lighted their fire, and made the usual preparations topass the remainder of the night where they then were.
Imitating the example, and emulating the confidence of their moreexperienced associates, Munro and Duncan slept without fear, if notwithout uneasiness. The dews were suffered to exhale, and the sun haddispersed the mists, and was shedding a strong and clear light in theforest, when the travelers resumed their journey.
After proceeding a few miles, the progress of Hawkeye, who led theadvance, became more deliberate and watchful. He often stopped toexamine the trees; nor did he cross a rivulet without attentivelyconsidering the quantity, the velocity, and the color of its waters.Distrusting his own judgment, his appeals to the opinion of Chingachgookwere frequent and earnest. During one of these conferences Heywardobserved that Uncas stood a patient and silent, though, as he imagined,an interested listener. He was strongly tempted to address the youngchief, and demand his opinion of their progress; but the calm anddignified demeanor of the native induced him to believe, that, likehimself, the other was wholly dependent on the sagacity and intelligenceof the seniors of the party. At last the scout spoke in English, and atonce explained the embarrassment of their situation.
"When I found that the home path of the Hurons run north," he said, "itdid not need the judgment of many long years to tell that they wouldfollow the valleys, and keep atween the waters of the Hudson and theHorican, until they might strike the springs of the Canada streams,which would lead them into the heart of the country of the Frenchers.Yet here are we, within a short range of the Scaroons, and not a sign ofa trail have we crossed! Human natur' is weak, and it is possible we maynot have taken the proper scent."
"Heaven protect us from such an error!" exclaimed Duncan. "Let usretrace our steps, and examine as we go, with keener eyes. Has Uncas nocounsel to offer in such a strait?"
The young Mohican cast a glance at his father, but, maintaining hisquiet and reserved mien, he continued silent. Chingachgook had caughtthe look, and motioning with his hand, he bade him speak. The momentthis permission was accorded, the countenance of Uncas changed from itsgrave composure to a gleam of intelligence and joy. Bounding forwardlike a deer, he sprang up the side of a little acclivity, a few rods inadvance, and stood, exultingly, over a spot of fresh earth, that lookedas though it had been recently upturned by the passage of some heavyanimal. The eyes of the whole party followed the unexpected movement,and read their success in the air of triumph that the youth assumed.
"'Tis the trail!" exclaimed the scout, advancing to the spot; "the ladis quick of sight and keen of wit for his years."
"'Tis extraordinary that he should have withheld his knowledge so long,"muttered Duncan, at his elbow.
"It would have been more wonderful had he spoken without a bidding.No, no; your young white, who gathers his learning from books and canmeasure what he knows by the page, may conceit that his knowledge, likehis legs, outruns that of his fathers', but, where experience is themaster, the scholar is made to know the value of years, and respectsthem accordingly."
"See!" said Uncas, pointing north and south, at the evident marks of thebroad trail on either side of him, "the dark-hair has gone toward theforest."
"Hound never ran on a more beautiful scent," responded the scout,dashing forward, at once, on the indicated route; "we are favored,greatly favored, and can follow with high noses. Ay, here are both yourwaddling beasts: this Huron travels like a white general. The fellow isstricken with a judgment, and is mad! Look sharp for wheels, Sagamore,"he continued, looking back, and laughing in his newly awakenedsatisfaction; "we shall soon have the fool journeying in a coach, andthat with three of the best pair of eyes on the borders in his rear."
The spirits of the scout, and the astonishing success of the chase, inwhich a circuitous distance of more than forty miles had been passed,did not fail to impart a portion of hope to the whole party. Theiradvance was rapid; and made with as much confidence as a traveler wouldproceed along a wide highway. If a rock, or a rivulet, or a bit of earthharder than common, severed the links of the clew they followed, thetrue eye of the scout recovered them at a distance, and seldom renderedthe delay of a single moment necessary. Their progress was muchfacilitated by the certainty that Magua had found it necessary tojourney through the valleys; a circumstance which rendered the generaldirection of the route sure. Nor had the Huron entirely neglected thearts uniformly practised by the natives when retiring in front of anenemy. False trails and sudden turnings were frequent, wherever a brookor the formation of the ground rendered them feasible; but his pursuerswere rarely deceived, and never failed to detect their error, beforethey had lost either time or distance on the deceptive track.
By the middle of the afternoon they had passed the Scaroons, and werefollowing the route of the declining sun. After descending an eminenceto a low bottom, through which a swift stream glided, they suddenly cameto a place where the party of Le Renard had made a halt. Extinguishedbrands were lying around a spring, the offals of a deer were scatteredabout the place, and the trees bore evident marks of having beenbrowsed by the horses. At a little distance, Heyward discovered, andcontemplated with tender emotion, the small bower under which he wasfain to believe that Cora and Alice had reposed. But while the earthwas trodden, and the footsteps of both men and beasts were so plainlyvisible around the place, the trail appeared to have suddenly ended.
It was easy to follow the tracks of the Narragansetts, but they seemedonly to have wandered without guides, or any other object than thepursuit of food. At length Uncas, who, with his father, had endeavoredto trace the route of the horses, came upon a sign of their presencethat was quite recent. Before following the clew, he communicated hissuccess to his companions; and while the latter were consulting on thecircumstance, the youth reappeared, leading the two fillies, withtheir saddles broken, and the housings soiled, as though they had beenpermitted to run at will for several days.
"What should this prove?" said Duncan, turning pale, and glancing hiseyes around him, as if he feared the brush and leaves were about to giveup some horrid secret.
"That our march is come to a quick end, and that we are in an enemy'scountry," returned the scout. "Had the knave been pressed, and thegentle ones wanted horses to keep up with the party, he might have takentheir scalps; but without an enemy at his heels, and with such ruggedbeasts as these, he would not hurt a hair of their heads. I know yourthoughts, and shame be it to our color that you have reason for them;but he who thinks that even a Mingo would ill-treat a woman, unless itbe to tomahawk her, knows nothing of Indian natur', or the laws of thewoods. No, no; I have heard that the French Indians had come into thesehills to hunt the moose, and we are getting within scent of their camp.Why should they not? The morning and evening guns of Ty may be heardany day among these mountains; for the Frenchers are running a new lineatween the provinces of the king and the Canadas. It is true that thehorses are here, but the Hurons are gone; let us, then, hunt for thepath by which they parted."
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Hawkeye and the Mohicans now applied themselves to their task in goodearnest. A circle of a few hundred feet in circumference was drawn,and each of the party took a segment for his portion. The examination,however, resulted in no discovery. The impressions of footsteps werenumerous, but they all appeared like those of men who had wanderedabout the spot, without any design to quit it. Again the scout and hiscompanions made the circuit of the halting place, each slowly followingthe other, until they assembled in the center once more, no wiser thanwhen they started.
"Such cunning is not without its deviltry," exclaimed Hawkeye, when hemet the disappointed looks of his assistants.
"We must get down to it, Sagamore, beginning at the spring, and goingover the ground by inches. The Huron shall never brag in his tribe thathe has a foot which leaves no print."
Setting the example himself, the scout engaged in the scrutiny withrenewed zeal. Not a leaf was left unturned. The sticks were removed,and the stones lifted; for Indian cunning was known frequently to adoptthese objects as covers, laboring with the utmost patience and industry,to conceal each footstep as they proceeded. Still no discovery was made.At length Uncas, whose activity had enabled him to achieve his portionof the task the soonest, raked the earth across the turbid little rillwhich ran from the spring, and diverted its course into another channel.So soon as its narrow bed below the dam was dry, he stooped over it withkeen and curious eyes. A cry of exultation immediately announced thesuccess of the young warrior. The whole party crowded to the spot whereUncas pointed out the impression of a moccasin in the moist alluvion.
"This lad will be an honor to his people," said Hawkeye, regarding thetrail with as much admiration as a naturalist would expend on the tuskof a mammoth or the rib of a mastodon; "ay, and a thorn in the sides ofthe Hurons. Yet that is not the footstep of an Indian! the weight is toomuch on the heel, and the toes are squared, as though one of the Frenchdancers had been in, pigeon-winging his tribe! Run back, Uncas, andbring me the size of the singer's foot. You will find a beautiful printof it just opposite yon rock, agin the hillside."
While the youth was engaged in this commission, the scout andChingachgook were attentively considering the impressions. Themeasurements agreed, and the former unhesitatingly pronounced that thefootstep was that of David, who had once more been made to exchange hisshoes for moccasins.
"I can now read the whole of it, as plainly as if I had seen the arts ofLe Subtil," he added; "the singer being a man whose gifts lay chiefly inhis throat and feet, was made to go first, and the others have trod inhis steps, imitating their formation."
"But," cried Duncan, "I see no signs of--"
"The gentle ones," interrupted the scout; "the varlet has found a way tocarry them, until he supposed he had thrown any followers off the scent.My life on it, we see their pretty little feet again, before many rodsgo by."
The whole party now proceeded, following the course of the rill, keepinganxious eyes on the regular impressions. The water soon flowed into itsbed again, but watching the ground on either side, the foresters pursuedtheir way content with knowing that the trail lay beneath. More thanhalf a mile was passed, before the rill rippled close around the base ofan extensive and dry rock. Here they paused to make sure that the Huronshad not quitted the water.
It was fortunate they did so. For the quick and active Uncas soon foundthe impression of a foot on a bunch of moss, where it would seem anIndian had inadvertently trodden. Pursuing the direction given by thisdiscovery, he entered the neighboring thicket, and struck the trail, asfresh and obvious as it had been before they reached the spring. Anothershout announced the good fortune of the youth to his companions, and atonce terminated the search.
"Ay, it has been planned with Indian judgment," said the scout, whenthe party was assembled around the place, "and would have blinded whiteeyes."
"Shall we proceed?" demanded Heyward.
"Softly, softly, we know our path; but it is good to examine theformation of things. This is my schooling, major; and if one neglectsthe book, there is little chance of learning from the open land ofProvidence. All is plain but one thing, which is the manner that theknave contrived to get the gentle ones along the blind trail. Even aHuron would be too proud to let their tender feet touch the water."
"Will this assist in explaining the difficulty?" said Heyward, pointingtoward the fragments of a sort of handbarrow, that had been rudelyconstructed of boughs, and bound together with withes, and which nowseemed carelessly cast aside as useless.
"'Tis explained!" cried the delighted Hawkeye. "If them varlets havepassed a minute, they have spent hours in striving to fabricate a lyingend to their trail! Well, I've known them to waste a day in the samemanner to as little purpose. Here we have three pair of moccasins, andtwo of little feet. It is amazing that any mortal beings can journey onlimbs so small! Pass me the thong of buckskin, Uncas, and let me takethe length of this foot. By the Lord, it is no longer than a child's andyet the maidens are tall and comely. That Providence is partial in itsgifts, for its own wise reasons, the best and most contented of us mustallow."
"The tender limbs of my daughters are unequal to these hardships," saidMunro, looking at the light footsteps of his children, with a parent'slove; "we shall find their fainting forms in this desert."
"Of that there is little cause of fear," returned the scout, slowlyshaking his head; "this is a firm and straight, though a light step, andnot over long. See, the heel has hardly touched the ground; and therethe dark-hair has made a little jump, from root to root. No, no; myknowledge for it, neither of them was nigh fainting, hereaway. Now, thesinger was beginning to be footsore and leg-weary, as is plain byhis trail. There, you see, he slipped; here he has traveled wide andtottered; and there again it looks as though he journeyed on snowshoes.Ay, ay, a man who uses his throat altogether, can hardly give his legs aproper training."
From such undeniable testimony did the practised woodsman arrive at thetruth, with nearly as much certainty and precision as if he had been awitness of all those events which his ingenuity so easily elucidated.Cheered by these assurances, and satisfied by a reasoning that was soobvious, while it was so simple, the party resumed its course, aftermaking a short halt, to take a hurried repast.
When the meal was ended, the scout cast a glance upward at the settingsun, and pushed forward with a rapidity which compelled Heyward and thestill vigorous Munro to exert all their muscles to equal. Their routenow lay along the bottom which has already been mentioned. As the Huronshad made no further efforts to conceal their footsteps, the progress ofthe pursuers was no longer delayed by uncertainty. Before an hour hadelapsed, however, the speed of Hawkeye sensibly abated, and his head,instead of maintaining its former direct and forward look, began to turnsuspiciously from side to side, as if he were conscious of approachingdanger. He soon stopped again, and waited for the whole party to comeup.
"I scent the Hurons," he said, speaking to the Mohicans; "yonder is opensky, through the treetops, and we are getting too nigh their encampment.Sagamore, you will take the hillside, to the right; Uncas will bendalong the brook to the left, while I will try the trail. If anythingshould happen, the call will be three croaks of a crow. I saw one of thebirds fanning himself in the air, just beyond the dead oak--another signthat we are approaching an encampment."
The Indians departed their several ways without reply, while Hawkeyecautiously proceeded with the two gentlemen. Heyward soon pressed to theside of their guide, eager to catch an early glimpse of those enemieshe had pursued with so much toil and anxiety. His companion told himto steal to the edge of the wood, which, as usual, was fringed witha thicket, and wait his coming, for he wished to examine certainsuspicious signs a little on one side. Duncan obeyed, and soon foundhimself in a situation to command a view which he found as extraordinaryas it was novel.
The trees of many acres had been felled, and the glow of a mild summer'sevening had fallen on the clearing, in beautiful contrast to the graylight of the forest. A short
distance from the place where Duncan stood,the stream had seemingly expanded into a little lake, covering most ofthe low land, from mountain to mountain. The water fell out of this widebasin, in a cataract so regular and gentle, that it appeared rather tobe the work of human hands than fashioned by nature. A hundred earthendwellings stood on the margin of the lake, and even in its waters, asthough the latter had overflowed its usual banks. Their rounded roofs,admirably molded for defense against the weather, denoted more ofindustry and foresight than the natives were wont to bestow on theirregular habitations, much less on those they occupied for the temporarypurposes of hunting and war. In short, the whole village or town,whichever it might be termed, possessed more of method and neatness ofexecution, than the white men had been accustomed to believe belonged,ordinarily, to the Indian habits. It appeared, however, to be deserted.At least, so thought Duncan for many minutes; but, at length, he fanciedhe discovered several human forms advancing toward him on all fours,and apparently dragging in the train some heavy, and as he was quick toapprehend, some formidable engine. Just then a few dark-looking headsgleamed out of the dwellings, and the place seemed suddenly alive withbeings, which, however, glided from cover to cover so swiftly, as toallow no opportunity of examining their humors or pursuits. Alarmed atthese suspicious and inexplicable movements, he was about to attempt thesignal of the crows, when the rustling of leaves at hand drew his eyesin another direction.
The young man started, and recoiled a few paces instinctively, when hefound himself within a hundred yards of a stranger Indian. Recoveringhis recollection on the instant, instead of sounding an alarm, whichmight prove fatal to himself, he remained stationary, an attentiveobserver of the other's motions.
An instant of calm observation served to assure Duncan that he wasundiscovered. The native, like himself, seemed occupied in consideringthe low dwellings of the village, and the stolen movements of itsinhabitants. It was impossible to discover the expression of hisfeatures through the grotesque mask of paint under which they wereconcealed, though Duncan fancied it was rather melancholy than savage.His head was shaved, as usual, with the exception of the crown, fromwhose tuft three or four faded feathers from a hawk's wing were looselydangling. A ragged calico mantle half encircled his body, while hisnether garment was composed of an ordinary shirt, the sleeves of whichwere made to perform the office that is usually executed by a much morecommodious arrangement. His legs were, however, covered with a pair ofgood deer-skin moccasins. Altogether, the appearance of the individualwas forlorn and miserable.
Duncan was still curiously observing the person of his neighbor when thescout stole silently and cautiously to his side.
"You see we have reached their settlement or encampment," whisperedthe young man; "and here is one of the savages himself, in a veryembarrassing position for our further movements."
Hawkeye started, and dropped his rifle, when, directed by the fingerof his companion, the stranger came under his view. Then lowering thedangerous muzzle he stretched forward his long neck, as if to assist ascrutiny that was already intensely keen.
"The imp is not a Huron," he said, "nor of any of the Canada tribes; andyet you see, by his clothes, the knave has been plundering a white. Ay,Montcalm has raked the woods for his inroad, and a whooping, murderingset of varlets has he gathered together. Can you see where he has puthis rifle or his bow?"
"He appears to have no arms; nor does he seem to be viciously inclined.Unless he communicate the alarm to his fellows, who, as you see, aredodging about the water, we have but little to fear from him."
The scout turned to Heyward, and regarded him a moment with unconcealedamazement. Then opening wide his mouth, he indulged in unrestrainedand heartfelt laughter, though in that silent and peculiar manner whichdanger had so long taught him to practise.
Repeating the words, "Fellows who are dodging about the water!" headded, "so much for schooling and passing a boyhood in the settlements!The knave has long legs, though, and shall not be trusted. Do you keephim under your rifle while I creep in behind, through the bush, and takehim alive. Fire on no account."
Heyward had already permitted his companion to bury part of his personin the thicket, when, stretching forth his arm, he arrested him, inorder to ask:
"If I see you in danger, may I not risk a shot?"
Hawkeye regarded him a moment, like one who knew not how to take thequestion; then, nodding his head, he answered, still laughing, thoughinaudibly:
"Fire a whole platoon, major."
In the next moment he was concealed by the leaves. Duncan waited severalminutes in feverish impatience, before he caught another glimpse ofthe scout. Then he reappeared, creeping along the earth, from which hisdress was hardly distinguishable, directly in the rear of his intendedcaptive. Having reached within a few yards of the latter, he arose tohis feet, silently and slowly. At that instant, several loud blows werestruck on the water, and Duncan turned his eyes just in time to perceivethat a hundred dark forms were plunging, in a body, into the troubledlittle sheet. Grasping his rifle his looks were again bent on the Indiannear him. Instead of taking the alarm, the unconscious savage stretchedforward his neck, as if he also watched the movements about the gloomylake, with a sort of silly curiosity. In the meantime, the upliftedhand of Hawkeye was above him. But, without any apparent reason, it waswithdrawn, and its owner indulged in another long, though still silent,fit of merriment. When the peculiar and hearty laughter of Hawkeyewas ended, instead of grasping his victim by the throat, he tapped himlightly on the shoulder, and exclaimed aloud:
"How now, friend! have you a mind to teach the beavers to sing?"
"Even so," was the ready answer. "It would seem that the Being that gavethem power to improve His gifts so well, would not deny them voices toproclaim His praise."