There was a silence; then the Mohican rose, and taking my hand in his drew me noiselessly to my feet beside him.
By sense of touch alone we lifted our rifles from our blankets, blew the powder from the pans, reprimed. Then, laying my left arm lightly on his shoulder, I followed his silent figure over the moss and down among the huge and phantom trees faintly outlined against the starlit water.
CHAPTER XII
AT THE FORD
When at length from the forest"s edge we saw star-beams splintering over broken water, cutting the flat, translucent darkness of the river with necklaces of light, we halted; for this was the ford foaming there in obscurity with its silvery, mellow voice, unheeded in the wilderness, yet calling ever as that far voice called through the shadows of ages dead.
Now, from where we stood the faint line of sparkles seemed to run a little way into the darkness and vanish. But the indications were sufficient to mark the spot where we should enter the water; and, stepping with infinite precaution, we descended to the gravel. Here we stripped to the clout and laid our rifles on our moccasins, covering the pans with our hunting shirts. Then we strapped on our war-belts, loosening knife and hatchet, pulled over our feet our spare ankle-moccasins of oiled moose-hide soled with the coa.r.s.e hair of the great, blundering beast himself.
I led, setting foot in the icy water, and moving out into the shadow with no more noise than a chub"s swirl or a minnow"s spatter-leap when a great chain-pike snaps at him.
Feeling my way over bed stones and bottom gravel with my feet, striving in vain to pierce the dense obscurity, I moved forward with infinite caution, balancing as best I might against the current. Ankle-deep, shin-deep, knee-deep we waded out. Presently the icy current chilled my thighs, rising to my waistline. But it grew no deeper.
Yet, here so swift was the current that I scarcely dared move, and was peering around to find the Sagamore, when a shape loomed up on my left.
And I reached out and rested my hand on the shadowy shoulder, and stood so, swaying against the stream.
Suddenly a voice said, in the Seneca dialect:
"Is it thou, Butler?"
And every drop of blood froze in my body.
G.o.d knows how I found voice to answer "Yes," and how I found courage to let my hand remain upon my enemy"s shoulder.
"It is I, Hiokatoo," said the low voice.
"Move forward," I said; and dropped my hand from his shoulder.
Somehow, although I could see nothing, all around me in the water I felt the presence of living creatures. At the same moment somebody came close to me from behind, and the Sagamore breathed his name in my ear.
I managed to retain my presence of mind, and, laying my mouth against his ear in the darkness, I whispered:
"The Seneca Hiokatoo and his warriors--all around us in the water. He mistakes me for Walter Butler, They have been reconnoitring our camp."
I felt the body of the Mohican stiffen under my grasp, Then he said quietly:
"Stand still till all have pa.s.sed us."
"Yes; but let no Seneca hear your Algonquin speech. If any speak I will answer for you."
"It is well," said the Sagamore quietly. And I heard him cautiously loosening his hatchet.
Presently a dark form took shape in the gloom and pa.s.sed us without speaking; then another, and another, and another, all wading forward with scarce a ripple sounding against their painted bodies. Then one came up who spoke also in Seneca dialect, saying to the Mohican that the canoe was to be sent up stream on observation, and asking the whereabouts of McDonald.
So they were all there, the b.l.o.o.d.y crew! But once more I found voice to order the Seneca across, saying that I would attend to the canoe when the time came to employ it.
This Indian seemed to understand very little English, and he hesitated; but I laid my hand flat on his naked back, and gave him a slight shove toward the farther sh.o.r.e. And he went on, muttering.
Two more pa.s.sed. We waited in nervous silence for the next, not knowing how many had been sent to prowl around our camp. And as no more came, I whispered to the Sagamore:
"Let us go back. If more are to come, and if there be among them Butler or McDonald or any white man, he will never mistake me for any of his fellows after he hears me speak."
The Sagamore turned, the water swirling to his waist. I followed. We encountered n.o.body until the water began to shoal. Then, in mid-stream, a dark figure loomed out of the night, confronting us, and I heard him say in the Seneca language:
"Halt and turn. You travel the wrong way!"
"Go forward and mind your business!" I said in English.
The shadowy figure seemed astounded, remaining motionless there in the ford. Suddenly he bent forward as though to see my features, and at the same instant the Sagamore seized him and jerked his head under water.
But he could not hold him, for the fellow was oiled, and floundered up in the same instant. No doubt the water he had swallowed kept the yell safe in his throat, but his hatchet was out and high-swung as the Sagamore grasped his wrist, holding his arm in the air. Then, holding him so, the Mohican pa.s.sed his knife through the man"s heart, striking with swiftness incredible again and again; and as his victim collapsed, he eased him down into the water, turned him over, and took his shoulders between his knees.
"G.o.d!" I whispered. "Don"t wait for that!"
But the Siwanois warrior was not to be denied; and in a second or two the wet scalp flapped at his belt.
Rolling over and over with the current, the limp body slipped down stream and disappeared into deeper shadows. We waded swiftly toward our own sh.o.r.e, crawled across the gravel, drew on our clothing, and stole up into the woods above.
"They"ll know it by sunrise," I said. "How many did you count?"
"Thirteen in that war-party, Loskiel. And if Butler and McDonald be with them, that makes fifteen--and doubtless other renegades besides."
"Then we had best pull foot," said I. And I drew my knife and blazed the ford; and, as well as I might without seeing, wrote the depth of water on the scar.
I heard the Mohican"s low laughter.
"The Senecas will see it and destroy it. But it will drive them frantic," he said.
"Whatever they do to this tree will but mark the ford more plainly,"
said I.
And the Mohican laughed and laughed and patted my shoulder, as we moved fast on our back trail. I think he was excited, veteran though he was, at his taking of a Seneca warrior"s scalp. "Had you not jerked him under water when he leaned forward over your shoulder to see what manner of man was speaking English," said I, "doubtless he had awakened the forest with his warning yell in another moment."
"Let him yell at the fishes, now," said the Mohican, laughing. "No doubt the eels will understand him; they are no more slippery than he."
Save for the vague forms of the trees dimly discerned against the water, the darkness was impenetrable; and except for these guides, even an Indian could scarcely have moved at all. We followed the bank, keeping just within the shadows; and I was ever scanning the spots of starlit water for that same canoe which I had learned was to go upstream to watch us.
Presently the Siwanois checked me and whispered:
"Yonder squats your Wyandotte sentinel."
"Where? I can not see him."
"On that flat rock by the deep water, seeming a part of it."