I saw Tahioni chasing a strange Indian through a little hollow full of ferns; saw G.o.dfrey Shew raise his rifle and kill the fugitive as coolly as though he were a running buck.
Nick, his shoulder against a beech tree, stood firing with great deliberation at something I could not see.
The three Frenchmen, de Golyer, Luysnes, and Johnny, had gone around, as though deer driving, and were converging upon a little wooded knoll, from which a hard-wood hogback ran east.
Over this distant ridge, like shadows, I could see somebody"s light feet running, checkered against the sunshine beyond, and I fired, judging a man"s height, if stooping. And saw something dark fall and roll down into a gully full o" last year"s damp and rotting leaves.
Re-charging my rifle, I strove to realize that I had slain, but could not, so fierce the flame in me was burning at the thought of the children"s scalps these Iroquois had taken.
"Is he down, Johnny Silver?" I bawled.
"Fairly paunched!" shouted Luysnes. "Tell your Oneidas they can take his hair, for I shan"t touch it."
But Johnny Silver, in no wise averse, did that office very cheerfully.
"Nom de Dieu!" he panted, tugging at the oiled lock and wrenching free the scalp; "I have one veree fine jou-jou, sacre garce! I take two; mek for me one fine wallet!"
Down by the river the rifles were cracking fast and a smoke mist filled the woods. Ranging widely eastward we had turned their left flank--now their right--and were forcing them to a choice between the Sacandaga trail southward or the bee-line back to Canada by the left bank of West River.
How many there were of them I never have truly learned; but that scarcely matters to the bravest Indian, when ambuscaded and taken so completely by surprise from the rear.
No Indians can stand that, and but few white men are able to rally under such circ.u.mstances.
The Screech-owl, locked in a death struggle with a young Mohawk, broke his arm, stabbed him, and took his scalp before I could run to his aid.
And there on the ground lay four other scalps, two of white children, with the Little Red Foot painted on all.
I looked down at the dead murderer. He was a handsome boy, not twenty, and wore a white mask of war paint and two bars of scarlet on his chin, I thought--then realized that they were two thick streaks of running blood.
"May his clan bewail him!" shouted the burly Screech-owl. "Let the Mohawk women mourn their dead who died this day at West River! The Oneida mock them! Koue!" And his terrific scalp-yell pierced the racket of the rifles.
I heard a gruffling sound and thick breathing from behind a pine, where the Water-snake was scalping one of the tree-cat scouts--grunting and panting as he tugged at the tough and shaven skin, which he had grasped in his teeth, plying his knife at the same time because the circular incision had not been continuous.
Suddenly I felt sick, and leaned against a tree, fighting nausea and a great dizziness. And was aware of an arm around my shoulder.
Whereupon I straightened up and saw the little maid of Askalege beside me, looking at me very strangely.
At the same instant I heard a great roaring and cursing and a crash among the river-side willows, and was horrified to see Nick down on his back a-clawing and tearing and cuffing a Mohawk warrior, who was clinging to him and striving to use his hatchet.
We made but a dozen leaps of it, Thiohero and I, and were in a wasp-nest of Mohawks ere we knew it.
I heard Nick roar again with pain and fury, but had my hands too full to succor him, for a wild beast painted yellow was choking me and wrestling me off my feet, and little Thiohero was fighting like a demon with her knife, on the water"s edge.
The naked warrior I clutched was so vilely oiled that my fingers slipped over him as though it were an eel I plucked at, and his foul and stinking breath in my face was like a full fed bear"s.
Then, as he strangled me, out of darkening eyes I saw his arm lifted--glimpsed the hatchet"s sparkle--saw an arm seize his, saw a broad knife pa.s.s into his belly as though it had been b.u.t.ter--pa.s.s thrice, slowly, ripping upward so that he stood there, already gralloched, yet still breathing horribly and no bowels in him.... His falling hatchet clinked among the stones. Then he sank like a stricken bull, bellowed, and died.
And, as he fell, I heard my Saguenay gabbling, "Brother! brother!" in my ears, and felt his hand timidly seeking mine.
Breath came back, and eyesight, too, in time to see Nick and his Mohawk enemy on their feet again, and the Indian strike my comrade with clubbed rifle, turn, and dart into the willows.
My G.o.d, what a crack! And down went Nick, like a felled pine in the thicket.
But now in my ears rang a distressful crying, like a gentle wild thing wounded to the death; and I saw two Mohawks had got the little maid of Askalege between them, and were drowning her in the Big Eddy.
I ran out into the water, but Tahioni, her brother, came in a flying leap from the bank above me, and all four went down under water as I reached them.
They came up blinded, staggering, one by one, and I got Thiohero by the hair, where she lay in shallow water, and dragged her ash.o.r.e behind me.
Then I saw her brother clear his eyes of water and swing his hatchet like swift lightning, and heard the smashing skull stroke.
The other Mohawk dived like an otter between us, and I strove to spear him with my knife, but only slashed him and saw the long, thin string of blood follow where he swam under water.
My powder-pan was wet and flashed when I tried to shoot him, where I stood shoulder deep in the Big Eddy.
Then came a thrashing, splashing roar like a deer herd crossing a marshy creek, and, below us, I saw a dozen Mohawks leap into the water and thrash their way over. And not a rifle among us that was dry enough to take a toll of our enemies crossing the West River plain in sight!
Lord, what a day! And not fought as I had pictured battles. No! For it was blind combat, and neither managed as planned nor in any kind of order or discipline. Nor did we ever, as I have said, discover how many enemies were opposed to us. And I am certain they believed that a full regiment had struck their rear; otherwise, I think it had proven a very b.l.o.o.d.y business for me and my people. Because the Mohawks are brave warriors, and only the volley at their backs and the stupefying down-crash of their tree-scouts demoralized them and left them capable only of fighting like cornered wild things in a maddened effort to get away.
Lord, Lord! What a battle! For all were filthy with blood, and there were brains and hair and guts sticking to knives and hatchets, and bodies and limbs all smeared. Good G.o.d! Was this war? And the green flies already whirling around us in the sunshine, and settling on the faces of the dead!--
The little maid of Askalege, leaning on her brother"s shoulder, was coughing up water she had swallowed.
Nick, with a b.l.o.o.d.y sconce, but no worse damage, sat upon a rock and washed out his clotted hair.
"h.e.l.l!" quoth he, when he beheld me. "Here be I with a broken poll, and yonder goes the Indian who gave it me."
"Sit still, idiot!" said I, and set the ranger"s whistle to my lips.
White and red, my men came running from their ferocious hunting. Not a man was missing, which was another lesson in war to me, for I thought always that death dealt hard with both sides, and I could not understand how so many guns could be fired with no corpse to mourn among us.
We had taken ten scalps; and, as only Johnny Silver among my white people fancied such trophies, my Oneidas skinned the noddles of our quarry, and, like all Indians, counted any scalp a glory, no matter whose knife or bullet dropped the game.
We all bore scratches, and some among us were stiff, so that the scratch might, perhaps, be called a wound. A bullet had barked de Golyer, another had burned Tahioni; Silver proudly wore a knife wound; the Screech-owl had been beaten and somewhat badly bitten. As for Nick, his head was cracked, and the little maid of Askalege still spewed water.
As for me, my throat was so swollen and bruised I could scarce speak or swallow.
However, there was work still to be done, so I took G.o.dfrey and Luysnes, the Screech-owl, and the Water-snake; motioned Yellow Leaf, the Montagnais to follow, and set off across West River, determined to drive our enemies so deep into the wilderness that they would never forget the Big Eddy as long as they survived on earth.
CHAPTER XVI
A TROUBLED MIND