The Little Red Foot Part 38

The girl turned her head and spoke to the Saguenay in his own gutturals.

I also watched to see what effect such praise might have.

For a few minutes he sat motionless and without any expression upon his narrow visage, yet I knew he must be bursting with pride.

"Tahioni!" I called out. "Here, also, is a real man who has taken scalps in battle. Shall not our _brother_, Yellow Leaf, of the Montagnais, sing his first scalp-song at an Oneida fire?"

There was a pause, then every Oneida hatchet flashed high in the firelight.

"Koue!" they shouted. "We give fire right to our brother of the Montagnais, who is a real man and no wolf!"

At that the Saguenay hunter, who, in a single day, had became a warrior, leaped lightly to his feet, and began to trot like a timber wolf around the fire, running hither and thither as an eager, wild thing runs when searching.

Then he shouted something I did not understand; but Thiohero interpreted, watching him: "He looks in vain for the tracks of a poor Saguenay hunter, which once he was, but he can find only the footprints of a proud Saguenay warrior, which now he has become!"

Now, in dumb show, this fierce and homeless rover enacted all that had pa.s.sed,--how he had encountered the Canienga, how they had mocked and stoned him, how we had captured him, proved kind to him, released him; how he had returned to warn us of ambuscade.

He drew his war-axe and shouted his snarling battle-cry; and all the Oneidas became excited and answered like panthers on a dark mountain.

Then Yellow Leaf began to dance an erratic, weird dance--and, somehow, I thought of dead leaves eddying in a raw wind as he whirled around the fire, singing his first scalp-song:

"Who are the Yanyengi,[13] that a Saguenay should fear them?

They are but Mowaks,[14] and Real men jeer them!

I am a warrior; I wear the lock!

I am brother to the People of the Rock![15]

Red is my hatchet; my knife is red; Woe to the Mengwe, who wail their dead!

I wear the Little Red Foot and the Hawk; Death to the Maquas who stone and mock!

Koue! Ha!"

_An Oneida_

"Hah!

Hawasahsai!

Hah!"

_The Saguenay_

"Who are the Yanyengi, that Real men should obey them?

We People of the Dawn were Born to slay them!

I eat twigs in winter when there is no game; What does he eat, the Maqua? What means his name?

To each of us a Little Red Foot! To each his clan!

Let the Mengwe flee when they scent a Man!

Koue! Ha!"

[Footnote 13: The Huron for Canienga.]

[Footnote 14: A Mohican term of insult, but generally used to express contempt for the Canienga.]

[Footnote 15: Oneida.]

And

"Hah! Hawasahsai!"

chanted the Oneidas, trotting to and fro in the uncertain red light, while we white men sat, chin on fist, a-watching them; and the little sorceress of Askalege beat her palms softly together, timing the rhythm for lack of a drum.

An hour pa.s.sed: my Indians still danced and sang and bragged of deeds done and deeds to be accomplished; my young sorceress sat asleep, her head fallen back against me, her lips just parted. At her feet a toad, attracted by the insects which came into the fire-ring, jumped heavily from time to time and snapped them up.

An intense silence brooded over that vast wilderness called the Drowned Lands; not a bittern croaked, not a wild duck stirred among the reeds.

Very far away in the mist of the tamaracks I heard owls faintly halooing, and it is a melancholy sound which ever renders me uneasy.

I was weary to the bones, yet did not desire sleep. A vague presentiment, like a mist on some young peak, seemed to possess my senses, making me feel as lonely as a mountain after the sun has set.

I had never before suffered from solitude, unless missing the beloved dead means that.

I missed them now,--parents who seemed ages long absent,--or was it I, their only son, who tarried here below too long, and beyond a reasonable time?

I was lonely. I looked at the scalps, all curing on their hoops, hanging in a row near the fire. I glanced at Nick. He lay on his blanket, sleeping.... The head of the little Athabasca Sorceress lay heavy on my shoulder; she made no sound of breathing in her quiet sleep. Both her hands were doubled into childish fists, thumbs inside.

Johnny Silver smoked and smoked, his keen, tireless eyes on the Scalp Dancers; Luysnes, also, blinked at them in the ruddy glare, his powerful hands clasping his knees; de Golyer was on guard.

I caught G.o.dfrey's eye, motioned him to relieve Joe, then dropped my head once more in sombre meditation, lonely, restless, weary, and unsatisfied....

And now, again,--as it had been for perhaps a longer period of time than I entirely comprehended,--I seemed to see darkly, and mirrored against darkness, the face of the Scottish girl.... And her yellow hair and dark eyes; ... and that little warning glimmer from which dawned that faint smile of hers....

That I was lonely for lack of her I never dreamed then. I was content to see her face grow vaguely; sweetly take shape from the darkness under my absent gaze;--content to evoke the silent phantom out of the stuff that ghosts are made of--those frail phantoms which haunt the secret recesses of men's minds.

I was asleep when Nick touched me. Thiohero still slept against my shoulder; the Yellow Leaf and the Oneidas still danced and vaunted their prowess, and they had set a post in the soft earth near the sh.o.r.e, and had painted it red; and now all their hatchets were sticking in it, while they trotted tirelessly in their scalping dance, and carved the flame-shot darkness with naked knives.

Wearily I rose, took my rifle, re-primed it, and stumbled away to take my turn on guard, relieving Nick, who, in turn, had replaced G.o.dfrey, whom I had sent after Joe de Golyer.

They had dug our ditch so well that the Vlaie water filled it, making, with the pointed staves, an excellent abattis against any who came by stealth along the Sacandaga trail.

Behind this I walked my post, watching the eastern stars, which seemed paler, yet still remained clearly twinkling. And no birds had yet awakened, though the owls had become quiet in the tamaracks, and neither insect nor frog now chanted their endless runes of night.

Shouldering my rifle, I walked to and fro, listening, scanning the darkness ahead.... And, presently, not lonely; for a slim phantom kept silent pace with me as I walked my post--so near, at times, that my nostrils seemed sweet with the scent of apple bloom.... And I felt her breath against my cheek and heard her low whisper.

Which presently became louder among the reeds--a little breeze which stirs before dawn and makes a thin ripple around each slender stem.

Tahioni came to relieve me, grave, not seeming fatigued, and, in his eyes, the s.h.i.+ning fire of triumph still unquenched.

I went back to the fire and lay down on my blanket, where now all were asleep save my Saguenay.