IN THE MIDST OF INCREASING PERILS
Rodney did not dare to follow François back to the village, nor did he think it wise to return to the tree. Being thirsty, he risked a visit to the spring, waiting till the dusk deepened and the last squaw had filled her kettles or the deerskin bottles in which they carried water. Having drank, he concluded he would pass the night on a little dry knoll near the spring, and from which he could observe what was happening in the village.
As he lay looking out upon the bluff, whereon sat the village, and down on the broad meadow, he admired the location with the eye of a young pioneer. What a delightful spot for a plantation! His boyish imagination pictured a home like “The Hall” on the bluff overlooking the creek. Back of that he would have the negro cabins and the stables, for he would have fine horses like Nat. With such a home he would be as important a man as Squire Danesford and his father need be under obligations to no man. Had Lisbeth married her cousin and gone to England? And so day dreams drifted into those of sleep.
The next morning he returned to Ahneota and told him what had occurred. The old chief seemed contrite after his debauch, but did not mention it. As Rodney left him he said: “Better be Ahneota’s brother,” but the boy shook his head, saying: “You know why I cannot be.”
François had left the village. Caughnega did not look at the boy as they met. That evening Conrad came and, much to the boy’s surprise, suggested that they go fishing in the morning. Rodney readily agreed and the following morning they went up the creek several miles to a place where the stream broadened out into a small pond. Its shores were lined with lily pads under which the pickerel lay in wait for their prey, motionless as sticks, which they resemble.
Rodney, who had fished there, led the way to the mouth of a little inlet, where a tree had fallen into the water. He had cleared away the rotten limbs so that he might go far out on the trunk and be able to cast the bait at a specially inviting spot. Wishing to be friends, he offered Conrad the place at the farther end and also the loan of his better fishing gear. Conrad, who was very glum, hesitated, but finally accepted the offer.
Now, there is luck as well as skill in fishing, as every one knows who has tried it. Again and again they would both cast their minnow bait, which was exactly similar, and Rodney’s would be the hook that was seized. Once, while the latter was baiting his hook, a huge pickerel, darting like a flash of light, took Conrad’s 97 and he, being too eager, yanked vigorously before the fish had taken the bait far enough into the mouth to be securely hooked. Rodney immediately skipped his bait over the place and the fish, taking that, was skilfully landed. He was a beauty. The look of hatred in Conrad’s face startled his companion but he soon forgot it in the sport he was having. Tired at last, he said: “Let’s go back to the village, Conrad. We’ve got enough for one day.”
“Yah! You back go vith basket full an’ show Louis an’ ol’ chief vat a smart brave you be.”
Rodney made no reply, but turned and carefully picked his way over the slippery trunk toward the shore. While doing this a thought of the look of hatred in his companion’s face prompted him to turn his head.
Close behind him, with his hatchet uplifted in the act of striking, was Conrad!
Rodney thrust his pole backward as one would thrust a spear and the butt hit the other boy full in the chest, knocking him off the slippery log into the water.
Squirming and spluttering, he tried to regain his feet but, instead, sank deeper and deeper.
He had fallen into a quagmire!
By the time Rodney had recovered his self-possession Conrad had sunk to his chin. The delay of another minute and he would have disappeared from this story.
Rodney ran back and reached out his pole. The 98 other seized it and was pulled to safety, covered with mud.
The boys stood looking at each other. Conrad said nothing, but looked more sullen than ever, though his blazing wrath was well extinguished. Finally Rodney spoke.
“Why did you try to kill me?”
“Och! me, I hate you.”
“What for?”
“You, you a paleface.”
“That’s not the reason. So are you.”
“Nein, me, I a Wyandotte brave; ain’t so.”
“I never wronged you.”
“Louis my brother vas und you come. You tell him Conrad not goot brother, alretty.”
“That’s false. I never said a word against you. Some one has been lying to you.”
“Maman heard you, yet.”
“She heard nothing of the kind. She wants me killed for some reason, and is trying to have you murder me, kill me from behind like a coward.”
“Red man’s vay for me goot enough.”
“Well, it’s not good enough for me. ’Twould have been an Indian’s way, I suppose, to have let you go down out of sight in the mud. If I’d had the slightest enmity to you that would have been my chance after you tried to murder me, you blockhead! I’ve a good mind to give you a thrashing. Maman and Caughnega have been making a catspaw of you to do their dirty work. If you had a spoonful of sense you’d 99 know, now anyway, that I have nothing against you. If you are jealous of me, help me to go back to Virginia out of the way. Don’t try to strike me down from behind.”
Conrad hung his head. He had not lost his sense of shame altogether, and, noticing his embarrassment, Rodney, prompted by an impulse he could not have explained, held out his hand, saying, “Let’s shake hands and be friends, to each other and to Louis. He’ll need us both.” Conrad met the offer and they returned to the village, no word being spoken on the way.
About a week later Conrad came to his wigwam and said, “Go to Ahneota’s lodge. François has a Shawnee brought, vat say you to heem belong.”
This was startling news indeed; François’s revenge!
Rodney lost no time in reporting to the chief, who remarked, “They have been long in coming,” from which it appeared he had expected them.
François, bustling and important, announced a messenger from “our brothers, the Shawnees, who has come for this paleface, a runaway.”
“Let him enter,” replied Ahneota, with dignity.
A villainous looking fellow, accompanied by Caughnega, entered the lodge. Rodney did not recognize him, which was not strange; indeed, he may not have been one of the party that captured the boy.
Having entered, he made formal demand for the return of the captive. To this Ahneota replied: “Our people are at peace with the paleface. They have 100 wronged us, but we wait. Leaves do not fall until the tenth moon. The hatchet is buried. The paleface sits by our fires and smokes the pipe of peace.”
To this the Shawnee responded: “I have come for my prisoner. Our brother would not warm at the fire of the Wyandotte the snake from the lodge of the Shawnee.”
“Do you, my brother, come from the mighty Cornstalk, wise in counsel and fierce in war?”
The Shawnee hesitated, and Ahneota continued: “Has he declared war on the paleface?”
The Shawnee drew himself up, he was tall and strong, and replied:
“If Shawnee meet Wyandotte bringing venison to his lodge does he ask him where he got it and take it from him?”
“If my brother kill the paleface and bring war on the tribes when there is peace, shall my lodge be burned by the braves of the paleface? No, my brother. Go back to Cornstalk and say Ahneota would sit in council with him before the hatchet is dug up,” saying which the old chief signified that the talk was at an end and the Shawnee withdrew discomfited.
When Rodney learned what the old chief had done in his behalf his heart warmed in gratitude toward the old savage. At first opportunity he thanked him, but the Indian made no reply. Caughnega soon after left the village and did not return before the village was moved that fall farther north, where the hunting was said to be better.
One day Louis came to him, crying, to bid him good-bye as Maman was to take him to the river, which he supposed meant back to his former home. She had told him he was to see Father Arbeille again and was to be taught how to be a wise boy. Louis did not want to go, and Rodney feared ill for the little fellow. There was nothing he could do, however. He did speak to Ahneota about it, and said he thought she had stolen the boy and intended no good toward him.
“She would be like bear for cub, she would die for him. Would Little Knife do as much?”
This name the savage had lately given the boy. The Indians termed the Virginians “Long Knives,” hence the name, “Little Knife,” applied to the lad.
That winter several of the men relied upon for hunting visited a distant tribe, and meat grew scarce. Since the departure of Caughnega and Maman, Rodney went about more freely and the old chief loaned his rifle and allowed him to hunt. He and Conrad made several excursions together. On one of these trips they set out with but little food and wandered for several days, nearly starved and half frozen. On the third day Conrad, discovering a hole half way up the trunk of a big tree, stopped.
“Vat you tink?” asked Rodney, mimicking his companion’s speech, for now they were excellent friends.
“I tink dat one goot hole for bear, ain’t so?” was the reply.
“You suppose an old fellow has a nest in there?”
“I tink some look in be goot.”
They cut down a sapling standing near, “lodging” it against the big tree. Then they built a fire and, collecting the tips of green boughs and long grass damp with frost, tied them into a bundle at the end of a pole. While Conrad “shinned” up the sapling till the pole would reach the hole, Rodney lighted the bundle which smoked like a “smudge.” Conrad thrust the smoking bundle into the hole and, a minute later, a wheezing sound was heard. Bruin was there and was waking from his winter sleep!
Rodney seized the rifle while Conrad slid to the ground. But the bear looked out and made no effort to descend.
Conrad then relighted the torch and climbed up far enough to thrust it in the bear’s face. This angered him and he began to back down the tree.
Unlike Rodney’s first encounter with a bear, the lad now had ample time for taking steady aim and the brute fell mortally wounded.
How delicious the meal, which followed, tasted after their long fast!
Taking as much of the choicest cuts as they could carry, they returned to the encampment to find the Indians in a famished condition. Ahneota for the two previous days had given his allowance of food to the children.
The winter, what with hunting and trapping, passed quickly. The wild, free life with all its hardships and annoyances appealed to Rodney, and he came to understand how children taken captives by the Indians, and 103 later returned to their parents, would occasionally run away and rejoin the red folk. His home ties were too strong, however, for him to entertain such a thought, and he lay awake many nights wondering how he might make his escape.
The severity of the winter had greatly weakened Ahneota. The skin was drawn over his cheekbones like parchment. He was so lame with rheumatism that he needed constant care and the boy served him in many ways.
The hunters, though few in number, had gathered a fine lot of furs, and, when the ice was breaking up in the streams, the sugar maples were tapped. Their implements for this purpose were crude. Their method consisted in cutting a gash through the bark with a tomahawk and into this driving a chip which served as a “spile” to conduct the dripping sap into the dishes of elm bark, from which it was taken and boiled into sugar. This sugar was often mixed with bear’s fat and stored in sacks made of skins, a mixture much prized by the Indians.
A little later the tribe returned to the bluff where Rodney was first introduced to its life, there to plant the corn and tobacco.
Rumours of trouble with the whites increased. The latter part of May François returned, but without Maman and Louis, and he brought, to trade for the valuable furs, rifles and ammunition and brandy, and waxed rich, while the savages with their new implements of war became more restless.