Beyond the sunset

by Arthur D. Howden Smith

But Tawannears made no reply. He dragged behind us, dejected and dismayed, as we skirted the irregular shoreline, looking for a convenient camp site. When we found what we sought he aided in the routine duties of the evening, ate his share of the meager meal which was all we could afford, and then took his stand upon a lonely rock that jutted out into the angry waters. An hour later he strode back into the circle of firelight.

"Tawannears forgot that he was a grown warrior," he announced with proud humility. "His heart turned to water. He was very sad. He was afraid. But now he has driven the fear out of his heart. Whatever is worth while the Great Spirit makes difficult to find. We have come a long trail, my brothers, but it may be we have even farther yet to go. Tawannears will not cry again if the thorns cut his feet. Shall we continue?"

"Until you are satisfied, brother," I said.

Peter simply wagged his big head affirmatively.

"It is good," said the Seneca. "In the morning we will start south. Tawannears will take the first watch. A spirit bird is singing in his ear tales of the past."

That was all. When my eyes closed he was sitting outside the range of the firelight, his back against a tree-trunk, his musket across his knees, his eyes fixed on the shadows. His disappointment must have been almost unfathomable. To have come so far, beyond the wildest imaginings of his race, to have risked the legendary as well as the absolute, to have withstood so many risks—and then to find that it was practically all to do over a second time! 'Twas no ordinary shock. And he, who had so lately achieved audience—as he supposed—with the very spirit of Tamanoas, who had inhaled the breath of the Life-giver, was all the more disheartened. Yet he rallied to the shock; he refused to yield to the disappointment. From his reserves of courage he mustered the strength to embark afresh upon the quest he had been confident was approaching a conclusion.

Two days' journey southward we were halted by the estuary of a mighty river, and we turned inland, following its northern bank in search of means to cross. We passed several deserted villages, and on the third day were attacked from ambush by a tribe of tall, lean savages, with heads that sloped back from the eyebrows to a peak. They fled from our musketry, and we pursued them into their village of long, well-built log houses, and helped ourselves to a dug-out canoe in repayment for the ammunition we had expended upon them. They stood at a distance the while, silent and plainly fearful lest we should burn the village, but 'twas never a point with us to do more harm or foray goods other than need required.

Across the river and equipped with good store of smoked fish and dried meat from the savages' huts, we skirted for several weeks a wondrously healthy wooded country betwixt the sea and mountains scarcely inferior in height to those snow giants we had beheld surrounding the Ice Mountain. We saw or encountered Indians many times, but they were poor creatures of less spirit than the fisher folk by the river, and seldom offered us any hostility. A shot was always sufficient to scatter them. Indeed, 'twas observed by all of us that since we passed the Sky Mountains we had seldom met savages as fiercely valorous as the warrior tribes of the vast central plains.

For these first weeks we wandered aimlessly. We had gone as far Westward as we could, and we had not yet determined on another definite course. But a series of damp winds and clinging sea-fogs such as this country seemed disposed to, set us to figuring upon plans for weathering the approaching Winter. We were clad now in the rags of garments, insufficient to withstand the cold. Tawannears and I were gaunt from hardship, hunger and abnormal physical effort, and if the huge cask of blubber that covered Corlaer's bones was not diminished appreciably, fatigue had grooved deep lines and hollows in his flabby face.

Gone from us was the élan that had enabled us to dash ourselves without thought upon the barrier of the Sky Mountains. We wanted rest, food in plenty, time to manufacture new clothing. For close on a year and a half we had wandered thousands of miles from one side of the continent to the other, conducting journeys such as no men had ever attempted before—as Master Cadwallader Golden, the Surveyor General of our Province of New York, has assured me to be the fact, he having studied to much advantage the available data on the geography of America.