"What is that, Otetiani?" she asked, bewildered.
"It is the way a white son salutes his mother," I answered.
"Do it again," she commanded.
I did, to the stern amusement of Donehogaweh and his attendant Royanehs.
"I like it," she said. "It is a good son who gives his mother such pleasure. Surely, Hawenneyu will send you back to me."
"If his Orenda is strong and his valor great, he will return," declared Donehogaweh. "But there has been enough of leavetaking. A warrior's strength should not be sapped by sorrow before he takes the war-trail. Good-by, Otetiani, my son. Good-by, Corlaer, my brother. Good-by, Tawannears, son of my sister. We await your return with honor."
He raised his right arm in the gesture of farewell. A thicket of arms sprang up in the Dancing Place and we acknowledged the salute in kind. Then, without a word, Tawannears turned his back and walked southward through the village. I walked after him, and Corlaer came behind me. Not a voice was raised to shout after us. Not a call came from the surrounding houses. I looked back once—as no Indian would have done—and saw the assemblage standing immobile, Donehogaweh, with his robe wrapped around him, his eyes fastened upon us, his face emotionless. Even Guanaea stood now like a statue. Then we came to the forest wall, and Deonundagaa became a thing of roof-tops, occasionally glimpsed through the thickening screen of greenery.
The trail was the usual Indian footway, a stamped-out slot, a groove just wide enough for a man to pass, worn in the floor and hacked through the body of the wilderness. We traversed it in silence, each, I suppose, immersed in his thoughts. For the most part, I fixed my eyes upon the sliding muscles of Tawannears' back, rippling so smoothly under his oiled skin, his effortless stride carrying him ahead at a steady dog-trot. Behind me I could hear the grunting of Corlaer and the crackle of branches his broad shoulders pushed against—and by that I knew that we were in absolutely safe country, for the big Dutchman could be as quiet and as agile with his mountainous bulk as Tawannears, himself.
My mind turned to the day, three weeks past, that these two had reëntered my life, after years of separation, and lifted me at once by the clean ardor of their personalities out of the miasma of sickening thoughts in which grief had immersed me.
Much had happened since then. Hasty adjustments of my business; last-minute conferences with the governor and several merchants, members of his Council, who had generously volunteered to take over the conduct of my affairs; drilling of John Allen in various niceties of the situation; the voyage up Hudson's River by sloop to Albany, huddled under the protection of Fort Orange below the mouth of the Mohawk, our main outpost on the frontier; a fortnight on the Great Trail of the Long House; flitting meetings with old friends; the aroma of the forest; longer and longer hours of sleep; Deonundagaa and—this.