"Do nothing, if you can help it, until we have begun our attack," he said. "If you must move without us, rely upon flight, for you can not hope to succeed by fighting."
The remainder of that day was devoted to the organization of our party and the instruction of Do-ne-ho-ga-weh and his lieutenants in the geography of the Doom Trail and the bearing of La Vierge du Bois, which, it must be remembered, no hostile tongue had been able to describe until Ta-wan-ne-ars and I had escaped from the clutches of the False Faces.
Our party mustered at dawn the next morning. It consisted of twenty stalwart young Seneca Wolves, each man selected by Ta-wan-ne-ars for strength and wind. Despite the chill of advancing Winter in the air, they were stripped to the waist, their leather shirts rolled in packages which were slung from their shoulders. In addition to their clothing and weapons each man also carried two lengthy contrivances of wood, with hide strips laced across them.
"What are they for?" I asked as Ta-wan-ne-ars presented me with a pair and showed me how to fasten them on my back so that the narrower ends stuck up over my head.
"Ga-weh-ga—snow-shoes," he replied. "In the wilderness, brother, the snow lies deep, and we should sink down at every step once the ground was covered after the first storm. You must learn how to use the ga-weh-ga, for otherwise you would be helpless."
Few Indians in the long chain of encampments in the Onondaga Valley saw us march forth, and those who did thought we were only an advance scout, for we kept our purpose a strict secret, even from the warriors of our escort. They were told no more than that they were given an opportunity to go upon a hazardous venture which should yield them fame and a proportionate toll of scalps.
That was all they wanted to know. Ta-wan-ne-ars was a leader they had fought under before. I was assigned a wholly undeserved measure of fame because of my recent adventures in his company.
We marched rapidly, taking advantage of the withering of the foliage to abandon the Great Trail and cut across country through the forest, which stood untouched outside the infrequent clearings of the Iroquois. For three days we averaged thirty miles a day, and each day, when, we camped, I practised with the snow-shoes on some level bit of ground, learning how to walk without catching the points and tripping myself.
We had not gone very far on the fourth day when O-da-wa-an-do, the Otter, a warrior who had attached himself to me, pointed through the leafless trees toward a grayish-white bank which was rolling down upon us from the north.
"O-ge-on-de-o," he said. "It snows."