The word was passed along the line, and Ta-wan-ne-ars ordered the warriors to don their shirts. Fifteen minutes later the snow began to fall. Driven by a piercing wind, it descended like a vast, enveloping blanket, coldly damp, strangling the breath, blinding the eyes, numbing the muscles.
We struggled along against it until we came to a hillside scattered with large boulders. Here we halted and built shelters for ourselves by roofing the boulders with pine saplings we hacked down with our tomahawks. Under these, with fires roaring at our feet, we made shift to resist the cold.
The snow fell for the better part of two days, so thickly as to preclude traveling, and during that time we dared not stir from shelter, except to collect firewood. In the evening of the second day the storm passed, and the stars shone out in a sky that was a hard, metallic blue.
"We have lost much time, brothers," said Ta-wan-ne-ars, "and we have had a long rest. Let us push on tonight."
After the fashion of the Iroquois he always gave his commands in the form of advice; but no warrior ever thought of disputing him.
"I no longer see the Loon above us," I remarked to him as I put on my snow-shoes. "How shall you find your way?"
"The Great Spirit has taken care of that," he answered, and he raised his arm toward the sparkling group of the Pleiades. "There are the Got-gwen-dar, the Seven Dancers. They shine for us in the Winter, and we shall guide our steps by them."
Our progress that night and for several days afterward was slowed considerably by my clumsiness on snow-shoes. But The Otter and other warriors went to considerable pains to help me, picking out the easiest courses to follow, quick with hint or advice to remedy my ignorance. I became proficient enough to travel at the tail of the column, although my companions could never march as rapidly as they would have done without me.
After starting we met only one party of Oneida hunters, who had not heard of the decision of the Ho-yar-na-go-war to take the war-path against Murray. The Mohawks had all retired to their villages for the Winter, and the wilderness which was traversed by the Doom Trail was deserted because of the universal Indian fear of the False Faces. Ta-wan-ne-ars and I discussed this point as we neared the forbidden country, and I suggested that he tell his followers our destination.
He waited until we were a long day's march from and well to the northwest of the goal. Then he gathered the warriors about him as they mustered for the trail.