The Long Journey

by Elsie Singmaster

Now Quagnant was silent. The deer thongs which bound the pack were strong, but his body was heavy. He could see below him the black pool. In its icy water he might keep himself afloat for a few seconds, but to climb out would be impossible. Across the stream he could see the bodies of the slain deer, food for all his people, and he could hear the snow crust breaking as the others made their escape. Conrad, far above him in safety, he could not see.

Quagnant shut his eyes and listened to the gurgle of the water and looked into his poor Indian soul. The logic of the case was simple. He could not move without help, and Conrad would not help him. He had abused the pale-face and the pale-face would certainly desert him. Even if there were mercy in his heart, Conrad could not come down the hill without risking his life nor return to the village for help before Quagnant would die of cold.

Then Quagnant heard above the gurgle of the water a strange sound as though some one were following his wild flight. There was the sound of sliding feet, then silence, then again the sound of sliding feet. Presently began a sharp chip, chip, as though the ice were being struck with a hatchet. Quagnant, with eyes still closed, began to address the Great Spirit.

"I pray that I may not be cut off from my present life, Great and Good Spirit."

Nearer and nearer came the sound of chipping; higher and higher rose the hopes of Quagnant. It would be fearful, indeed, to slip over the precipice with rescue at hand! But was it rescue? Quagnant remembered again with sickening pain the sharp hatchet hurled at Conrad. It was that very hatchet which Conrad held in his hand!

Now Quagnant could feel each stroke on the ice. They were near his head—he gave himself up. They had passed his head and were even with his waist—he dared to breathe again. When the chipping had sounded for a long time beside his foot, he felt a hand touch his foot and move it to a hole in the ice in which it could find support. Thus aided, he was able to lift his arms and draw himself up beside the little bush. Near by, supporting himself by a tree, sat Conrad.

With immobile countenance and without even his customary grunt, Quagnant climbed the mountain in the tracks which Conrad had made. After he had rested for a few minutes and had ceased to tremble, he walked along the ridge until he found an easy descent to the stream and to the carcases of the deer. He did not speak until he had dressed a portion of the meat with his long knife and cooked it over a little fire of driftwood which had been carried high on the bank where it had been protected by thick laurel and hemlock shrubbery. This he would not touch until Conrad had eaten. Then at last he spoke.

"A cloud had come between us, Conrad, and the skies were dark. It is past now forever and the skies are clear."

Hiding in the stream, away from the sharp claws of panther or wildcat, the meat which they could not carry, the two set out for home. The next day the hunters brought in, not only Quagnant's kill, but three more deer. That evening Conrad was invited to the feast of the grown men and was given a long pipe. He did not like the strong tobacco, but he did his best to smoke, aware that he had been paid a great honor. At him Quagnant looked solemnly, both during the feast and afterwards when they sat together by the fire. In Quagnant's mind was taking shape a strange plan, at once brilliant and cunning. If Conrad could have looked into the chief's mind and could have seen there, slowly forming, the last episode in his strange apprenticeship, he might well have been terrified. The meeting in the London fog was about to bear its fruit.

At last the sullen winter was past and the trees began to bud and the meadows to grow green. The women prepared their little patches of ground for maize and potatoes, old canoes were mended and new canoes were built, the young men began to court and the maidens to grow more shy. When Conrad spoke of joining his father, who must be by this time in Schoharie, Quagnant shook his head.