"I have been taken in fair fight, and am a prisoner of war," Steve said to himself. "That in itself should gain fair treatment for me. But what is the use of worrying? I am cold, and have a severe pain in my side. I suppose I have been wounded. Brothers, have you a blanket with which to cover me? My blood runs cold with the frost and my wound, and in a little while I shall be frozen."
He spoke the last aloud, addressing himself to the Indians who carried him, and speaking in the Mohawk tongue. All four instantly came to a halt, there was a grunt from the leading man on the right, and then Steve was gently laid on the ground.
"Cold, brother?" said the leader, a fine specimen of a brave, if the faint light could be trusted. "We will give you a covering and see to your comfort. Tell us, how comes it that you speak our tongue, or rather, that of the Mohawks? Have you lodged in their wigwams?"
Steve answered with a nod. "I have lived and hunted with them," he said feebly, for he was very weak. "They are firm friends of mine, as are others of the Iroquois nation. They call me Hawk."
At that there was another grunt, a grunt which denoted approval and the small amount of astonishment which the brave would permit himself to express.
"Hawk. Yes, we have heard of you. Then you were the chief of those whom we attacked a week ago?"
"I was. The fight was a fair and open one. The Hurons attacked boldly, but were unfortunate. Those who fell were as brave as those who lived to return to Ticonderoga."
This time all the bearers nodded their approval and grunted. For these Indian braves, with all their faults, with all their ferocity and their barbarous customs, had one redeeming virtue. They were brave, and they respected bravery. It was the one great virtue after which all strove, and if an enemy could speak well of their conduct, then he was for the time being a friend. More than that, these wild men of the backwoods, who had come so many miles to aid the French, were accustomed, like other Indian nations, to make much of their prisoners, provided they had fought with courage. A prisoner with them was a man who had already shown fortitude, and who, by becoming a prisoner, threw down the gage to his captors as it were, and boldly asserted that if they were bold, he was still bolder, that if they and their brothers could support hardship and pain amounting to the acutest agony, he could support the fiercest pains which they his captors could design. In fact, a prisoner was wont to boast loudly of his own superiority, to defy his captors to make him flinch, and when the time for the ordeal came, to endure hours of the most diabolical torture, and finally the pangs of death without so much as a groan, if possible with a smile of triumph on his quivering lips. And till the time for torture arrived he was a brother and a man, deserving of respect and attention, not a beast to be goaded and bullied and loaded with chains.
"Our brother is weak," said the brave. "He shall have a covering at once, and we will carry him with all comfort and care. The Hawk is our friend. We have heard of him. There are braves with us who met the Hawk and his brothers on the Mohawk river and down in the great valley beyond. Yes, of a truth, the Hawk is known to us as a man of bravery and energy." He went off over the snow at a swinging pace, and presently his tall figure appeared again, while in his hands he bore a huge rug of bearskin.
"This will keep the warmth in you, Hawk," he said kindly. "We will wrap you in it till you are completely covered. Then your blood will run again. You have lost much, brother. See, it is frozen on your shirt."