The Black Eagle; or, Ticonderoga

by G. P. R. James

"In Indian warfare, the danger is the greatest, I have heard, when it seems the least," observed Walter Prevost; "but from the point to the house, some fourteen or sixteen miles, the road is generally safe, for it is the only one on which large numbers of persons are passing to and from Albany."

"It will be safe enough," said Woodchuck; "that way is always quiet, and, besides, a wise man and a peaceful one could travel at any time from one end of the Long House to the other without risk--unless there were special cause. It is bad shooting we have had to-day, Walter; but still I should have liked to have the skin of that painter; he seemed to me an unextinguishable fine crittur."

"He was a fine creature, and that I know, for I shot him, Woodchuck," said Walter Prevost, with some pride in the achievement. "I wanted to send the skin to Otaitsa; but it cannot be helped."

"Let us go and get it now," cried Woodchuck, with the ruling passion strong in death; "'tis but a step back. Darn those Ingians! Why should we care?"

But both his companions urged him forward; and they continued their way through the woods skirting the river for somewhat more than two miles, first rising gently to a spot where the roar of the waters was heard distinctly, and then descending to a rocky point, midway between the highest ground and the water level, where a small congregation of huts had been gathered together, principally inhabited by boatmen, and surrounded by a stout palisade. One of the most necessary parts of prudence in any body of settlers, was to choose such a site for their dwelling-place as would command a clear view of an approaching stranger, whether well or ill disposed; and the ground round this little hamlet had been cleared on all sides of every tree and shrub that could conceal a rabbit. Thus situated on the top of the eminence nearest to the water, it possessed an almost panoramic view, hardly to be surpassed in the world.

That view, however, had one principal object. On the left, at about four hundred yards' distance, the river of which I have spoken came thundering over a precipice of about three hundred feet in height. Whether worn by the constant action of the waters, or cast into that shape by some strange geological phenomenon, the rock over which the torrent poured had assumed the form of a great amphitheatre, scooped out, as it were, in the very bed of the river, which, flowing on in a mighty stream, fell over the edge at various points; sometimes in an immense green mass, sometimes in a broad and silvery sheet, sometimes in a dazzling line of sparkling foam; all the streams meeting about half-way down, and thundering and boiling in a dark abyss, which the eye from above could hardly fathom. Jutting masses of gray rock protruded themselves in strange fantastic shape about, around, and below, the chasm; and upon these, wherever a root could cling, or a particle of vegetable earth could rest, a tree, a shrub, or a flower had perched itself. The green boughs waved amidst the spray; the dark hemlock contrasted itself, in its stern grandeur, with the white, agitated waters; and the birch and the ash, with their waving branches, seemed to sport with the eddies as they leaped along.

At the foot of the precipice was a deep, whirling pool, unseen, however, from the spot where the travellers stood; and from this issued, first narrow and confined, but then spreading out gradually, between the decreasing banks, a wide and beautiful river, which, by the time it circled the point in front of the travellers, had become as calm and glossy as a looking-glass, reflecting for their eyes the blue sky and the majestic clouds which were now moving slowly over it.

The bend taken by the river shaped the hilly point of ground on which the travellers stood into a small peninsula, about the middle of the neck of which was the boatman's little hamlet which I have mentioned; and nearly at the same distance as the falls from the huts, though more than a mile and a half by the course of the stream, was a piece of broad, sandy shore, on which the woodman had drawn up ten or twelve boats, used sometimes for the purposes of fishing, sometimes for the carriage of peltries to the towns lower down; and goods and passengers returning.

Thence onward, the course of the river could be traced for eight or ten miles, flowing through a gently undulating country, densely covered with forest, while to the east and north rose up some fine blue mountains, at the distance, probably, of thirty miles.

The scene at the hamlet itself had nothing very remarkable in it. There were women sitting at the door, knitting and sewing; men lounging about, or mending nets, or making lines; children playing in the dirt, as usual, both inside and outside the palisade. The traces of more than one nation could be discovered in the features, as well as on the tongues, of the inhabitants; and it was not difficult to perceive, that here had been congregated, by the force of circumstances, into which it is not necessary to inquire, sundry fragments of Dutch, English, Indian, and even French, races, all bound together by a community of object and pursuit.