Ticonderoga: A Story of Early Frontier Life in the Mohawk Valley

by G. P. R. James

More than five months had passed; months of great trouble and anxiety to many. The woods, blazing in their autumnal crimson when last we saw them, had worn and soiled in a short fortnight the glorious vestments of the autumn, and cast them to the earth, and now they had put on the green garments of the summer, and robed themselves in the tender hues of youth.

It was under a large tree, on a high bank commanding the whole prospect round for many and many a mile, and in the eastern part of the province of New York, that three redmen were seated in the early summer of 1758. A little distance in advance of them, and somewhat lower down the hill, was a small patch of brush, composed of fantastic-looking bushes, and one small blasted tree. It formed, as it were, a sort of screen to the Indians' resting place from all eyes below, and yet did not in the least impede their sight as it wandered over the wide forest world around them. From the elevation on which they were placed the eye of the redman, which seems, from constant practice, to have gained the keenness of the eagle's sight, could plunge into every part of the woods around, where the trees were not actually contiguous. The trail, wherever it quitted the shelter of the branches; the savanna, wherever it broke the outline of the forest; the river, where it wound along on its course to the ocean; the military road from the banks of the Hudson to the head of Lake Horicon; the smallest pond, the little stream, were all spread out to view as if upon a map.

Over the wide, extensive prospect the eyes of those three Indians wandered incessantly, not as if employed in searching for some definite object, the direction of which, if not the precise position, they knew, but rather as if they were looking for anything which might afford them some object of pursuit or interest. They sat there nearly two hours in the same position, and during the whole of that time not more than four or five words passed between them. But at length they began to converse, though at first in a low tone, as if the silence had its awe, even for them. One of them pointed with his hand toward a spot to the eastward, saying: "There is something doing there."

In the direction to which he called the attention of his companions was seen spread out in the midst of the forest and hills a small but exquisitely beautiful lake, seemingly joined on to another of much greater extent by a narrow channel. Of the former, the whole extent could not be seen, for every here and there a spur of the mountains cut off the view, and broke in upon the beautiful, waving line of the shore. The latter was more distinctly visible, spread out broad and even, with every little islet, headland, and promontory marked clear and definite against the bright, glistening surface of the waters. Near the point where the two lakes seemed to meet, the Indians could descry walls, and mounds of earth, and various buildings of considerable size--nay, even what was probably the broad banner of France, though it seemed but a mere whitish spot in the distance, was visible to their sight.

At the moment when the Indian spoke, coming from a distant point on the larger lake, the extreme end of which was lost to view in a sort of blue, indistinct haze, a large boat or ship might be seen, with broad white sails, wafted swiftly onward by a cold northeasterly wind. Some way behind it another moving object appeared, a boat likewise, but much more indistinct, and here and there, nearer inshore, two or three black specks, probably canoes, were darting along upon the bosom of the lake like waterflies upon the surface of a still stream.

"The palefaces take the warpath against each other," said another of the Indians, after gazing for a moment or two.

"May they all perish!" said the third. "Why are our people so mad as to help them? Let them fight, and slay, and scalp one another, and then the redman tomahawk the rest."

The other two uttered a bitter malediction in concert with this fierce but not impolitic thought, and then, after one of their long pauses, the first who had spoken resumed the conversation, saying: "Yet I would give one of the feathers of the white bird to know what the palefaces are doing. Their hearts are black against each other. Can you not tell us, Apukwa? You were on the banks of the Horicon yesterday, and must have heard the news from Corlear."

"The news from Albany matters much more," answered Apukwa. "The Yengees are marching up with a cloud of fighting men, and people know not where they will fall. Some think Oswego, some think Ticonderoga. I am sure that it is the place of the singing waters that they go against."

"Will they do much in the warpath," asked the brother of the Snake, "or will the Frenchman make himself as red as he did last year at the south of Horicon?"