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

by G. P. R. James

No further questions were asked by the chief, and walking slowly away, he seated himself with those who had accompanied him, to partake of the meal they were making ready. Few words were spoken amongst the various groups assembled there, and some twenty minutes had elapsed when one of the young men seated at the fire with the Black Eagle started up and darted away toward the north like a frightened deer. No one took any notice, and several soon after composed themselves to sleep. The others sat round their fires, with their heads bent down almost to their knees, and the murmur of a few sentences spoken here and there was the only sound that broke the silence for nearly an hour. At the end of that time two young warriors on the north side of the savanna started up and listened, and shortly after, several of the Oneidas who had rested in the neighborhood of the same spot the night before, were seen coming through the long grass and crossing the tiny brook which meandered through the midst.

Led by the young messenger who had lately departed to seek for them, they glided up to the fire of the great chief and seated themselves beside him. The conversation then grew earnest, and quick and eager gestures and flashing eyes might be seen.

The great body of the Oneidas took not the slightest notice of what was taking place around the council fire of the Black Eagle, but Walter watched every look with an indefinable feeling of interest and curiosity; and after much discussion, and many a long pause between, the chief beckoned him up and made him sit in the circle.

"Thou art young to talk with warriors," said the Black Eagle, when he was seated; "thy hand is strong against the panther and the deer, but it has never taken the scalp of an enemy. But the daughter of the white man Prevost is my daughter, and she is thy sister. Know, then, my son, that she is in the power of the French. The Honontkoh whom we have expelled--they are wolves--they have taken her--they have run her down as a hungry pack runs down a fawn, and have delivered her and themselves into the hands of the enemy. The muzzles of their rifles have fire for our bosoms; their knives are thirsty for our scalps. Be not a woman, who cannot hear with a calm eye or limbs that are still; but sit and listen, and then prove thyself a warrior in the fight."

He then went on to repeat all that he had just heard from the chief who had succored the poor negress on the preceding night, and all that had been done since.

"The Night Hawk was right," he said, "to send word that we would deliver thy sister, for she is a daughter of the Oneida. The story also of the Dark Cloud is true, for the children of the Stone have caused search to be made, and they have found the horses that were lost and the body of the man they slew. They scalped him not, it is true, for what is the scalp of a negro worth? but the print of the tomahawk was between his eyes."

"Let me have a horse," cried Walter, "and I will bring her out of the midst of them!"

"The swallow flies faster than the Eagle," said the chief, "but where is his strength? Listen, boy, to the words that come forth from many years. Thy sister must be delivered; but our brethren, the English, must know of this ambush, lest they fall into it. So, too, shall she be saved more surely. Draw, then, upon paper the history of the thing, and send it to the great chief, thy friend, the Falling Cataract. I will find a messenger who knows him. Then will we break in upon this ambush at the same time with the English, and the scalps of the Honontkoh shall hang upon the war post, for they are not the children of the Stone; they spat upon their mother. One of the horses, too, shalt thou have to save thy sister out of the fight, if a thing with four feet can run easily in this forest."

"There is the great trail from the setting sun to the place of the Sounding Waters," said the Night Hawk; "a horse can run there as well as a deer. It passes close by the back of the hiding place of the Frenchman."

"Let me hear," said Walter, mastering his emotion, and striving to imitate the calm manner of the Indians, "let me hear where this hiding place is, and what it is like. The white man, though he be but young, knows the ways of the white man best, and he may see light where older eyes fail."