The Hunters of the Hills

by Joseph A. Altsheler

The great festival went on, and the agents of Corlear and Onontio were still kept waiting. The sachems would not hear a word from either. As Robert understood it, they felt that the Maple Dance might not be celebrated again for years. These old men, warriors and statesmen both, saw the huge black clouds rolling up and they knew they portended a storm, tremendous beyond any that North America had known. France and England, and that meant their colonies, too, would soon be locked fast in deadly combat, and the Hodenosaunee, who were the third power, must look with all their eyes and think with all their strength.

While the young warriors and the maidens sang and danced without ceasing, the sachems and the chiefs sat far into the night, and as gravely as the Roman Senate, considered the times and their needs. Runners, long of limb, powerful of chest, and bare to the waist, came from all points of the compass and reported secretly. One from Albany said that Corlear and the people there and at New York were talking of war, but were not preparing for it. Another, a Mohawk who came out of the far east, said that Shirley, the Governor of Massachusetts, was thinking of war and preparing for it too. A third, a Tuscarora, who had traveled many days from the south, said that Dinwiddie, the Governor of Virginia, was already acting. He was sending men, led by a tall youth named Washington, into the Ohio country, where the French had already gone to build forts. An Onondaga out of the north said that Quebec and Montreal were alive with military preparations. Onontio was giving to the French Indians muskets, powder, bullets and blankets in a profusion never known before.

The red fagots were rapidly displacing the white, and the secret councils of the fifty sachems were filled with anxiety, but they hid all their disquietude from the people, and much of it from the chiefs. But, to their eyes, all the heavens were scarlet and the world was about to be in upheaval. It was a time for every sachem to walk with cautious steps and use his last ounce of wisdom.

On the fourth night a powerful ally of St. Luc's arrived, although the chevalier had not called him, and did not know until the next day that he had come. He was a tall, thin man of middle years, wrapped in a black robe with a cross upon his breast, and he had traveled alone through the wilderness from Quebec to the vale of Onondaga. He carried no weapon but under the black robe beat a heart as dauntless as that of Robert, or of Willet, or of Tayoga, and an invincible faith that had already moved mountains.

Onondaga men and women received Father Philibert Drouillard, and knelt for his willing blessing. Despite the memories of Champlain and Frontenac, despite the long and honored alliance with the English, the French missionaries, whom no hardships could stop, had made converts among the Onondagas, an enlightened nation with kindly and gentle instincts, and of all these missionaries Father Drouillard had the most tenacious and powerful will. And piety and patriotism could dwell together in his heart. The love of his church and the love of his race burned there with an equal brightness. He, too, had seen the clouds of war gathering, thick and black, and knowing the power of the Hodenosaunee, and that they yet waited, he had hastened to them to win them for France. He was burning with zeal and he would have gone forth the very night of his arrival to talk, but he was so exhausted that he could not move, and he slept deeply in one of the houses, while his faithful converts watched.

Robert encountered the priest early the next morning, and the meeting was wholly unexpected by him, although the Frenchman gave no sign of surprise and perhaps felt none.

"Father Drouillard!" he exclaimed. "I believed you to be in Canada! I did not think there was any duty that could call you to the vale of Onondaga!"

The stern face of the priest relaxed into a slight smile. This youth, though of the hostile race, was handsome and winning, and as Father Drouillard knew, he had a good heart.

"Holy Church sends us, its servants, poor and weak though we may be, on far and different errands," he said. "We seek the wheat even among the stones, and there are those, here in the vale of Onondaga itself, who watch for my coming."

Robert recalled that there were Catholic converts among the Onondagas, a fact that he had forgotten for the time, and he realized at once what a powerful factor Father Drouillard would be in the fight against him.