The Hunters of the Hills

by Joseph A. Altsheler

De Courcelles and Jumonville led the way to a large camp fire around which at least fifty French, Canadians and Indians were seated. All the French and Canadians were in uniform, and the Canadians, although living in a colder climate, had become much darker than the parent stock. In truth, many of them were quite as dark as the Indians.

These Canadians of the French stock were, for the present, silent men, and Robert regarded them with the deepest interest. Those who were not in uniform wore long frock coats of dark gray or dark brown, belted at the waist with a woolen sash of bright colors, decorated heavily with beads. Trousers and waistcoats were of the same material as the coats, but their feet were inclosed in Indian moccasins, also adorned profusely with beads. They wore long hair in a queue, incased in an eel-skin, and with their swarthy complexions and high cheek bones they looked like wild sons of the forest to Robert. Tayoga, the Onondaga, was to him a more civilized being. All the Canadians were smoking short pipes, and, while they did not speak, their black eyes, restless with eager curiosity, inspected the strangers.

The Indians in de Courcelles' party were of two types, the converted Indians of Canada, partly in white man's costume, and utterly savage Indians of the far west, in very little costume at all, one or two of them wearing only the breech cloth. The looks they bestowed upon Robert and his comrades were far from friendly, and he wondered if any Ojibway, a warrior who perhaps owned Tandakora as a chief, was among them. They were sitting about the fire and none of them spoke.

"We cannot offer you a banquet," said de Courcelles, "but we can give you variety, none the less. This portion of His Majesty's territory is a wilderness, but it provides an abundance of fish and game."

Robert believed that he had alluded purposely to the territory as "His Majesty's," and, his mind challenging it instantly, he was about to reply that in reality it was the northern part of the Province of New York, but his second and wiser thought caused him to refrain. He would enter upon no controversy with the older man, especially when he saw that the latter wished to draw him into one. De Courcelles, seeing that his lead was not followed, devoted himself to hospitality.

"We have venison, beaver tail, quail, good light bread and some thin red wine," he said. "You Americans or English—which shall I call you?"

"Either," replied Robert, "because we are both."

"Then English it shall be for the present, because you are under that flag. I was going to say that you are somewhat hostile to wine, which we French love, and which we know how to drink in moderation. In some respects we are a people of more restraint than you are. The slow, cold English mind starts with an effort, but when it is started it is stopped with equal difficulty. You either do too little or too much. You lack the logic and precision of the Frenchman."

Robert smiled and replied lightly. Having avoided controversy upon one point, he was of no mind to enter it upon another, and de Courcelles, not pressing a third attack, entered with Jumonville upon his duties as host. Both were graceful, easy, assured, and they fulfilled Robert's conception of French officers, as men of the world who knew courts and manners. It was a time when courts were more important than they are today, and they were recognized universally as the chief fountains from which flowed honor and advancement.

Robert did not like them as well as St. Luc, but he found a certain charm in their company. They could talk of things that interested him, and they exerted themselves, telling indirectly of the glories of Quebec and alluding now and then to the greater splendors of Paris and Versailles. It was a time when the French monarchy loomed as the greatest power in the world. The hollowness and decay of the House of Bourbon were not yet disclosed, even to the shrewdest observers, and a spell was cast upon all the civilized nations by the gorgeous and glittering world of fashion and the world of arms. The influence reached even into the depths of the vast North American wilderness and was felt by Robert as he sat beside the camp fire in the savage woods with the Frenchmen.