The Road to Frontenac

by Samuel Merwin

THE LONG HOUSE.

The council-house was a hundred paces or more in length. The frame was of tall hickory saplings planted in the ground in two rows, with the tops bent over and lashed together in the form of an arch. The building was not more than fifteen yards wide. The lower part of the outer wall was of logs, the upper part and the roof of bark. Instead of a chimney there was a narrow opening in the roof, extending the length of the building.

A row of smouldering fires reached nearly from end to end of the house. The smoke struggled upward, but failing, for the greater part, to find the outlet overhead, remained inside to clog the air and dim the eyes. The chiefs sat in a long ellipse in the central part of the house, some sitting erect with legs crossed, others half reclining, while a few lay sprawling, their chins resting on their hands. The Big 236 Throat sat with the powerful chiefs of the nation at one end. The lesser sachems, including the Long Arrow, sat each before his own band of followers. The second circle was made up of the older and better-known warriors. Behind these, pressing close to catch every word of the argument, were braves, youths, women, and children, mixed together indiscriminately. A low platform extended the length of the building against the wall on each side, and this held another crowding, elbowing, whispering mass of redskins. Every chief and warrior, as well as most of the women, held each a pipe between his teeth, and puffed out clouds of smoke into the thick air.

The maid’s eyes smarted and blurred in the smoke. It reached her throat, and she coughed.

“Lie down, Mademoiselle,” said Menard. “Breathe close to the ground and it will not be so bad.”

She hesitated, looking at the Big Throat, who sat with arms folded, proud and dignified. Then she smiled, and lay almost flat on the ground, breathing in the current of less impure air that passed beneath the smoke. They had been placed in the inner circle, next to the 237 chiefs of the nations, where Menard’s words would have the weight that, to the mind of the Big Throat, was due to a representative of the French Governor, even in time of war. Father Claude, sitting on the left of the maid, was looking quietly into the fire. He had committed the case into the hands of Providence, and he was certain that the right words would be given to the Captain.

It was nearing the close of the afternoon. A beam of sunlight slipped in at one end of the roof-opening, and slanted downward, clearing a shining way through the smoke. A Cayuga chief was speaking.

“The corn is ripening in the fields about the Onondaga village. As I came down the hills of the west to-day I saw the green tops waving in the wind, and I was glad, for I knew that my brothers would feast in plenty, that their Manitous have been kind. The Cayugas, too, have great fields of corn, and the Senecas. Their women have worked faithfully that the land might be plentiful.

“But a storm is breaking over the cornfields of the Senecas. It is a great cloud that has come down from the north, with the flash of fire and the roar of thunder, and with hailstones 238 of lead that will leave no stalk standing. My brothers know the strength of the north wind. They have not forgotten other storms that would have laid waste the villages of the Senecas and the Mohawks. And they have not forgotten their Manitous, who have whispered to them when the clouds appeared in the northern sky, ‘Rise up, Mohawks and Oneidas and Onondagas and Cayugas and Senecas, and stand firmly against this storm, and your homes and your fields shall not be destroyed.’”

The house was silent with interest. The maid raised her head and watched the stolid faces of the chiefs in the inner circle. Not an expression changed from beginning to end of the speech. Beyond, she could see other, younger faces, some eager, some bitter, some defiant, some smiling, and all showing the flush of excitement,––but these grim old chiefs had long schooled their faces to hide their thoughts. They held their blankets close, and puffed deliberately at their pipes with hardly a movement of the lips.