Chapter 6: The Two Frenchmen

When the three were left alone in the glade the hunter turned to young Lennox.

“You’ve done good work today, Robert,” he said. “I didn’t know you had in you the makings of an orator and diplomatist. The governor of New York did better than he knew when he chose you for one of this mission.”

Robert blushed again at praise and modestly protested.

“Lennox has found that for which he is best fitted,” said Tayoga, slyly.

“If I’m to talk without end I’ll do my best,” said Robert, laughing, “and I suggest that we resume our journey now. There doesn’t appear to be any further danger from the Indians who besieged us.”

“You’re right about it, Robert,” said the hunter. “The coming of the Mohawks has put a barrier between us and them. I’ve an idea that Dayohogo and his warriors won’t go far toward Ticonderoga, but will soon turn south to meet those savages and acquire a few scalps if they can, and if they do meet ‘em I hope they’ll remove that Ojibway, Tandakora, who I think is likely to make us a lot of trouble.”

Willet never spoke of the Iroquois as “savages,” but he often applied the term to the Canadian and Western Indians. Like Robert, he regarded those who had built up the great political and military power of the Hodenosaunee as advanced, and, in a sense, civilized nations.

“I think my friend, the Great Bear, is right,” said Tayoga. “Unless Tandakora and his band have gone toward the west it is likely that Dayohogo will meet them, and they cannot stand before the Mohawks.”

“I think it more probable,” said Robert, “that after the failure to destroy us Tandakora went back to St. Luc, giving a false explanation of his absence or none at all, just as he pleased.”

“It may be so,” said Tayoga, “but I have another opinion.”

While they talked they were taking the canoe from its shelter, and then they bore it down to the river again, putting it back into the stream and listening with pleasure to the gurgle of the water by its sides.

“Paddling isn’t the easiest work in the world,” said Willet with satisfaction, “but when you’re used to it your muscles can stand it a long time, and it’s far ahead of walking. Now, ho for Canada!”

“Ho for Canada!” said Robert, and the three paddles flashed again in the clear water. The canoe once more became a live thing and shot down the stream. They were still in the wilderness, racing between solid banks of green forest, and they frequently saw deer and bear drinking at the edge of the river, while the foliage was vivid with color, and musical with the voices of singing birds.

Robert had a great elation and he had reason to be satisfied with himself. They had triumphed over the dangers of the gorge and savage siege, and he had sowed fruitful seed in the mind of Dayohogo, the powerful Mohawk chief. He had also come to a realization of himself, knowing for the first time that he had a great gift which might carry him far, and which might be of vast service to his people.

Therefore, the world was magnificent and beautiful. The air of forest and mountain was keen with life. His lungs expanded, all his faculties increased in power, and his figure seemed to grow. Swelling confidence bore him on. He was anxious to reach Quebec and fulfill his mission. Then he would go back to the vale of Onondaga and match himself against the clever St. Luc or any other spokesman whom the Marquis Duquesne might choose to send.

But his golden dreams were of Quebec, which was a continuous beacon and lure to him. Despite a life spent chiefly in the woods, which he loved, he always felt the distant spell of great capitals and a gorgeous civilization. In the New World Quebec came nearer than any other city to fulfilling this idea. There the nobles of France, then the most glittering country in the world, came in silks and laces and with gold hilted swords by their sides. The young French officers fought with a jest on their lips, but always with skill and courage, as none knew better than the British colonials themselves. There was a glow and glamor about Quebec which the sober English capitals farther south did not have. It might be the glow and glamor of decay, but people did not know it then, although they did know that the Frenchman, with his love of the forest and skill in handling the Indians, was a formidable foe.

“When do you think we’ll reach the St. Lawrence, Dave?” he asked.

“In two or three days if we’re not attacked again,” replied the hunter, “and then we’ll get a bigger boat and row down the river to Quebec.”

“Will they let us pass?”

“Why shouldn’t they? There’s no war, at least not yet.”

“That battle back there in the gorge may not have been war, but it looked precisely like it.”

The hunter laughed deep in his throat, and it was a satisfied laugh.

“It did look like it,” he said, “and it was war, red war, but nobody was responsible for it. The Marquis Duquesne, the Governor General of Canada, who is Onontio to our Iroquois, will raise his jeweled hand, and protest that he knew nothing about those Indians, that they were wild warriors from the west, that none of his good, pious Indians of Canada could possibly have been among them. And the Intendant, François Bigot, the most corrupt and ambitious man in North America, will say that they obtained no rifles, no muskets, no powder, no lead from him or his agents. Oh, no, these fine French gentlemen will disown the attack upon us, as they would have disavowed it, just the same, if we had been killed. I want to warn you, Robert, and you, Tayoga, that when you reach Quebec you’ll breathe an air that’s not that of the woods, nor yet of Albany or New York. It’s a bit of old Europe, it’s a reproduction on a small scale of the gorgeous Versailles over there that’s eating the heart out of France. The Canadian Frenchman is a good man, brave and enduring, as I ought to know, but he’s plundered and fooled by those people who come from France to make fame or quick fortunes here.”

He spoke with earnestness, but not as a hunter. Rather he seemed now to Robert, despite his forest dress, to be a man of the world, one who understood cities as well as the wilderness.

“I don’t know all your life, Dave,” said young Lennox, “but I’m quite sure you know a great deal more than you would have people to think. Sometimes I believe you’ve been across the great water.”

“Then you believe right, Robert. I never told you in so many words before, but I’ve been in Europe. I’ll talk to you about it another time, not now, and I’ll choose where and when.”

He spoke so positively that Robert did not pursue the topic, knowing that if the hunter wished to avoid it he had good reasons. Yet he felt anew that David Willet, called the Great Bear by the Iroquois, had not spent his whole life in the woods and that when the time came he could tell a tale. There was always the fact that Willet spoke excellent English, so unlike the vernacular of the hunters.

The afternoon was waning fast. The sun was setting in an ocean of fire that turned the blue line of the mountains in the east to red. The slope of the land made the current of the river much swifter, and Robert and Willet drew in their paddles, leaving the work to Tayoga alone, who sat in the prow and guided their light craft with occasional strokes, letting the stream do the rest.

There was no more expert canoeman than Tayoga in the whole northern wilderness. A single sweep of his paddle would send the canoe to any point he wished, and apparently it was made without effort. There was no shortening of the breath nor any sudden and violent movement of his figure. It was all as smooth and easy as the flowing of the water itself. It seemed that Tayoga was doing nothing, and that the canoe once more was alive, the master of its own course.

The ocean of fire faded into a sea of gray, and then black night came, but the canoe sped on in the swift current toward the St. Lawrence. It was still the wilderness. The green forest on either side of the stream was unbroken. No smoke from a settler’s chimney trailed across the sky. It was the forest as the Indian had known it for centuries. Robert, sitting in the center of the canoe, quit dreaming of great cities and came back to his own time and place. He felt the majesty of all that surrounded him, but he was not lonely, nor was he oppressed. Instead, the night, the great forest, the swift river and the gliding canoe appealed to his sensitive and highly imaginative mind. He was uplifted and he felt the confidence and elation that contribute so much to success.

It was characteristic of the three, so diverse in type, and yet knitted so closely together in friendship, that they would talk much at times and at other times have silence long and complete. Now, neither spoke for at least three hours. Tayoga, in the prow, made occasional strokes of his paddle, but the current remained swift and the speed of the canoe was not slackened. The young Onondaga devoted most of his time to watching. Much wreckage from storms or the suction of flood water often floated on the surface of these wild rivers, and his keen eyes searched for trunk or bough or snag. They also scanned at intervals the green walls speeding by on either side, lest they might pass some camp fire and not notice it, but finding no lighter note in the darkness he felt sure that no hostile bands were near.

About midnight the force of the current began to abate and Robert and Willet used the paddles. The darkness also thinned. The rainless clouds drifted away and disclosed a full moon, which turned the dusk of the water to silver. The stars came out in cluster after cluster and the skies became a shining blue. The wilderness revealed itself in another and splendid phase, and Robert saw and admired.

“How long will we go on, Dave?” The words were his and they were the first to break the long silence.

“Until nearly daylight,” replied Willet. “Then we can land, take the canoe into the bushes and rest. What do you say, Tayoga?”

“It is good,” replied the Onondaga. “We are not weary, because the river, of its own accord, has borne us on its bosom, but we must sleep. We would not wish to appear heavy of eye and mind before the children of Onontio.”

“Well spoken, Tayoga,” said the hunter. “An Iroquois chief knows that appearance and dignity count, and you were right to remind us of it. I think that by the next sunset we’ll be meeting French, not the Canadian French that they call habitants, but outposts made up mostly of officers and soldiers from France. They’ll be very curious about us, naturally so, and since your new friend Dayohogo has announced that you are a great orator, you can do most of the talking and explaining, Robert.”

“I’ll talk my best,” replied young Lennox. “Nobody can do more.”

As agreed, they drew the canoe into the bushes shortly before daylight, and slept several hours. Then they returned to the river and resumed their journey. By the middle of the afternoon they saw signs of habitation, or at least of the presence of human beings. They beheld two smokes on the right bank, and one on the left, trailing black lines against the blue of the sky, but they were all far away, and they did not care to stop and determine their origin.

Shortly before sunset they saw a camp fire, very close on the eastern shore, and as they drew near the figures of men in uniform were visible against the red glow.

“I think we’d better draw in here,” said Robert. “This is undoubtedly an outpost, and, likely, an officer of some importance is in charge. Ours is a mission of peace, and we want to placate as many people as we can, as we go.”

“It is so,” said Tayoga, making a sweep or two of the paddle, and sending the canoe in a diagonal line toward the designated shore.

Two men in blue uniforms with white facings walked to the edge of the water and looked at them with curiosity. Robert gave them a gaze as inquiring as their own, and after the habit of the forest, noted them carefully. He took them to be French of France. One was about forty years of age, rather tall, built well, his face browned by forest life. He had black, piercing eyes and a strong hooked nose. A man of resolution but cold of heart, Robert said to himself. The other, a little smaller, and a little younger, was of much the same type. The uniforms of both were fine and neat, and they bore themselves as officers of importance. Like St. Luc, they fortified Robert’s opinion of what he was going to find at Quebec.

Neither of the men spoke until the canoe touched the shore, and its three occupants sprang out. Then they bowed politely, though Robert fancied that he saw a trace of irony in their manner, and the elder said in good English:

“Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Good evening, Messieurs,” said Robert, remembering that he was to be spokesman. “We are English.”

“I can see readily that two of you are.”

“The third, Tayoga, the son of a great Onondaga chief, is English also at heart.”

The lips of the Frenchman curled ever so little. Robert saw at once that he challenged his assertion about Tayoga, but he did not seem to notice it, as he expected that his comrades and himself would be guests in the French camp.

“I have mentioned Tayoga,” he said, “but I will introduce him again. He is of the clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee. I also present Mr. David Willet, a famous scout and hunter, known to the Indians, and perhaps to some of the French, too, as the Great Bear. My own name is Robert Lennox, of Albany and New York, and I have done nothing that is descriptive of me, but I bear important letters from the Governor of New York to Quebec, to be delivered to the Marquis Duquesne, the Governor General of Canada.”