Chapter 7: The Sleeping Sentinels

A singular day came when it seemed to Robert that the wind alternately blew hot and cold, at least by contrast, and the deep, leaden skies were suffused with a peculiar mist that made him see all objects in a distorted fashion. Everything was out of proportion. Some were too large and some too small. Either the world was awry or his own faculties had become discolored and disjointed. While his interest in his daily toil decreased and his thoughts were vague and distant, his curiosity, nevertheless, was keen and concentrated. He knew that something unusual was going to happen and nature was preparing him for it.

The occult quality in the air did not depart with the coming of night, though the winds no longer alternated, the warm blasts ceasing to blow, while the cold came steadily and with increasing fierceness. Yet it was warm and close in the cave, and the two went outside for air, wandering up the face of the ridge that enclosed the northern side of their particular valley in the chain of little valleys. Upon the summit they stood erect, and the face of Tayoga became rapt like that of a seer. When Robert looked at him his own blood tingled. The Onondaga shut his eyes, and he spoke not so much to Robert as to the air itself:

“O Tododaho,” he said, “when mine eyes are open I do not see you because of the vast clouds that Manitou has heaped between, but when I close them the inner light makes me behold you sitting upon your star and looking down with kindness upon this, the humblest and least of your servants. O Tododaho, you have given my valiant comrade and myself a safe home in the wilderness in our great need, and I beseech you that you will always hold your protecting shield between us and our enemies.”

He paused, his eyes still closed, and stood tense and erect, the north wind blowing on his face. A shiver ran through Robert, not a shiver of fear, but a shiver caused by the mysterious and the unknown. His own eyes were open, and he gazed steadily into the northern heavens. The occult quality in the air deepened, and now his nerves began to tingle. His soul thrilled with a coming event. Suddenly the deep, leaden clouds parted for a few moments, and in the clear space between he could have sworn that he saw a great dancing star, from which a mighty, benevolent face looked down upon them.

“I saw him! I saw him!” he exclaimed in excitement. “It was Tododaho himself!”

“I did not see him with my eyes, but I saw him with my soul,” said the Onondaga, opening his eyes, “and he whispered to me that his favor was with us. We cannot fail in what we wish to do.”

“Look in the next valley, Tayoga. What do you behold now?”

“It is the bears, Dagaeoga. They come to their long winter sleep.”

Rolling figures, enlarged and fantastic, emerged from the mist. Robert saw great, red eyes, sharp teeth and claws, and yet he felt neither fear nor hostility. Tayoga’s statement that they were bears, into which the souls of great warriors had gone, was strong in his mind, and he believed. They looked up at him, but they did not pause, moving on to the little caves.

“They see us,” he said.

“So they do,” said Tayoga, “but they do not fear us. The spirits of mighty warriors look out of their eyes at us, and knowing that they were once as we are they know also that we will not harm them.”

“Have you ever seen the like of this before, Tayoga?”

“No! But a few of the old men of the Hodenosaunee have told of their grandfathers who have seen it. I think it is a mark of favor to us that we are permitted to behold such a sight. Now I am sure Tododaho has looked upon us with great approval. Lo, Dagaeoga, more of them come out of the mist! Before morning every cave, save those in our own little corner of the valley, will be filled. All of them gaze up at us, recognize us as friends and pass on. It is a wonderful sight, Dagaeoga, and we shall never look upon its like again.”

“No,” said Robert, as the extraordinary thrill ran through him once more. “Now they have gone into their caves, and I believe with you, Tayoga, that the souls of great warriors truly inhabit the bodies of the bears.”

“And since they are snugly in their homes, ready for the long winter sleep, lo! the great snow comes, Dagaeoga!”

A heavy flake fell on Robert’s upturned face, and then another and another. The circling clouds, thick and leaden, were beginning to pour down their burden, and the two retreated swiftly to their own dry and well furnished cave. Then they rolled the great stones before the door, and Tayoga said:

“Now, we will imitate our friends, the bears, and take a long winter sleep.”

Both were soon slumbering soundly in their blankets and furs, and all that night and all the next day the snow fell on the high mountains in the heart of which they lay. There was no wind, and it came straight down, making an even depth on ridge, slope and valley. It blotted out the mouths of the caves, and it clothed all the forest in deep white. Robert and Tayoga were but two motes, lost in the vast wilderness, which had returned to its primeval state, and the Indians themselves, whether hostile or friendly, sought their villages and lodges and were willing to leave the war trail untrodden until the months of storm and bitter cold had passed.

Robert slept heavily. His labors in preparation for the winter had been severe and unremitting, and his nerves had been keyed very high by the arrival of the bears and the singular quality in the air. Now, nature claimed her toll, and he did not awake until nearly noon, Tayoga having preceded him a half hour. The Onondaga stood at the door of the cave, looking over the stones that closed its lower half. Fresh air poured in at the upper half, but Robert saw there only a whitish veil like a foaming waterfall.

“The time o’ day, Sir Tayoga, Knight of the Great Forest,” he said lightly and cheerfully.

“There is no sun to tell me,” replied the Onondaga. “The face of Areskoui will be hidden long, but I know that at least half the day is gone. The flakes make a thick and heavy white veil, through which I cannot see, and great as are the snows every winter on the high mountains, this will be the greatest of them all.”

“And we’ve come into our lair. And a mighty fine lair it is, too. I seem to adapt myself to such a place, Tayoga. In truth, I feel like a bear myself. You say that the souls of warriors have gone into the bears about us, and it may be that the soul of a bear has come into me.”

“It may be,” said Tayoga, gravely. “It is at least a wise thought, since, for a while, we must live like bears.”

Robert would have chafed, any other time, at a stay that amounted to imprisonment, but peace and shelter were too welcome now to let him complain. Moreover, there were many little but important house-hold duties to do. They made needles of bone, and threads of sinew and repaired their clothing. Tayoga had stored suitable wood and bone and he turned out arrow after arrow. He also made another bow, and Robert, by assiduous practice, acquired sufficient skill to help in these tasks. They did not drive themselves now, but the hours being filled with useful and interesting labor, they were content to wait.

For three or four days, while the snow still fell, they ate cold food, but when the clouds at last floated away, and the air was free from the flakes, they went outside and by great effort--the snow being four or five feet deep--cleared a small space near the entrance, where they cooked a good dinner from their stores and enjoyed it extravagantly. Meanwhile the days passed. Robert was impatient at times, but never a long while. If the mental weariness of waiting came to him he plunged at once into the tasks of the day.

There was plenty to do, although they had prepared themselves so well before the great snowfall came. They made rude shovels of wood and enlarged the space they had cleared of snow. Here, they fitted stones together, until they had a sort of rough furnace which, crude though it was, helped them greatly with their cooking. They also pulled more brushwood from under the snow, and by its use saved the store they had heaped up for impossible days. Then, by continued use of the bone needles and sinews, they managed to make cloaks for themselves of the bearskins. They were rather shapeless garments, and they had little of beauty save in the rich fur itself, but they were wonderfully warm and that was what they wanted most.

Tayoga, after a while, began slow and painstaking work on a pair of snowshoes, expecting to devote many days to the task.

“The snow is so deep we cannot pass through it,” he said, “but I, at least, will pass upon it. I cannot get the best materials, but what I have will serve. I shall not go far, but I want to explore the country about us.”

Robert thought it a good plan, and helped as well as he could with the work. They still stayed outdoors as much as possible, but the cold became intense, the temperature going almost to forty degrees below zero, the surface of the snow freezing and the boughs of the big trees about the valley becoming so brittle that they broke with sharp crashes beneath the weight of accumulated snow. Then they paused long enough in the work on the snowshoes to make themselves gloves of buckskin, which were a wonderful help, as they labored in the fresh air. Ear muffs and caps of bearskin followed.

“I feel some reluctance about using bearskin so much,” said Robert, “since the bears about us are inhabited by the souls of great warriors and are our friends.”

“But the bears that we killed did not belong here,” said Tayoga, “and were bears and nothing more. It was right for us to slay them because the bear was sent by Manitou to be a support for the Indian with his flesh and his pelt.”

“But how do you know that the bears we killed were just bears and bears only?”

“Because, if they had not been we would not have killed them.”

Thus were the qualms of young Lennox quieted and he used his bearskin cap, gloves and cloak without further scruple. The snowshoes were completed and Tayoga announced that he would start early the next morning.

“I may be gone three or four days, Dagaeoga,” he said, “but I will surely return. I shall avoid danger, and do you be careful also.”

“Don’t fear for me,” said Robert. “I’m not likely to go farther than the brook, since there’s no great sport in breaking your way through snow that comes to your waist, and which, moreover, is covered with a thick sheet of ice. Don’t trouble your mind about me, Tayoga, I won’t roam from home.”

The Onondaga took his weapons, a supply of food, and departed, skimming over the snow with wonderful, flying strokes, while Robert settled down to lonely waiting. It was a hard duty, but he again found solace in work, and at intervals he contemplated the mouths of the bears’ caves, now almost hidden by the snow. Tayoga’s belief was strong upon him, for the time, and he concluded that the warriors who inhabited the bodies of the bears must be having some long and wonderful dreams. At least, they had plenty of time to dream in, and it was an extraordinary provision of nature that gave them such a tremendous sleep.

Tayoga returned in four days, and Robert, who had more than enough of being alone, welcomed him with hospitable words to a fire and a feast.

“I must first put away my spoils,” said the Onondaga, his dark eyes glittering.

“Spoils! What spoils, Tayoga?”

“Powder and lead,” he replied, taking a heavy bundle wrapped in deerskin from beneath his bearskin overcoat. “It weighs a full fifty pounds, and it made my return journey very wearisome. Catch it, Dagaeoga!”

Robert caught, and he saw that it was, in truth, powder and lead.

“Now, where did you get this?” he exclaimed. “You couldn’t have gone to any settlement!”

“There is no settlement to go to. I made our enemies furnish the powder and lead we need so much, and that is surely the cheapest way. Listen, Dagaeoga. I remembered that to the east of us, about two days’ journey, was a long valley sheltered well and warm, in which Indians who fight the Hodenosaunee often camp. I thought it likely they would be there in such a winter as this, and that I might take from them in the night the powder and lead we need so much.

“I was right. The savages were there, and with them a white man, a Frenchman, that Charles Langlade, called the Owl, from whom we fled. They had an abundance of all things, and they were waxing fat, until they could take the war path in the spring. Then, Dagaeoga, I played the fox. At night, when they dreamed of no danger, I entered their biggest lodges, passing as one of them, and came away with the powder and lead.”

“It was a great feat, Tayoga, but are you sure none of them will trail you here?”

“The surface of the snow and ice melts a little in the noonday sun, enough to efface all trace of the snowshoes, and my trail is no more than that made by a bird in its flight through the air. Nor can we be followed here while we are guarded by the bears, who sleep, but who, nevertheless, are sentinels.”

Tayoga took off his snowshoes, and sank upon a heap of furs in the cave, while Robert brought him food and inspected the great prize of ammunition he had brought. The package contained a dozen huge horns filled with powder, and many small bars of lead, the latter having made the weight which had proved such a severe trial to the Onondaga.

“Here’s enough of both lead and powder to last us throughout the winter, whatever may happen,” said Robert in a tone of intense satisfaction. “Tayoga, you’re certainly a master freebooter. You couldn’t have made a more useful capture.”

Each, after the invariable custom of hunters and scouts, carried bullet molds, and they were soon at work, melting the lead and casting bullets for their rifles, then pouring the shining pellets in a stream into their pouches. They continued at the task from day to day until all the lead was turned into bullets and then they began work on another pair of snowshoes, these intended for Robert.

Despite the safety and comfort of their home in the rock, both began to chafe now, and time grew tremendously long. They had done nearly everything they could do for themselves, and life had become so easy that there was leisure to think and be restless, because they were far away from great affairs.

“When my snowshoes are finished and I perfect myself in the use of them,” said Robert, “I favor an attempt to escape on the ice and snow to the south. We grow rusty, you and I, here, Tayoga. The war may be decided in our absence and I want to see Dave, too. I want to hear him tell how he got through the savage cordon to the lake.”

“Have no fear about the war, Dagaeoga,” said the Onondaga. “It will not be ended this winter nor the next. Before there is peace between the French king and the British king you will have a chance to make many speeches. Yet, like you, I think we should go. It is not well for us to lie hidden in the ground through a whole winter.”