The Hidden Children

"Good God!" said I, "did you, then know the answer all the while? And never told her?" But at the same moment I understood how perfectly characteristic of an Indian had been his conduct.

"I knew," he said tranquilly, "but I did not know why this maiden wished to know. Therefore was I silent."

"Why did you not ask her?" But before he spake I knew why too.

"Does a Sagamore ask idle questions of a woman?" he said coldly. "Do the Siwanois babble?"

"No. And yet—and yet–"

"Birds sing, maidens chatter. A Mohican considers ere his tongue is loosed."

"Aye—it is your nature, Sagamore.... But tell me—what was it in the mention of my name that made you think of magic?"

"Loskiel, you came two hundred miles to ask of me the question that this maid had asked in every camp."

"What question?"

"Where lay the trail to Catharines-town," he said.

"Did she ask that?" I demanded in astonishment.

"It was ever the burden of her piping—this rosy-throated pigeon of the woods."

"That is most strange," said I.

"It is doubtless sorcery that she should ask of me an interview with you who came two hundred miles to ask of me the very question."

"But, Mayaro, she did not then know why I had come to seek you."

"I knew as quickly as I heard your name."

"How could you know before you saw me and I had once made plain my business?"

"Birds come and go; but eagles see their natal nest once more before they die."

"I do not understand you, Mayaro."

He made no answer.

"Merely to hear my name from this child's lips, you say you guessed my business with you?"

"Surely, Loskiel—surely. It was all done by magic. And, at once, I knew that I should also speak to her, there in the storm, and answer her her question."

"And did you do so?"

"Yes, Loskiel. I said to her: 'Little sad rosy-throated pigeon of the woods, the vale Yndaia lies by a hidden river in the West. Some call it Catharines-town.'"

I shook my head, perplexed, and understanding nothing.

"Yndaia? Did you say Yndaia, Mayaro?"

Then, as he looked me steadily in the eye, my gaze became uneasy, shifted, fell by an accident upon the blood-red bear reared on his hind legs, pictured upon his breast. And through and through me passed a shock, like the dull thrill of some forgotten thing clutched suddenly by memory—yet clutched in vain.

Vain was the struggle, too, for the faint gleam passed from my mind as it had come; and if the name Yndaia had disturbed me, or seeing the scarlet ensign on his breast, or perhaps both coupled, had seemed to stir some distant memory, I did not know. Only it seemed as though, in mental darkness, I had felt the presence of some living and familiar thing—been conscious of its nearness for an instant ere it had vanished utterly.

The Sagamore's face had become a smooth, blank mask again.

"What has this maid, Lois, to do with Catharines-town?" I asked. "Devils live there in darkness."

"She did not say."

"You do not know?"

"No, Loskiel."

"But," said I, troubled, "why did she journey hither?"

"Because she now believes that only I in all the world could guide her to the vale Yndaia; and that one day I will pity her and take her there."

"Doubtless," I said anxiously, "she has heard at the forts or hereabouts that we are to march on Catharines-town."

"She knows it now, Loskiel"

"And means to follow?" I exclaimed in horror.

"My brother speaks the truth."

"God! What urges the child thither?"

"I do not know, Loskiel. It seems as though a madness were upon her that she must go to Catharines-town. I tell you there is sorcery in all this. I say it—I, a Sagamore of the Enchanted Wolf. Who should know magic when it stirs but I, of the Siwanois—the Magic Clan? Say what you will, my comrade and blood-brother, there is sorcery abroad; and well I know who wrought it, spinning with spiders' webs there by the lost Lake of Kendaia–" He shuddered slightly. "There by the black waters of the lake—that hag—and all her spawn!"

"Catharine Montour!"

"The Toad-woman herself—and all her spawn."

"The Senecas?"

"And the others," he said in a low voice.

A sudden and terrible misgiving assailed me. I swallowed, and then said slowly:

"Two scalps were taken late last night by Murphy and Elerson. And the scalps were not of the Mohawk. Not Oneida, nor Onondaga, nor Cayuga. Mayaro!" I gasped. "So help me God, those scalps are never Seneca!"

"Erie!" he exclaimed with a mixture of rage and horror. And I saw his sinewy hand quivering on his knife-hilt. "Listen, Loskiel! I knew it! No one has told me. I have sat here all the day alone, making my steel bright and my paint fresher, and singing to myself my people's songs. And ever as I sat at the lodge door, something in the summer wind mocked at me and whispered to me of demons. And when I rose and stood at gaze, troubled, and minding every river-breeze, faintly I seemed to scent the taint of evil. If those two scalps be Erie, then where the Cat-People creep their Sorcerer will be found."

"Amochol," I repeated under my breath. And shivered.

For, deep in the secret shadows of that dreadful place where this vile hag, Catharine Montour, ruled it in Catharines-town, dwelt also all that now remained of the Cat-Nation—Eries—People of the Cat—a dozen, it was rumoured, scarcely more—and demons all, serving that horrid warlock, Amochol, the Sorcerer of the Senecas.