The Hidden Children

"It is well," said the Sagamore quietly. And I heard him cautiously loosening his hatchet.

Presently a dark form took shape in the gloom and passed us without speaking; then another, and another, and another, all wading forward with scarce a ripple sounding against their painted bodies. Then one came up who spoke also in Seneca dialect, saying to the Mohican that the canoe was to be sent up stream on observation, and asking the whereabouts of McDonald.

So they were all there, the bloody crew! But once more I found voice to order the Seneca across, saying that I would attend to the canoe when the time came to employ it.

This Indian seemed to understand very little English, and he hesitated; but I laid my hand flat on his naked back, and gave him a slight shove toward the farther shore. And he went on, muttering.

Two more passed. We waited in nervous silence for the next, not knowing how many had been sent to prowl around our camp. And as no more came, I whispered to the Sagamore:

"Let us go back. If more are to come, and if there be among them Butler or McDonald or any white man, he will never mistake me for any of his fellows after he hears me speak."

The Sagamore turned, the water swirling to his waist. I followed. We encountered nobody until the water began to shoal. Then, in mid-stream, a dark figure loomed out of the night, confronting us, and I heard him say in the Seneca language:

"Halt and turn. You travel the wrong way!"

"Go forward and mind your business!" I said in English.

The shadowy figure seemed astounded, remaining motionless there in the ford. Suddenly he bent forward as though to see my features, and at the same instant the Sagamore seized him and jerked his head under water.

But he could not hold him, for the fellow was oiled, and floundered up in the same instant. No doubt the water he had swallowed kept the yell safe in his throat, but his hatchet was out and high-swung as the Sagamore grasped his wrist, holding his arm in the air. Then, holding him so, the Mohican passed his knife through the man's heart, striking with swiftness incredible again and again; and as his victim collapsed, he eased him down into the water, turned him over, and took his shoulders between his knees.

"God!" I whispered. "Don't wait for that!"

But the Siwanois warrior was not to be denied; and in a second or two the wet scalp flapped at his belt.

Rolling over and over with the current, the limp body slipped down stream and disappeared into deeper shadows. We waded swiftly toward our own shore, crawled across the gravel, drew on our clothing, and stole up into the woods above.

"They'll know it by sunrise," I said. "How many did you count?"

"Thirteen in that war-party, Loskiel. And if Butler and McDonald be with them, that makes fifteen—and doubtless other renegades besides."

"Then we had best pull foot," said I. And I drew my knife and blazed the ford; and, as well as I might without seeing, wrote the depth of water on the scar.

I heard the Mohican's low laughter.

"The Senecas will see it and destroy it. But it will drive them frantic," he said.

"Whatever they do to this tree will but mark the ford more plainly," said I.

And the Mohican laughed and laughed and patted my shoulder, as we moved fast on our back trail. I think he was excited, veteran though he was, at his taking of a Seneca warrior's scalp. "Had you not jerked him under water when he leaned forward over your shoulder to see what manner of man was speaking English," said I, "doubtless he had awakened the forest with his warning yell in another moment."

"Let him yell at the fishes, now," said the Mohican, laughing. "No doubt the eels will understand him; they are no more slippery than he."

Save for the vague forms of the trees dimly discerned against the water, the darkness was impenetrable; and except for these guides, even an Indian could scarcely have moved at all. We followed the bank, keeping just within the shadows; and I was ever scanning the spots of starlit water for that same canoe which I had learned was to go upstream to watch us.

Presently the Siwanois checked me and whispered:

"Yonder squats your Wyandotte sentinel."

"Where? I can not see him."

"On that flat rock by the deep water, seeming a part of it."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes, Loskiel."

"You saw him move?"

"No. But a Siwanois of the Magic Clan makes nothing of darkness. He sees where he chooses to see.

"Mayaro," said I, "what do you make of this Wyandotte?"

"He has quitted his post without orders for a spot by the deep water. A canoe could come there, and he could speak to those within it."

"That might damn a white soldier, but an Indian is different."

"He is a Wyandotte—or says he is."

"Yes, but he came with credentials from Fortress Pitt."

"Once," said the Sagamore, "he wore his hair in a ridge."

"If the Eries learned that from the Nez Perces, why might not the Wyandottes also learn it?"

"He wears the Hawk."

"Yes, I know it."

"He saw the moccasin tracks in the sand at the other ford, Loskiel, and remained silent."

"I know it."

"And I believe, also, that he saw the canoe."

"Then," said I, "you mean that this Wyandotte is a traitor."

"If he be a Wyandotte at all."

"What?"

"He may be Huron; he may be a Seneca-Huron. But we Indians think differently, Loskiel."

"What do you think?"

"We do not know for certain. But"—and the Mohican's voice became quietly ferocious—"if a war-arrow ever struck this Wyandotte between the shoulders I think every tree-cat in the Long House would squall at the condoling council."

"You think this Wyandotte an Erie in disguise?" I asked incredulously.