The Hidden Children

Below us lay a creek, its glittering thread visible here and there. The Great Warrior trail crossed it somewhere in that ravine.

I drew the Mohican aside.

"Sagamore," said I, "now is your time come. Now we depend on you. If it lay with us, not one white man here, not one Indian, could take us straight to Catharines-town; for the Great Warrior trail runs not thither. Are you, then, confident that you know the way?"

"I know the way, Loskiel."

"Is there then a trail that leads from the Great Warrior trail below?"

"There are many."

"And you know the right one?"

"I have spoken, brother."

"I am satisfied. But we must clearly mark the trail for our surveyors and for the army."

"We will mark it," he said meaningly, "so that no Seneca dog can ever mistake which way we passed."

I did not exactly understand him, but I nodded to Boyd and he gave the signal, and we began the descent through the warm twilight of an open forest that sloped to the creek a thousand feet below us.

Down and down we went, partly sliding, and plowing up the moss and leaves knee-deep, careless how we left our trail, as there was none to follow, save the debris of a flying army or the flanking scouts of a victorious one.

Below us the foaming rifles of the creek showed white in the woodland gloom, and presently we heard its windy voice amid rocks and fallen trees, soughing all alone through leafy solitudes; and its cool, damp breath mounted to us as we descended.

The Indians dropped prone to slake their thirst; the riflemen squatted and used their cups of bark or leather, pouring the sweet, icy water over their cropped heads and wrists.

"Off packs!" said Boyd quietly, and drew a bit of bread and meat from his beaded wallet. And so the Mohican and I left them all eating by the stream, and crossed to the western bank. Here the Sagamore pointed to the opposite slope; I gave a low whistle, and Boyd looked across the water at me.

Then I drew my hatchet and notched a tree so that he saw what I did; he nodded comprehension; we went on, notching trees at intervals, and so ascended the slope ahead until we arrived at the top.

Here the forest lay flat beyond, and the Great Warrior trail ran through it—a narrow path fifteen inches wide, perhaps, and worn nearly a foot deep, and patted as hard as rock by the light feet of generations—men and wild beasts—which had traversed it for centuries.

North and south the deeply graven war trail ran straight through the wilderness. The Mohican bent low above it, scrutinizing it in the subdued light, then stepped lightly into it, and I behind him.

For a little way we followed it, seeing other and narrower trails branching from it right and left, running I knew not whither—the narrow, delicate lanes made by game—deer and bear, fox and hare—all spreading out into the dusk of the unknown forest.

Presently we came to a trail which seemed wet, as though swampy land were not far away; and into this the Mohican turned, slashing a great scar on the nearest tree as he entered it.

There was a mossy stream ahead, and the banks of it were dark and soft. Here we rested high and dry on the huge roots of an oak, and ate our midday meal.

In a little while the remainder of our party came gliding through the trees, Boyd ahead.

"Is this the Catharines-town trail?" he asked. "By God, they'll never get their artillery through here. Mark it, all the same," he added indifferently, and seated himself beside me, dropping his rifle across his knees with a gesture of weariness.

"Are you tired?" I asked.

He looked up at me with a wan smile.

"Weary of myself, Loskiel, and of a life lived too lightly and now nigh ended."

"Nigh ended!" I repeated.

"I go not back again," he said, sombrely.

I glanced sharply at him, where he sat brooding over his rifle; and there was in his face an expression such as I had never before seen there—something unnatural that altered him altogether, as death alters the features, leaving them strangely unfamiliar. And even as I looked, the expression passed. He lifted his eyes to mine, and even smiled.

"There is," he said, "a viewless farm which companions even the swiftest on the last long trail, a phantom-pilot which leads only toward that Shadowed Valley of endless rest. In my ears all day—close, close to my ear, I have heard the whisper of this unseen ghost—everywhere I have heard it, amid the din of the artillery, on windy hill-tops, in the long silence of the forest, through the noise of torrents in lost ravines, by flowing rivers sparkling in the sun—everywhere my pilot whispers to me. I can not escape, Loskiel; whatever trail I take, that is the trail; whichever way I turn, that is the way. And ever my phantom pilots me—forward or back, aside or around—it is all one to him and to me, for at the end of every trail I take, nearer and nearer draw I to mine end."

I had heard of premonitions before a battle; had known officers and soldiers to utter them—brave men, too, yet obsessed by the conviction of their approaching death. Sometimes they die; sometimes escape, and the premonition ends forever. But until the moment of peril is passed, or they fall as they had foretold, no argument will move them, no assurance cheer them. But our corps had been in many battles during the last three years, and I had never before seen Boyd this way.

He said, brooding on his rifle:

"The one true passion of my life has been Lana Helmer. It began ignobly; it continues through all this pain and bewilderment, a pure, clean current, running to the deep, still sea of dreams.... There it is lost; I follow it no further.... And were I here today as upright and as stainless as are you, Loskiel, still I could follow it no further than that sea of dreams. Nor would my viewless pilot lead me elsewhere than to the destiny of silence that awaits me; and none the less would I hear his whisper in my ears.... My race is run."

I said: "Is it vain to appeal to your reason when your heart is heavy?"

"Had I another chance," he said, "I would lighten the load of sin I bear—the heavy load I bear with me into the unknown."

"God gives us all our chance."

"He gave me my last chance at Tioga Fort. And I cursed it in my heart and put it aside."

"One day you will return,"

"Never again, Loskiel.... I am no coward. I dare face the wrath to come. It is not that; but—I am sorry I did not spare when I might have been more generous.... The little thing was ignorant.... Doves mate like that.... And somewhere—somehow—I shall be required to answer for it all—shall be condemned to make amends.... I wonder how the dead make their amends?… For me to burn in hell avails her nothing.... If she thought it she would weep uncomforted.... No; there is a justice. But how it operates I shall never understand until it summons me to hear my sentence."

"You will return and do what a contrite heart bids you to do," I said.

"If that might be," he said gently, "that would I do—for the child's sake and for hers."

"Good God!" I said under my breath.

"Did you not surmise it?"

"No."

"Well, then, now you know how deeply I am damned.... God gave me a last chance. There was a chaplain at the fort."

"Kirkland."

"Yes, Gann went forward.... But—God's grace was not within me.... And to see her angered me—that and the blinding hurt I had when Lana left—heart-broken, wretched, still loving me, but consigning me to my duty.... So I denied her at the bridge.... And from that moment has my unseen pilot walked beside me, and I know he leads me swiftly to my end."

I raised my troubled eyes and glanced toward my Indians. They had stripped great squares of bark from half a dozen trees, and were busily painting upon them, in red and blue, insulting signs and symbols—a dead tree-cat, scalped, and full of arrows; a snake severed into sections; a Seneca tied to a post and a broken wampum belt at his feet. And on every tree they had also painted the symbol of their own clans and nation—pointed stones and the stars of the Pleiades; a witch-wolf and an enchanted bear; a yellow moth alighted on a white cross; a night-hawk, perfectly recognizable, soaring high above a sun, setting, bisecting the line of the horizon.

Every scalp taken was duly enumerated and painted there, together with every captured weapon. Such a gallery of art in the wilderness I had never before beheld.

Boyd's riflemen sat around, cross-legged on the moss, watching the Indians at their labour—all except Murphy and Elerson, who, true to their habits, had each selected a tree to decorate, and were hard at work with their hunting knives on the bark.