Chapter XXVI: The Evil Wood

We found the messenger squatting placidly by the Council-House under the guard of several Onondagas, who obviously did not relish the sight of a Frenchman in their midst during the sitting of the Ho-yar-na-go-war. He put aside his pipe as we approached and stood up. But for his white skin, which was rather dingy under a coating of tan and dirt, 'twould have been difficult to distinguish him from the savages. He was of the usual type of _courrier du bois_, but with an unusually repellant countenance.

"You have a message for me?" I said.

"Are you Monsieur Ormerod?" he replied in his peasant's patois.

"I am."

He examined me with a sidewise squint out of his shifty eyes, and fished with one hand in the bosom of his filthy leather shirt.

"You will pay for the service?" he inquired warily.

"Anything in reason," I answered impatiently.

"She said you would pay what I asked," he temporized.

"She! Who?"

My worst fears were confirmed. I took one step forward and grasped the ruffian by the arm.

"Who?" I repeated. "Tell me, if you value your life! And give me the message."

"No offense, no offense, _monsieur_" he growled, pulling away from me. "Mademoiselle Murray----"

"Give it to me," I insisted. "We will talk of pay afterward."

He reluctantly withdrew his hand from his shirt, and offered me a folded square of heavy paper, stained with sweat. I opened it carefully, lest it tear, and saw these lines of fine, angular writing staring me in the face:

"La Vierge du Bois, ye 21st Sptr., 1725.

You said You wld. come if I calld for You. I Begge you now, in ye Name of All you Holde Deer, help Mee. I am to be Forcd to wed ye Chev. de Veulle. 'Tis ye Price he has Fixd for his Services to Mr. Murray. They have Procurd a Dispensation from ye Bishoppe of Quebec. They will Marrie me whenne Père Hyancinthe is returnd from a Visitt to ye Dionondadies by ye Huronne Lake. So much grace I have obtaned from them. Help Mee. MARJORY.

Do notte Trust ye messenjer who Carries this, but plese Pay him What he asks. Come by ye waye you Lefte through ye Woodde of ye Fake Faces.

Stunned, I read it a second time, then handed it to Ta-wan-ne-ars.

"What is your name!" I asked the messenger whilst Ta-wan-ne-ars scanned the paper.

"Baptiste Meurier," he said sullenly.

"How long since is it that you started from La Vierge du Bois!"

"Five weeks more or less. _Monsieur_ has been difficult to find."

"More," I decided, remembering the date on the letter. "Do you know what the message said?"

"How should I, _monsieur_?" he objected quickly. "Me, I do not read."

"Was there no other word?"

"Mais, non."

"Who gave you the paper?"

"Who but the _mademoiselle_ herself?"

"How did she happen to choose you?"

He protruded his chest.

"Who better could she select than Baptiste Meurier?" he replied. "North of the Lakes every one knows Baptiste Meurier--and I am not unknown to the Iroquois."

"But how did the _mademoiselle_ hear of you, Baptiste?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Who can say? A beautiful young person says she has a mission of much importance and profit to be performed. I reply I will go anywhere for a price. I am told I have only to name it. And so I am here, _monsieur_."

"And what is your price?" I inquired, amused despite myself by the cool insolence of the scoundrel.

"Two hundred livres," he said instantly.

"Very well. It shall be paid. You will be detained here for a time, and I will purchase for you a sufficient number of beaver-pelts to defray that sum. Is that satisfactory?"

"Why should I have to wait?" he parried. "_Peste_, Winter draws on fast, and I----"

"You will wait," I cut him off. "And you will be paid."

And, turning to Ta-wan-ne-ars, I asked him to give the necessary instructions to the Onondagas. The messenger, a look of sour satisfaction on his cunning face, was marched off to undergo the restraint of an unwelcome visitor.

"Well?" I said to Ta-wan-ne-ars.

The Seneca returned me the letter.

"See," he said, pointing to the wild geese flying in pairs to the south, "the cold weather is coming. For the last week the northern sky has been hard and clear. There has been snow beyond the Lakes."

"What does that mean!" I demanded.

"That Black Robe will be delayed in returning from his visit to the Dionondadies. And that is a very good thing for us, brother. But for that I think we would be too late."

"But we shall have fighting," I exclaimed. "The Keepers will soon discover us, and no matter how numerous we may be they will fight desperately. They may carry her away to Canada before we reach La Vierge du Bois."

"That is true," he admitted. "And the thought Ta-wan-ne-ars had, brother, was that we might leave to Do-ne-ho-ga-weh and Corlaer the breaking of the Doom Trail whilst you and I with a handful of warriors marched around by the way we escaped, as the white maiden advises in her letter. That way is not guarded, for none has known it, and perhaps we may hide in the Wood of the False Faces and bear off the maiden in the confusion of a surprize attack."

"It sounds reasonable," I said doubtfully. "'Tis preferable to trusting to the main attack."

"There is no other plan," he rejoined with energy. "Moreover, as my brother knows, Ta-wan-ne-ars seeks to save Ga-ha-no, too."

The hint of pain in his voice, which was never absent when he spoke of his lost love, shamed me for the instinctive selfishness which had made me concerned only with my own troubles.

"We will not save one without the other," I cried. "No, Ta-wan-ne-ars, do we not owe our lives as much to her as to Marjory?"

"What you say is true," he replied. "But let us not talk of what we will do until the time comes. I hope that the Great Spirit will be lenient with my Lost Soul, yet it may be her time has not come. If it has come we shall save her. If it has not Ta-wan-ne-ars will try again."

"And so will I."

"My brother is generous, as always," he said simply. "Now we must tell what we have learned to Do-ne-ho-ga-weh, and arrange our plans with him."

The Guardian of the Western Door was the center of an immense mob of warriors who danced around the war-post which had been planted in the Council-Place. Man after man, chanting the deeds he had performed or those he pledged himself to in the future, rushed up and struck the post with his hatchet in token of his intent to participate in the expedition.

The grim face of Do-ne-ho-ga-weh was alight with the joy of battle.

"Behold, O my son," he called to me, "the warriors of the Eight Clans are with us. Our brothers of the Turtle, Beaver, Bear and Wolf, and our younger brothers of the Snipe, Heron, Deer and Hawk, all hunger for the scalps of the Keepers of the Trail.

"A thousand braves will follow us on the war-path. We will give the French a lesson. They shall see the might of the Long House."

But the light faded from his features as Ta-wan-ne-ars told him of the message from Marjory. A look of cold hatred accentuated the grimness of the hooked nose and high cheekbones.

"The French dog de Veulle is wearied of Ga-ha-no," he rasped. "He has had enough of the red maiden. Now he craves the white. Yes, it is well that my red nephew and my white son should go against this man who knows no laws to curb his lust.

"He may think that I am only an Indian, but my fathers have been _roy-an-ehs_ and chiefs for more moons than I could count in the whole of a moon. They sat beside the Founders. They took in marriage and they gave in marriage. It is time that this insult to their memory was wiped out. Let it be wiped out in a river of blood. Then, O my nephew and my son, draw; his scalp across his trail so that no man can tell he ever passed. I charge you, do not spare him."

"We will not spare him, O _ha-nih_,[1]" I promised.

[1] Father.

"Good! It shall be as you ask. Corlaer shall guide me to the Doom Trail. How many warriors are to go with you?"

We debated this point together, and decided that for purposes of swift movement and secrecy we had best restrict our escort to twenty men. Do-ne-ho-ga-weh approved this number.

"Do nothing, if you can help it, until we have begun our attack," he said. "If you must move without us, rely upon flight, for you can not hope to succeed by fighting."

The remainder of that day was devoted to the organization of our party and the instruction of Do-ne-ho-ga-weh and his lieutenants in the geography of the Doom Trail and the bearing of La Vierge du Bois, which, it must be remembered, no hostile tongue had been able to describe until Ta-wan-ne-ars and I had escaped from the clutches of the False Faces.

Our party mustered at dawn the next morning. It consisted of twenty stalwart young Seneca Wolves, each man selected by Ta-wan-ne-ars for strength and wind. Despite the chill of advancing Winter in the air, they were stripped to the waist, their leather shirts rolled in packages which were slung from their shoulders. In addition to their clothing and weapons each man also carried two lengthy contrivances of wood, with hide strips laced across them.

"What are they for?" I asked as Ta-wan-ne-ars presented me with a pair and showed me how to fasten them on my back so that the narrower ends stuck up over my head.

"_Ga-weh-ga_--snow-shoes," he replied. "In the wilderness, brother, the snow lies deep, and we should sink down at every step once the ground was covered after the first storm. You must learn how to use the ga-weh-ga, for otherwise you would be helpless."

Few Indians in the long chain of encampments in the Onondaga Valley saw us march forth, and those who did thought we were only an advance scout, for we kept our purpose a strict secret, even from the warriors of our escort. They were told no more than that they were given an opportunity to go upon a hazardous venture which should yield them fame and a proportionate toll of scalps.

That was all they wanted to know. Ta-wan-ne-ars was a leader they had fought under before. I was assigned a wholly undeserved measure of fame because of my recent adventures in his company.

We marched rapidly, taking advantage of the withering of the foliage to abandon the Great Trail and cut across country through the forest, which stood untouched outside the infrequent clearings of the Iroquois. For three days we averaged thirty miles a day, and each day, when, we camped, I practised with the snow-shoes on some level bit of ground, learning how to walk without catching the points and tripping myself.

We had not gone very far on the fourth day when O-da-wa-an-do, the Otter, a warrior who had attached himself to me, pointed through the leafless trees toward a grayish-white bank which was rolling down upon us from the north.

"O-ge-on-de-o," he said. "It snows."

The word was passed along the line, and Ta-wan-ne-ars ordered the warriors to don their shirts. Fifteen minutes later the snow began to fall. Driven by a piercing wind, it descended like a vast, enveloping blanket, coldly damp, strangling the breath, blinding the eyes, numbing the muscles.

We struggled along against it until we came to a hillside scattered with large boulders. Here we halted and built shelters for ourselves by roofing the boulders with pine saplings we hacked down with our tomahawks. Under these, with fires roaring at our feet, we made shift to resist the cold.

The snow fell for the better part of two days, so thickly as to preclude traveling, and during that time we dared not stir from shelter, except to collect firewood. In the evening of the second day the storm passed, and the stars shone out in a sky that was a hard, metallic blue.

"We have lost much time, brothers," said Ta-wan-ne-ars, "and we have had a long rest. Let us push on tonight."

After the fashion of the Iroquois he always gave his commands in the form of advice; but no warrior ever thought of disputing him.

"I no longer see the Loon above us," I remarked to him as I put on my snow-shoes. "How shall you find your way?"

"The Great Spirit has taken care of that," he answered, and he raised his arm toward the sparkling group of the Pleiades. "There are the Got-gwen-dar, the Seven Dancers. They shine for us in the Winter, and we shall guide our steps by them."

Our progress that night and for several days afterward was slowed considerably by my clumsiness on snow-shoes. But The Otter and other warriors went to considerable pains to help me, picking out the easiest courses to follow, quick with hint or advice to remedy my ignorance. I became proficient enough to travel at the tail of the column, although my companions could never march as rapidly as they would have done without me.

After starting we met only one party of Oneida hunters, who had not heard of the decision of the Ho-yar-na-go-war to take the war-path against Murray. The Mohawks had all retired to their villages for the Winter, and the wilderness which was traversed by the Doom Trail was deserted because of the universal Indian fear of the False Faces. Ta-wan-ne-ars and I discussed this point as we neared the forbidden country, and I suggested that he tell his followers our destination.

He waited until we were a long day's march from and well to the northwest of the goal. Then he gathered the warriors about him as they mustered for the trail.

"Soon, O my brothers," he said in the musical, cadenced Seneca dialect which I was beginning to take pleasure in understanding, "we shall strike our enemies. It is a desperate enterprise you go upon. No war-party ever set out to risk such heavy odds. No warriors of the Long House were ever called upon to practise such caution, to reveal such courage.

"O my brothers, we are going into the Wood of Evil, the haunt of the False Faces which is the breeding-place of all the wickedness that brands the Keepers of the Doom Trail. You will face much that is horrible. You will be threatened with spells and witchcraft. But I ask you to remember that my brother O-te-ti-an-i and I passed through all such perils without harm. Keep your hearts strong."

"_Yo-hay_," muttered the warriors in gutteral assent. "We will keep our hearts strong, O Ta-wan-ne-ars."

Their faces were more serious than before, but they exhibited no signs of fear. Several asked questions as to the False Faces and their rites, and we explained to them the false atmosphere of horror which had been spread designedly to protect the traffic of the Doom Trail.

We moved much more cautiously now that we were near our journey's end, with three scouts always in front, one on either flank of the path we trod. But we saw no signs of other men, although many times we came upon bear-tracks. Toward evening we struck the waters of the tumbling little river through which Ta-wan-ne-ars and I had waded that night after Marjory had released us.

Here we rested whilst scouts went ahead as far as the edge of the Evil Wood. They returned to report not a footprint in the snow. We ate a little parched corn mixed with maple-sugar and some jerked meat we carried in our haversacks.

About midnight we all moved forward, Ta-wan-ne-ars leading the line. The oaks and elms, maples and willows, which had composed the elements of the forest, now gave place to tall, funereal firs, whose massive jade-green foliage remained untouched by the icy breath of Winter.

It seemed as if we had entered a different world when they closed around us. The stars had twinkled through the bare branches of the other trees. Here were utter darkness and a far-away, mournful music of wind rustlings and clashing boughs. Grotesque shadows darted vaguely over the white ground as the trees swayed and groaned. In the distance an owl hooted solemnly. The Otter touched my shoulder.

"Did you hear the owl?" he murmured.

"Yes," I whispered back.

"It is cold for an owl to leave his tree-hole."

He threw back his head, and I started at the fidelity of the repetition.

"_Too-whoo-oo! Too-hoo!_"

We listened, but there was no answer. Instead, after a brief interval, the howl of a wolf resounded.

A few yards farther on the owl hooted again. The line halted, and the warrior in front of him whispered that Ta-wan-ne-ars wished to speak with me. I passed by him and several others and came to where the chief stood, peering, or trying the peer, into the night.

"There was something strange about the owl, brother," he said. "The warriors told me that the Otter answered it, yet it did not reply. And then the wolf----"

A yell as of fiends from hell shattered the mantle of silence. Flames spurted through the firs, and in the gleam of the discharges and of torches thrown into our midst I had a fleeting glimpse of hideous masked figures bounding between the tree-trunks.

"Keep your hearts strong, brothers of the Long House," shouted Ta-wan-ne-ars. "They are only Cahnuaga dogs. Stand to it."

He fired as he spoke. I imitated him. Our men shot off a scattering volley. Then the False Faces were amongst us, coming from all sides, springing out of the ground, dropping from the very branches overhead and wielding their _ga-je-was_, or war-clubs, with dreadful effect.