Adventure Magazine Cover, August 18, 1921 — page 134: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

128 He followed Peter into the trail on our side of the clearing, and there was a second and briefer pause. Then’ as silently as ghosts a string of figures flitted into the clearing. ‘There were six of them, each with musket in the hollow of his arm, each with bristling feather headdress. They walked one behind the other, with a peculiar effect, even at that distance, of stealth and watch- fulness. : Ta-wan-ne-ars emitted a guttural grunt, quite unlike his usual rather musical utterance. “‘Cahnuagas!”’ he exclaimed, and spat. “What?” I answered. “Down!” he rasped. is scant!” All the way during our descent he was muttering to himself in his own tongue, and a black scowl covered his face. At the foot of the pine he snatched up his musket with- out a word, and turned into the green tunnel that debouched upon the screen of. the trail. As we stepped into the worn slot Peter came into view. “‘Well?” he said phlegmatically. “Cahnuagas,”’ answered Ta-wan-ne-ars. The Seneca’s face became convulsed with fury. “Cahnuaga dogs! They dare to invade territory of the Long House!’ ‘“‘We can cross der Mohawk to der south branch of der trail,’ proposed Corlaer. “They wouldt not dare to follow us there.” “No,” snarled Ta-wan-ne-ars; ‘“‘we shall not step aside for them. We will attend to them ourselves.” “Hafe you a plan?” inquired the Dutch- man amicably. He never lost his temper when other people did. “Ves,” said the Seneca briefly. “And now we will go along as if we did not know they were near us.” “Are they not likely to attack?” I inter- posed. “No, they will not attack unless they have to, for we are still near the Mohawk Castle, although ’tis upon the opposite bank of the river. They will leave us alone until night.” “But why can not we attack them?” A look of ferocity which was almost de- noniac changed his usually pleasant fea- tures into an awful mask. Ti ° * in an'ambuscade one might escape. No, “Down! The time Adventure my brother Ormerod, we will wait until they attack us. Then——”’ He paused significantly. ‘“‘Not one of the Keepers shall return to tell Murray how his brothers died. We took up the march. "Twas already mid-afternoon, and shortly the dimness of twilight descended upon the trail, as the level rays of the setting sun were turned aside by the interlacing masses of vegetation. Once, I remember, we passed along the edge of a swampy tract, and I saw for the first time that industrious animal, the beaver, whose pelt was the principal stake for which France and England contended in the great game upon the issue of which de- pended the future of a continent. They had erected a dam across one end of a stream to make a pond, and their engineers were busily at work floating trees into place to reenforce a weak point in the structure. Other trees a few feet from the trail were gnawed in preparation for felling. ‘“‘How is it they are able to exist here so close to the white man’s country?”’ I called to Ta-wan-ne-ars. He flung a haughty look across his shoul- der. Since we had identified the Cahnua- gas a Startling change had transformed him. The veneer of deferential courtesy which or- dinarily he wore was cracked. He was all Indian. More than that, he was con- temptuous of what was not Indian. Aye, of whatever was not Iroquois like himself, of the bone and sinew of the League. “This is not the white man’s country,” he answered. ‘You are within the portals of the Long House.”’ ‘But the beaver’s skin is no less valuable to the Indian than to the white man,” I persisted. “Yes,” he agreed, ‘‘yet the Indian does not slay game only for gain. If it were not for the dam those beavers built the Great Trail we walk upon would be overflowed. So long ago in the time of my forefathers that tradition can not fix the date the fore- fathers of those beavers built that dam, and when the Founders drove the trail they decreed that the beavers should be safe for- ever—that the trail might be safe.” TWILIGHT faded into dusk and ap still we kept on. Ta-wan-ne-ars K1#3 had eyes like a cat’s, and I, too, ac- customed myself to perception of hanging branches and the unexpected turns and CO CloOOkKS C©