The Shadow of the North A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign
CHAPTER I THE ONONDAGA Tayoga, of the Clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee, advanced with utmost caution through a forest, so thick with undergrowth that it hid all objects twenty yards away. He was not armed with a rifle, but carried instead a heavy bow, while a quiver full of arrows hung over his shoulder. He wore less clothing than when he was in the white man's school at Albany, his arms and shoulders being bare, though not painted. The young Indian's aspect, too, had changed. The great struggle between English and French, drawing with it the whole North American wilderness, had begun and, although the fifty sachems still sought to hold the Six Nations neutral, many of their bravest warriors were already serving with the Americans and English, ranging the forest as scouts and guides and skirmishers, bringing to the campaign an unrivaled skill, and a faith sealed by the long alliance.
of sea-birds rang weird upon the water. Puffins and cormorants
circled round our heads in the gray of twilight. Charles suggested
that they might even swoop down upon us and bite us. They did not,
however, but their flapping wings added none the less a painful
touch of eeriness to our hunger and solitude. Charles was horribly
depressed. For myself, I will confess I felt so much relieved at
the fact that Colonel Clay had not openly betrayed me in the matter
of the commission, as to be comparatively comfortable.
We crouched on the hard crag. About eleven o'clock we heard human
voices. "Boat ahoy!" I shouted. An answering shout aroused us to
action. We rushed down to the landing-place and cooee'd for the men,
to show them where we were. They came up at once in Sir Charles's
own boat. They were fishermen from Niggarey, on the shore of the
Firth opposite.
A lady and gentleman had sent them, they said, to return the boat
and call for us on the island; their description corresponded to
the two supposed Grantons. They rowed us home almost in silence to
Seldon. It was half-past twelve by the gatehouse clock when we
reached the castle. Men had been sent along the coast each way to
seek us. Amelia had gone to bed, much alarmed for our safety. Isabel
was sitting up. It was too late, of course, to do much that night in
the way of apprehending the miscreants, though Charles insisted upon
dispatching a groom, with a telegram for the police at Inverness,
to Fowlis.
CHAPTER I THE ONONDAGA Tayoga, of the Clan of the Bear, of the nation Onondaga, of the great League of the Hodenosaunee, advanced with utmost caution through a forest, so thick with undergrowth that it hid all objects twenty yards away. He was not armed with a rifle, but carried instead a heavy bow, while a quiver full of arrows hung over his shoulder. He wore less clothing than when he was in the white man's school at Albany, his arms and shoulders being bare, though not painted. The young Indian's aspect, too, had changed. The great struggle between English and French, drawing with it the whole North American wilderness, had begun and, although the fifty sachems still sought to hold the Six Nations neutral, many of their bravest warriors were already serving with the Americans and English, ranging the forest as scouts and guides and skirmishers, bringing to the campaign an unrivaled skill, and a faith sealed by the long alliance.