Joseph Altsheler - The Hunters of the Hills

"All led to the north," he said, "and they're well ahead of us. There's no reason why we can't follow. We're three, used to the wilderness, armed well and able to take care of ourselves. And I take it the night will be dark, which ought to help us."

The Onondaga looked up at the skies, which were of a salmon color, and shook his head a little.

"What's the matter?" asked Robert.

"The night will bring much darkness," he replied, "but it will bring something else with it—wind, rain."

"You may be right, Tayoga, but we must be moving, just the same," said Willet.

At dusk they were again afloat on the river and, all three using the paddles, they sent the canoe forward with great speed. But it soon became apparent that Tayoga's prediction would be justified. Clouds trailed up from the southwest and obscured all the heavens. A wind arose and it was heavy and damp upon their faces. The water seemed black as ink. Low thunder far away began to mutter. The wilderness became uncanny and lonely. All save forest rovers would have been appalled, and of these three one at least felt that the night was black and sinister. Robert looked intently at the forest on either shore, rising now like solid black walls, but his eyes, unable to penetrate them, found nothing there. Then the lightning flamed in the west, and for a moment the surface of the river was in a blaze.

"What do you think of it, Tayoga?" asked Willet, anxiety showing in his tone, "Ought we to make a landing now?"

"Not yet," replied the Onondaga. "The storm merely growls and threatens at present. It will not strike for perhaps an hour."

"But when it does strike it's going to hit a mighty blow unless all signs fail. I've seen 'em gather before, and this is going to be a king of storms! Hear that thunder now! It doesn't growl any more, but goes off like the cracking of big cannon."

"But it's still far in the west," persisted Tayoga, as the three bent over their paddles.

The forest, however, was groaning with the wind, and little waves rose on the river. Now the lightning flared again and again, so fierce and bright that Robert, despite his control of himself, instinctively recoiled from it as from the stroke of a saber.

"Do you recall any shelter farther on, Tayoga?" asked the hunter.

"The overhanging bank and the big hollow in the stone," replied the Onondaga. "On the left! Don't you remember?"

"Now I do, Tayoga, but I didn't know it was near. Do you think we can make it before that sky over our heads splits wide open?"

"It will be a race," replied the young Iroquois, "but we three are strong, and we are skilled in the use of the paddle."

"Then we'll bend to it," said Willet. And they did. The canoe shot forward at amazing speed over the surface of the river, inky save when the lightning flashed upon it. Robert paddled as he had never paddled before, his muscles straining and the perspiration standing out on his face. He was thoroughly inured to forest life, but he knew that even the scouts and Indians fled for shelter from the great wilderness hurricanes.

There was every evidence that the storm would be of uncommon violence. The moan of the wind rose to a shriek and they heard the crash of breaking boughs and falling trees in the forest. The river, whipped continually by the gusts, was broken with waves upon which the canoe rocked with such force that the three, expert though they were, were compelled to use all their skill, every moment, to keep it from being overturned. If it had not been for the rapid and vivid strokes of lightning under which the waters turned blood red their vessel would have crashed more than once upon the rocks, leaving them to swim for life.

"That incessant flare makes me shiver," said Robert. "It seems every time that I'm going to be struck by it, but I'm glad it comes, because without it we'd never see our way on the river."

"Manitou sends the good and evil together," said Tayoga gravely.

"Anyhow," said Willet, "I hope we'll get to our shelter before the rain comes. Look out for that rock on the right, Robert!"

Young Lennox, with a swift and powerful motion of the paddle, shot the canoe back toward the center of the river, and then the three tried to hold it there as they sped on.

"Three or four hundred yards more," said Tayoga, "and we can draw into the smooth water we wish."

"And not a minute too soon," said Willet. "It seems to me I can hear the rain coming now in a deluge, and the waves on the river make me think of some I've seen on one of the big lakes. Listen to that, will you!"

A huge tree, blown down, fell directly across the stream, not more than twenty yards behind them. But the fierce and swollen waters tearing at it in torrents would soon bear it away on the current.

"Manitou was watching over us then," said Tayoga with the same gravity.

"As sure as the Hudson runs into the sea, he was," said Willet in a tone of reverence. "If that tree had hit us we and the canoe would all have been smashed together and a week later maybe the French would have fished our pieces out of the St. Lawrence."

Robert, who was farthest forward in the canoe, noticed that the cliff ahead, hollowed out at the base by the perpetual eating of the waters, seemed to project over the stream, and he concluded that it was the place in Tayoga's mind.

"Our shelter, isn't it?" he asked, pointing a finger by the lightning's flare.

Tayoga nodded, and the three, putting their last ounce of strength into the sweep of the paddles, sent the canoe racing over the swift current toward the haven now needed so badly. As they approached, Robert saw that the hollow went far back into the stone, having in truth almost the aspects of a cave. Beneath the mighty projection he saw also that the water was smooth, unlashed by the wind and outside the sweep of the current, and he felt immense relief when the canoe shot into its still depths and he was able to lay the paddle beside him.

"Back a little farther," said Tayoga, and he saw then, still by the flare of lightning, that the water ended against a low shelf at least six feet broad, upon which they stepped, lifting the canoe after them.

"It's all that you claimed for it, and more, Tayoga," said the hunter. "I fancy a ship in a storm would be glad enough to find a refuge as good for it as this is for us."

Tayoga smiled, and Robert knew that he felt deep satisfaction because he had brought them so well to port. Looking about after they had lifted up the canoe, he saw that in truth nature had made a good harbor here for those who traveled on the river, its waters so far never having been parted by anything but a canoe. The hollow went back thirty or forty feet with a sloping roof of stone, and from the ledge, whenever the lightning flashed, they saw the river flowing before them in a rushing torrent, but inside the hollow the waters were a still pool.

"Now the rain comes," said Tayoga.

Then they heard its sweep and roar and it arrived in such mighty volume that the surface of the river was beaten almost flat. But in their snug and well-roofed harbor not a drop touched them. Robert on the ledge with his back to the wall had a pervading sense of comfort. The lightning and the thunder were both dying now, but the rain came in a steady and mighty sweep. As the lightning ceased entirely it was so dark that they saw the water in front of them but dimly, and they had to be very careful in their movements on the ledge, lest they roll off and slip into its depths.

"Robert," said Willet in a whimsical tone, "one of the first things I tried to teach you when you were a little boy was always to be calm, and under no circumstances to let your calm be broken up when there was nothing to break it up. Now, we've every reason to be calm. We've got a good home here, and the storm can't touch us."