Роберт Чамберс - Cardigan

One thing disturbed me: two of them had gone by water and two by the Fort Pitt trail, and this threw me hopelessly into the wilderness without the ease of a trodden way.

Slowly I resumed my pack, reprimed my rifle, and turned my nose southward, bearing far enough west to keep out of earshot from the river and the trail.

At first I had looked upon Fort Pitt as a hospitable wayside refuge, marking nine–tenths of my journey towards Cresap's camp. But now I dared not present myself there, with Walter Butler hot on my trail, armed not only with hatchet and rifle, but also doubtless with some order of Lord Dunmore which might compel the officers at Fort Pitt to hand me over to Butler on his mere demand.

For, although Fort Pitt was rightfully on Pennsylvania soil, it had long been claimed by Virginia, and it was a Virginia garrison that now held it. Thus, should I stop there, I should be under the laws of Virginia and under the claw–thumb of Dunmore or anybody who might claim authority to represent him.

There is, I have been told, a vast region which lies between the Alleghany Mountains and the Mississippi, a desolate wilderness save for a few British garrisons at Natchez, at Vincennes, and at Detroit. These troops are placed there in order to establish the claim of our King to the region lately wrested from the French. Fort Pitt commanded the gateway to this wilderness, and the Ohio flowed through it; and for years Virginia and Pennsylvania had disputed for the right to control this gateway. Virginia held it by might, not right. Through it Daniel Boone had gone some years before; now Cresap had followed; and who could doubt that the Governor of Virginia had urged him on?

But the march of Cresap not only disturbed Sir William in his stewardship; it angered all Pennsylvania, and this is the reason:

The Virginians under Cresap went to settle, and to keep the Indians at a distance; the Pennsylvanians, on the other hand, went only to trade with the Cayugas, and they were furious to see Cresap's men spoil their trade. This I learned from Sir William on our evening walks about Quider's hut; and I learned, too, that Fort Pitt was a Virginia fortress on Pennsylvania soil, guarded not only against the savages, but also against the Pennsylvanians, who traded powder and shot and rifles with the Cayugas, and thus, according to my Lord Dunmore practically incited the savages to resist such philanthropists as himself.

Clearly then, no emissary of Sir William would be welcomed at Pittsburg fortress or town; and I saw nothing for it but to push on through the gateway of the west, avoiding Butler's men as best I could, and seeking the silly, deluded Cresap under the very nose of my Lord Dunmore.

My progress was slow; at times I sank between tree–roots, up to the thighs in moss; at times the little maidens of the flowering briers bade me tarry in their sharp, perfumed embrace. Now it was a wiry moose–bush snare that enlaced my ankles and sent me sprawling, pack and all; now the tough laurel bound me to the shoulders in slender ropes of blossoms which only my knife could sever. Tired out while yet the sun sent its reddening western rays deep into the forest, I knelt again, dropped my pack under a hemlock thicket, and crawled out to a heap of rocks which overhung a ravine.

The sunlight fell full in my face and warmed my body as I crept through a mat of blueberry bushes and peered over the edge of the crag down into the ravine.

A hundred feet below the Alleghany flowed, a glassy stream tinted with gold, reflecting forest and cliff and a tiny triangle of cobalt sky. Its surface was a mirror without a flaw, save where a solitary wild–duck floated, trailing a rippled wake, or steered hither and thither, craning its green neck after water–flies and gnats.

How still it was below; how quiet the whole world was—quieter for the hushed rumour of the winds on some far mountain spur.

The little blue caps which every baby peak had worn all day were now changed for night–caps of palest rose; the wild plum's bloom dusted every velvet mountain flank, the forest was robed in flowing purple to its roots, which the still river washed in sands of gold.

Below me a brown hawk wheeled, rising in narrowing spirals like a wind–blown leaf, higher, higher, till of a sudden its bright eye flashed level with mine and it sheered westward with a rush of whistling feathers. I watched it drifting away under the clouds into the sunset, with a silly prayer that wings might be fastened to my tired feet, as Minnomonedo, leaning out from the centre of heaven, dipped the first bird in Mon–o–ma, the Spirit Water, which was also I–ós–co, the Water of Light. " Te–i–o! Te–i–o! " I murmured, " On–ti–o — I–é nia , oh, Mon–a–kee !"

For God knows—and forgives—that, at sixteen, I was but an Algonquin in superstition, fearing Minnomonedo and seeking refuge in that God whom I did not dread.

In towns and cities the savage legends which I had imbibed with my first milk vanished from my mind completely, leaving no barriers to a calm worship of the Most High. But in the woods it was different; every leaf, every blossom represented links in those interminable chains of legends with which I had been nourished, and from which nothing but death can entirely wean me.

To me, the birds that passed, the shy, furry creatures that slipped back into the demi–light, the insects, the rocks, water, clouds, sun, moon, and stars were comrades with names and histories and purposes, exercising influences on each other and on me, and calling for an individual and intimate recognition which I cared not to disregard in the forest, though I might safely forget them amid the crowded wastes of civilization.

I do not mean to say that I credited the existence of such creatures as the wampum bird, nor did I believe that the first belt was made of a quill dropped to earth from the fearsome thing. This was nonsense; even at night I dared mock at it. But still every human being knows that, in the midnight wilderness, strange things do pass which no man can explain—strange beasts move, strange shapes dance by elf–fires, and trees talk aloud, one to another. If this be witchcraft, or if it be but part of a life which our vast black forests hide forever from the sun, I know not. Sir William holds that there are no witches, yet I once heard him curse a Huron hag for drying up his Devon cattle with a charm. We Christians know that a red belt lies ever between God and Satan. And I, as a woodsman, also know that, if there be demons in Biskoona, a thousand bloody belts lie for all time twixt Minno and Mudjee , call them what you will, and their voices are in the passing thunder and in the noises of the eight great winds.

Sprawling there on the warm rocks like a young panther in the sun, ears attuned to the faintest whisper of danger, I gnawed a strip of dried squirrel's flesh and sucked up the water from a dripping mossy cleft, sweet cheer to an empty belly.

As for fire, that was denied me by my sense, though I knew that the coming night would stiffen me. But I cared little for that: what occupied my thoughts was how to obtain food when a single shot might bring Butler and his trackers hot on the scent ere the rifle smoke had blown clear of the trees.

It was not always that one might knock down a stupid partridge with a stick, nor yet were there trout in every water–crack. I looked down at the darkening river, where the wild mallard still circled and darted its neck after unseen midges; and my mouth watered, for he was passing plump, this Southern lingerer, fresh from the great gulf.

"If he be there in the morning," thought I, "perhaps I may risk a shot and take to my heels." For had I not thrown Butler and his crew from my trail as easily as I brush a bunch of deer–flies from my hunting–shirt? And if I could do it once, I could repeat the trick in a dozen pretty ways of my own knowledge and of Thayendanegea's invention. Still I knew he was no forest blunderer, this Butler man; he had proved that in the Canadas; and I did not mean to be over–confident nor to rock caution to sleep in my first triumph.