Samuel Drake - The Heart of the White Mountains, Their Legend and Scenery

“I tell you what, ma’am,” snapped the one in possession, “I’ve been all over Europe alone, and was never once insulted except by persons of my own sex.”

This home-thrust ended the colloquy. The first speaker quickly drew in her head, and I remarked a general twitching of muscles on the faces around me. The driver shook his head in silent glee. The little woman’s eyes emitted sparks.

From West Ossipee I drove over to Tamworth Iron Works, where I passed the night, and where I had, so to speak, Chocorua under my thumb.

This mountain being the most proper for a legend, it accordingly has one. Here it is in all its purity:

After the terrible battle in which the Sokokis were nearly destroyed, a remnant of the tribe, with their chief, Chocorua, fled into the fastnesses of these mountains, where the foot of a white man had never intruded. Here they trapped the beaver, speared the salmon, and hunted the moose.

The survivors of Lovewell’s band brought the first news of their disaster to the settlements. More like spectres than living men, their haggard looks, bloodshot eyes, and shaking limbs, their clothing hanging about them in shreds, announced the hardships of that long and terrible march but too plainly.

Among those who had set out with the expedition were three brothers – one a mere stripling, the others famous hunters. The eldest of the three, having fallen lame on the second day, was left behind. His brethren would have conducted him back to the nearest village, but he promptly refused their proffered aid, saying,

“’ Tis enough to lose one man; three are too many. Go; do my part as well as your own.”

The two had gone but a few steps when the disabled ranger called the second brother back.

“Tom,” said the elder, “take care of our brother.”

“Surely,” replied the other, in some surprise. “Surely,” he repeated.

“I charge you,” continued the first speaker, “watch over the boy as I would myself.”

“Never fear, Lance; whatever befalls Hugh happens to me.”

“Not so,” said the other, with energy; “you must die for him, if need be.”

“They shall chop me as fine as sausage-meat before a hair of the lad’s head is harmed.”

“God bless you, Tom!” The brothers then embraced and separated.

“What was our brother saying to you?” demanded the younger, when Tom rejoined him.

“He begged me, seeing he could not go with us, to shoot two or three redskins for him; and I promised.” The two then quickened their pace in order to overtake their comrades.

Among those who succeeded in regaining the settlements was a man who had been wounded in twenty places. He was at once a ghastly and a pitiful object. Faint with hunger, fatigue, and loss of blood, he reeled, fell, slowly rose to his feet, and sunk lifeless at the entrance to the village. This time he did not rise again.

A crowd ran up. When they had wiped the blood and dirt from the dead man’s face, a by-stander threw himself upon the body with the cry, “My God, it is Tom!”

The following day the surviving brother joined a strong party despatched by the colonial authorities to the scene of Lovewell’s encounter, where they arrived after a forced march. Here, among the trampled thickets, they found the festering corpses of the slain. Among them was Hugh, the younger brother. He was riddled with bullets and shockingly mangled. Up to this moment, Lance had hoped against hope; now the dread reality stared him in the face. The stout ranger grew white, his fingers convulsively clutched the barrel of his gun, and something like a curse escaped through his clinched teeth; then, kneeling beside the body, he buried his face in his hands. Hugh’s blood cried aloud for vengeance.

Thorough but unavailing search was made for the savages. They had disappeared, after applying the torch to their village. Silently and sadly the rangers performed the last service for their fallen comrades, and then, turning their backs upon the mountains, commenced their march homeward.

The next day the absence of Lance was remarked; but, as he was their best hunter, the rangers made no doubt he would rejoin them at the next halt.

Chocorua was not ignorant that the English were near. Like the vulture, he scented danger from afar. From the summit of the mountain he had watched the smoke of the hostile camp-fires stealing above the forest. The remainder of the tribe had buried themselves still deeper in the wilderness. They were too few for attack, too weak for defence.

One morning the chief ascended the pinnacle, and swept the horizon with his piercing eye. Far in the south a faint smoke told where the foe had pitched his last encampment. Chocorua’s dark eye lighted with exultation. The accursed pale-faces were gone.

He turned to descend the mountain, but had not taken ten steps when a white hunter, armed to the teeth, started from behind the crags and barred his passage. The chief recoiled, but not with fear, as the muzzle of his adversary’s weapon touched his naked breast. The white man’s eyes shone with deadly purpose, as he forced the chieftain, step by step, back to the highest point of the mountain. Chocorua could not pass except over the hunter’s dead body.

Glaring into each other’s eyes with mortal hate, the two men reached the summit.

“Chocorua will go no farther,” said the chief, haughtily.

The white man trembled with excitement. For a moment he could not speak. Then, in a voice husky with suppressed emotion, he exclaimed,

“Die, then, like a dog, thou destroyer of my family, thou incarnate devil! The white man has been in Chocorua’s wigwam; has counted their scalps – father, mother, sister, brother. He has tracked him to the mountain-top. Now, demon or devil, Chocorua dies by my hand.”

The chief saw no escape. He comprehended that his last moment was come. As if all the savage heroism of his race had come to his aid, he drew himself up to his full height, and stood erect and motionless as a statue of bronze upon the enormous pedestal of the mountain. His dark eye blazed, his nostrils dilated, the muscles of his bronzed forehead stood out like whip-cord. The black eagle’s feather in his scalplock fluttered proudly in the cool morning breeze. He stood thus for a moment looking death sternly in the face, then, raising his bared arm with a gesture of superb disdain, he spoke with energy:

“Chocorua is unarmed; Chocorua will die. His heart is big and strong with the blood of the accursed pale-face. He laughs at death. He spits in the white man’s face. Go; tell your warriors Chocorua died like a chief!”

With this defiance on his lips the chief sprung from the brink into the unfathomable abyss below. An appalling crash was followed by a death-like silence. As soon as he recovered from his stupor the hunter ran to the verge of the precipice and looked over. A horrible fascination held him an instant. Then, shouldering his gun, he retraced his steps down the mountain, and the next day rejoined his comrades.

The general and front views of the Sandwich group, which may be had in perfection from the hill behind the Chocorua House, or from the opposite elevation, are very striking, embracing as they do the principal summits from Chocorua to the heavy mass of Black Mountain. There are more distinct traits, perhaps, embodied in this range than in any other among the White Hills, except that incomparable band of peaks constituting the northern half of the great chain itself. There seems, too, a special fitness in designating these mountains by their Indian titles – Chocorua, Paugus, Passaconnaway, Wonnalancet – a group of great sagamores, wild, grand, picturesque. 2 2 No tradition attaches to the last three peaks. Passaconnaway was a great chieftain and conjurer of the Pennacooks. It is of him the poet Whittier writes: Burned for him the drifted snow, Bade through ice fresh lilies blow, And the leaves of summer glow Over winter’s wood. This noted patriarch and necromancer, in whose arts not only the Indians but the English seemed to have put entire faith, after living to a great age, was, according to the tradition, translated to heaven from the summit of Mount Washington, after the manner of Elias, in a chariot of fire, surrounded by a tempest of flame. Wonnalancet was the son and successor of Passaconnaway. Paugus, an under chief of the Pigwackets, or Sokokis, killed in the battle with Lovewell, related in the next chapter.