we heard no whooping of aroused savages, as must have attended discovery of our escape; but we dared not trust unduly in le moyne's generosity, and we ran throughout the night, steering in a northwesterly direction by the stars, in order to avoid the ouabache villages and the french post at vincennes. we came to a halt only when the sunrise showed us to be approaching the verge of the forest country. beyond the thinning tree trunks a perspective of rolling savannahs stretched to the horizon's rim. not a single tree broke the monotonous outline, and the tall grass rippled under a gentle breeze like the green billows of the ocean.
"we have gone far enough, brothers," said tawannears. "out there a man is visible for miles. let us rest now and make sure we are not followed."
we swung by a pendant grape-vine into the center of a thorny patch of wild berry-bushes, chopped out a space to recline in, arranged the bushes we had demolished in the fashion of a roof so as to preserve the contour of the patch, and abandoned ourselves to sleep. it was noon when we awakened again. indeed, tawannears swung himself out of our hidey-hole as i opened my eyes. he was gone for half an hour and returned to announce that he had been unable to find any trace of pursuit along our trail.
"that means we are safe," i exclaimed jubilantly. "to-night we can steal back to the river and take a canoe from one of the ouabache villages."
"my brother's wits are clouded," returned tawannears. "our enemies will be watching for us to do that very thing."
"ja," agreed peter, yawning awake. "andt if we got away they would follow us."
"true talk," said the seneca. "they would follow us and they would catch us. that way we should lose our scalps."
"then what can we do?" i demanded.
he pointed to the expanse of the savannahs—or prairies, as the french call them—which we could just see over the tree-tops.
"from here to the father of waters, brother, most of the country is like that. corlaer and tawannears know, because when we made this journey before, we came all the way by land from the door of the long house. the open country begins even farther to the east as you go north toward the lakes. over such country we can travel almost as rapidly as in the canoe, and also, brother, we can travel in a straight line. the ohio twists like a snake and it bears away to the south, so that after it carried us to the great river we should have to paddle north again against the current, for it is my purpose to make for the country of the dakota, above the other great river, the missouri, which pours into the father of waters on its west side. corlaer and tawannears dwelt a while with the dakota, before the message came summoning us to return to the long house, and it is my thought that they might help us farther upon this journey, where other peoples would seek to plunder us or take our scalps."
"you are right, as always, brother," i said. "if peter agrees, let us start."
peter heaved himself ponderously to his feet, seized his musket and stood ready for tawannears to lead the way.
"ja," he squeaked placidly. "now we get some buffalo-hump."
"what?" i asked, as tawannears started down the hillock.
"he means the wild cattle of the plains, brother," explained the seneca. "you have seen their skins in the lodges of my people, and once, the forefathers tell us through the keeper of the wampum, the buffalo ranged up to the doors of the long house; but now they are seldom seen east of the ouabache. their meat is sweet and tender at this time of the year, especially the hump of a young cow. it will be a welcome change after jerked deerflesh."
"ja," affirmed corlaer, licking his lips.
and i was amused to notice the display of vigilance with which he surveyed the country around us as we left the protection of the forest for the open sweep of the savannahs. to be sure, the fat dutchman was never as dull as he allowed himself to seem, and he had developed the faculties of seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling to a pitch as acute as the savages' which is the highest praise i can offer. but he usually employed his ability without ostentation. now, he was as palpably interested in his surroundings as i was, and his growing disappointment, as the afternoon waned and we had no sight of a living creature, was comical. indeed, he was much put out when i rallied him upon it, and his silence when we halted at evening was gloomily expressive.
our camp that night was beside a tiny rill of water that tickled along a fold in the rolling waves of earth. there was no underbrush available, let alone trees, and the long prairie grass that grew waist-high was too green to burn readily, so we had no fire. but we did not feel the want of it, for the heat was terrible on the unshaded savannahs. all day the sun had been beating down upon the earth, and all day the earth had been drinking in the heat—to exude it through the night like a dry sweat.
peter and i came to envy tawannears his nakedness, and in the morning we stripped off our leathern shirts and rolled them in bundles to sling from the thongs of our food-pouches, suffering the seneca to coat us with bear's-grease which he carried in a horn-box, a precaution which diminished notably the ardency of the sun's rays. without its aid my unweathered shoulders must have been broiled pink, whereas under the layer of grease they baked gradually until in days to come they turned a warm brown not unlike the dusky bronze hue of tawannears himself.
we had not pushed far this morning when we came upon a broad swath of trampled grass leading from south to north. hoof-marks showed in the pulverized earth, and peter's little eyes glistened.
"buffalo!" he shrilled, excited as a boy. "oof, now we get some nice hump for supper."
eyes fixed on the horizon, he set off northward at a jog-trot, and tawannears and i followed him, really as anxious as he to vary the monotony of our diet. most of our burnt corn and maple-sugar was gone, and we had had scarcely anything but jerked deer-flesh for three days.
"how does he know the buffalo went north?" i questioned. "the trail leads in both directions."
"they always travel north at this season," rejoined tawannears. "in the fall of the year they will turn south again. yes, peter is right. this grass was trampled only yesterday. they must be near us."
a yelp came from the dutchman at that moment, and his enormous body crouched forward.
"see!" he cried.
we joined him on the summit of a slight rise. several miles across the grassy sea moved a desultory procession of brown objects, hundreds of them.
"a large herd," i commented.
peter gave me a scornful look, and tawannears laughed.
"beyond the father of waters, brother," said the seneca, "you will see the buffalo in such myriads as the wild pigeons that flew over the ohio. the thundering of their hoofs will shake the ground. they will cover the prairie for two days' fast marching."
peter plucked a blade of grass and tossed it in the air. there was very little wind but what there was wafted it over our heads.
"goodt!" he grunted. "dey are upwindt."
"will corlaer stalk the buffalo without assistance?" inquired tawannears with his customary courtesy.
"one shot is enough," returned peter, and he lumbered away through the grass, his body huddled over until he was wholly concealed.
i started to sit down to watch the dutchman's exploit, but tawannears, with a light of mischief in his eyes, prodded me off to the right, and broke into a run as soon as we had placed one of the deceptive swells of the prairie between us and our comrade.
"what ploy is this?" i panted.
"we will surprise peter," he answered, laughing. "he thinks to stalk the buffalo, otetiani, and instead we will make the buffalo stalk him."
we fetched a wide semicircle northeastward, and came up on the flank of the herd. but before we approached closely tawannears halted, and we picked bunches of grass which he arranged on our heads, so that at even a short distance we were indistinguishable from our grassy background. then we continued, working slowly around the flank of the herd until we were in its rear. corlaer was nowhere to be seen.
"now, brother!" said tawannears.
he cast off his head-dress, and advanced openly upon the animals. i imitated him, and an old bull gave a bellow of warning. a medley of noises answered the alarm, mooing of cows and bleating of frightened calves and over all the bellowing of other bulls. the herd milled around and gave ground before us. tawannears waved his arms, and it broke into a run.
"they will go over peter!" i exclaimed.
"no," answered tawannears. "if it were a large herd, perhaps. but we have only made it easier for peter, who said he needed no help. he will shoot into the herd when it approaches him, and the buffalo will split right and left on either side of him."
the herd topped the first swell to the south, and a shot boomed suddenly.
"watch!" said tawannears.
the frenzied mass of huge, shaggy creatures divided as if a giant sword had sliced down from the blazing sky overhead. i ran up the slope behind them and reached its brow in time to see the halves reunite a quarter of a mile farther on. directly beneath me lay the body of a fat cow, and peter already was at work upon it with his knife. tawannears raised the war-whoop, but peter carved stolidly on.
"ja," he remarked when we joined him, "you think you put der choke on peter, eh? well, you don't. i look back once andt i don't see you. andt den der herd begins to mofe, andt it stampedes. 'ho,' i said to myself. 'funny tricks! ja, funny tricks.' but i shoot me der best cow in der lot, yust der same. we hafe some nice hump for supper. ja."
fortunately for peter's appetite, we were able to camp that night in a grove of dwarf trees that bordered a small river, and the broiled buffalo hump was all that he had anticipated. we seized the opportunity afforded by a plentiful supply of firewood to jerk the balance of the choice cuts, about four stone in weight, which detained us in the grove all of the next day. of course, we could not make a thorough job of it, but it sufficed to preserve the meat untainted in that searing heat for three or four days longer, and at the end of that time we had worked into a different kind of country where game was more plentiful.
here lush meadows alternated with dense patches of low timber and swamps and bottomlands, these latter backwaters of the river, which were forest-covered, yet never completely drained. the increasing natural difficulties slowed our pace, and we were three days in traversing this broken country; but tawannears encouraged us with the assurance that it indicated our nearness to the great river, which always in the spring inundated the lands along its course, sometimes for many miles.
this country was neither pleasant nor healthful by contrast with the cool forests and open savannahs we had known, and we were pestered unmercifully by a plague of gnats. but on the other hand we were never at a loss for fresh meat. we knocked over squirrels with sticks and dragged the wild turkeys from their roosts at night. there was a kind of partridge, too, that plumped up under our feet, a stupid bird easily to be slain with the tomahawk. and one time a black bear barred our path and stood growling at us. we let him go, for we needed no meat and we must husband our powder.
the third day we waded knee-deep through a flooded forest-tract and came without warning upon the margin of a wide, brown stream. i hailed it for the mississippi, at last; but tawannears asserted it to be the illinois, a tributary, which flowed down from the vicinity of the lake of the michigans and entered the mississippi opposite to and a short distance above the missouri. this knowledge was valuable, inasmuch as it told us approximately where we were, and we turned back to nominally dry ground and headed southwest, following the general trend of the illinois. but our progress was slower than ever, for the luxuriance of the undergrowth in those moist lowlands baffles description. briars tore our skin; creepers tripped us; bushes grew so thickly that we had to hack our way step by step, taking turns at trail-breaking.
the next day we won to higher ground, a ridge from which we caught occasional glimpses of the illinois; and in mid-afternoon we stumbled unawares upon a trail that led from the northeast and straddled the saddle of the ridge.
"back!" hissed tawannears, as we smashed carelessly through the brushwood into the grooved slot.
ostensibly, the trail was deserted. a lightning glance revealed it a vacant, green-walled tunnel. but appearances meant nothing in the wilderness, and we slid behind a fallen trunk, straining our ears for sounds of other men. bees buzzed over us in the soft yellow light. we heard water running somewhere. birds sang in the tree-tops. that was all. minute by minute, we waited for the purr of an arrow, the crash of a shot, the yell of the war-whoop. but nothing happened, and at last tawannears motioned for us to crawl after him to a position offering ready access to the choked lands on the river side of the ridge. there he left us, to scout the neighborhood alone. an hour passed, as peter and i knelt back to back in the underbrush, our eyes roaming the woods on every side. another hour, and i became restless. evening was darkening when the hoot of an owl announced tawannears' approach. he crawled into our lair, and dropped a worn moccasin in peter's lap.
"chippewa," he murmured.
peter nodded confirmation, slowly turning the footgear in his pudgy hands.
"a war-party," continued tawannears. "they were going across the father of waters. their footprints all point toward the river."
"der trail is fresh?" queried corlaer.
"i found the ashes of a fire two days old," returned the seneca. "it is my counsel that we lie here until morning. i think the chippewas are planning to cross the great river to hunt for dakota scalps and buffalo robes. the dakota are my brothers. they are brave warriors, but they have no muskets. the chippewas are allies of the french. they have muskets, and it is easier for them to steal furs from the dakota than to hunt the wild creatures themselves. let us give them time to cross the river. afterward we will follow them and carry a warning to the dakota."
morning brought rain, and we were afoot with the light, avoiding the trail itself, slinking by preference through the woods parallel with it. it was a weary day of physical discomfort and cautious progress, but we had our reward. in the late afternoon we splashed out of a backwater to emerge upon a shelving bluff, grassy and well-timbered. from its western edge we stared at a vast yellow sea, its farther shore dim under driving sheets of rain.
"the father of waters," said tawannears.
i gasped. miles wide the yellow waters rolled as far as the eye could see. sullen, threatening, overpowering in its surge and breadth, the river pulsed along with a majestic rhythm almost like a living thing.
"but how shall we cross it?" i stammered.
tawannears waved a hand toward the saplings that crowded the bluff.
"we have our hatchets. we must build a raft."
we chose for our camp the site the chippewas had occupied, a recess under the bluff that had been dug by the spring freshets when the water was higher even than now, and the débris of their raft-building told my comrades that they had not numbered more than twenty or thirty, an ordinary raiding party of young warriors. it was too late to begin work then on the raft, but in the morning, with sunshine to hearten us, we fell to with our hatchets and chopped down a score or two of sturdy young trees, dragged them to a point just above water-level, and left them there, whilst we invaded the backwaters to collect grape-vines and other creepers, which we carried back to the bluff by the armload.
these were tawannears' materials, and under his direction we formed them into a remarkably buoyant raft. his theory was to take a number of saplings and bind them one to another. on these transversely he placed a second layer, which were first bound together and then staunchly fastened to the bottom layer. two additional layers were superimposed upon these, with the result that he had a high-riding, practically water-tight conveyance, ample to float the three of us. the one difficulty we foresaw was in forcing our way across the current, and we met this as well as we could by whittling crude paddles and poles for pushing in shallow water. we were vastly proud of our achievement when we wiped the sweat from our eyes after two days of labor and admired the raft as it rode to a withe cable hitched to a convenient stump.
"she floats as grandly as a frigate," i exclaimed.
"and no snag can sink her," added tawannears. "the father of waters is conscious of his might. he is jealous of those who would travel him. he has knives hidden in his bosom to wreck the unwary, but we——"
"hark!" interrupted corlaer, hand upraised.
from inland came the crashing noise made by a heavy body moving carelessly through the undergrowth, the mutter of a voice unrestrained. we snatched up our rifles and ran to cover. it was useless to think of flight on the raft. an enemy could riddle us as we strove to force its unwieldy bulk out into the stream. no, our only chance was to stand to it, conscious that we had our backs to the river and therefore could not be surrounded. perhaps night would furnish an opportunity for us to escape by dropping down with the current—if we were not overwhelmed by numbers before that. only a strong force, unafraid, would crash towards us in that reckless way. it was like white men, not indians. the thought sent a shiver down my spine. i rolled over beside tawannears.
"is it the french, brother?" i asked.
"we shall soon see," he answered grimly. "someone is walking there between the trees—to your right."
