Chambers Robert William
The Hidden Children
Emotion of a nature to which I was an utter stranger was meddling with my breath and pulses, now checking, now speeding both so that I stood with mind disconcerted in a silly sort of daze.
At length I gathered sufficient composure to step to her side again.
"Once more, little comrade, good-bye," I said. "This ends it all."
Again she turned her shoulder to me, but I heard her low reply:
"Good-bye—Mr. Loskiel."
And so it ended.
A moment later I found myself walking aimlessly across the grass in no particular direction. Three times I turned in my tracks to watch her. Then she disappeared beyond the brookside willows.
I remember now that I had turned and was walking slowly back to where our horses stood, moving listlessly through the freshly mowed meadow between drenched haystacks—the first I had seen that year—and God alone knows where were my thoughts a-gypsying, when, very far away, I heard a gun-shot.
At first I could perceive nothing, then on the distant Bedford road I saw one of our dragoons running his horse and bending low in his saddle.
Another dragoon appeared, riding a diable—and a dozen more behind these; and on their heels a-galloping, a great body of red-jacketed horsemen—hundreds of them—the foremost shooting from their saddles, the great mass of them swinging their heavy cutlasses and spurring furiously after our flying men.
I had seen far more than was necessary, and I ran for my horse. Other officers came running, too—Sheldon, Thomas, Lockwood, and my Lieutenant Boyd.
As we clutched bridle and stirrup and popped upward into out saddles, it seemed that the red-coats must cut us off, but we spurred out of the meadow into the Meeting House road, and Boyd cried furiously in my ear:
"See what this damned Sheldon has done for us now! God! What disgrace is ours!"
I saw Colonel Sheldon presently, pale as death, and heard him exclaim:
"Oh, Christ! I shall be broke for this! I shall be broke!"
I made out to say to Boyd:
"The enemy are coming in hundreds, sir, and we have scarce four score men mounted by the Meeting House."
"They'll never stand, either," he panted. "But if they do we'll see this matter to an end."
"Our orders?" I asked.
"Damn our orders," said he. "We'll see this matter to an end."
We rode hard, but already some of Tallmadge's terror-stricken patrol were overhauling us, and the clangor of the British cavalry broke louder and louder on our ears as we came in sight of the Meeting House. Sheldon's four score troopers heard the uproar of the coming storm, wavered, broke, and whirled their horses about into a most disorderly flight along the Stamford road. Everybody ran—there was no other choice for officers and men—and close on our heels came pelting the 17th British Dragoons, the Hussars, and Mounted Yagers of the Legion; and behind these galloped their mounted infantry.
A mad anxiety to get away from this terrible and overwhelming force thundering on our heels under full charge possessed us all, I think, and this paramount necessity held shame and fury in abeyance. There was nothing on earth for us to do but to ride and try to keep our horses from falling headlong on the rocky, slippery road; for it was now a very hell of trampling horsemen, riding frantically knee against knee, buffeted, driven, crowded, crushed, slipping; and trooper after trooper went down with a crash under the terrible hoofs, horse and rider battered instantly into eternity.
For full three-quarters of a mile they ran us full speed, and we drove on headlong; then at the junction of the New Canaan road our horsemen separated, and I found myself riding in the rear beside Boyd and Jack Mount once more. Turning to look back, I perceived the Legion Cavalry were slowing to a trot to rest their hard-blown horses; and gradually our men did the same. But the Hussars continued to come on, and we continued our retreat, matching our speed to theirs.
They let drive at us once with their heavy pistols, and we in the rear returned their fire, emptying one saddle and knocking two horses into the roadside bushes.
Then they ran us hard again, and strove to flank us, but the rocky country was too stiff for their riders, and they could not make out to cut us off or attain our flanks.
"What a disgrace! What a disgrace!" was all Boyd found to say; and I knew he meant the shameful surprise, not the retreat of our eighty light horsemen before the thundering charge of their heavy hundreds.
Our troopers did not seem really frightened; they now jogged along doggedly, but coolly enough. We had with us on the New Canaan road some twenty light dragoons, not including Boyd, myself, and Jack Mount—one captain, one cornet and a trumpeter lad, the remainder being rank and file, and several mounted militiamen.
The captain, riding in the rear with us, was ever twisting his hatless head to scowl back at the Hussars; and he talked continually in a loud, confident voice to reassure his men.
"They're dropping off by tens and twenties," he said. "If they keep to that habit we'll give 'em a charge. Wait till the odds lessen. Steady there, boys! This cattle chase is not ended. We'll fetch 'em a crack yet. We'll get a chance at their mounted infantry yet. All in God's time, boys. Never doubt it."
The bugle-horns of the Legion were now sounding their derisive, fox-hunting calls, and behind us we could hear the far laughter and shouting: "Yoicks! Forrard! Stole away—stole away!"
My cheeks began to burn; Boyd gnawed his lips continually, and I saw our dragoons turning angrily in their saddles as they understood the insult of the British trumpets.
Half a mile farther on there ran a sandy, narrow cross road into the woods on either side of us.
The captain drew bridle, stood up in his stirrups, and looked back. For some time, now, the taunting trumpets had not jeered us, and the pursuit seemed to have slackened after nearly three hard miles of running. But they still followed us, though it was some minutes before their red jackets came bobbing up again over the sandy crest of the hill behind us.
All our men who had been looking back were now wheeled; and we divided, half backing into the sandy road to the right, half taking the left-hand road under command of Lieutenant Boyd.
"They are not too many," said the dragoon captain coolly, beckoning to his little bugle-horn.
Willows hid us until their advanced troopers were close to where we sat—so close that one of our excited dragoons, spurring suddenly forward into the main road, beat down a Hussar's guard, flung his arms around him, and tore him from his saddle. Both fell from their horses and began to fight fisticuffs in the sandy ditch.
We charged instantly, and the enemy ran for it, our troopers raising the view halloo in their turn and whipping out their sabres. And all the way back to the Stamford road we ran them, and so excited became our dragoons that we could scarce hold them when we came in sight once more of the British main body now reforming under the rolling smoke of Poundridge village, which they had set on fire.
But further advance was madness, even when the remainder of our light troop came cantering down the Stamford road to rejoin us and watch the burning town, for we could now muster but two score and ten riders, having lost nearly thirty dead or missing.
A dozen of Captain Fancher's militia came up, sober farmers of the village that lay below us buried in smoke; and our dragoons listened to the tales of these men, some of whom had been in the village when the onset came, and had remained there, skulking about to pick off the enemy until their main forces returned.
"Tarleton was in a great rage, I warrant you," said one big, raw-boned militiaman. "He rode up to Major Lockwood's house with his dragoons, and says he: 'Burn me this arch rebel's nest!' And the next minute the Yagers were running in and out, setting fire to the curtains and lighting bundles of hay in every room. And I saw the Major's lady stand there on her doorstep and demand the reason for such barbarity—the house already afire behind her. Mrs. Hunt and the servants came out with the children in their arms. And, 'By God, madam,' says Tarleton, 'when shots are fired at my men from houses by the inhabitants of any town in America, I'll burn the town and hang the men if I can get 'em.' Some Hussars came up, driving before them the Major's fine herd of imported cattle—and a troop of his brood mares—the same he has so often had to hide in the Rock Hills. 'Stand clear, madam!' bawls Tarleton. 'I'll suffer nothing to be removed from that house!' At this the Major's lady gives one long look after her children, which Betsy Hunt and the blacks are carrying through the orchard; then she calmly enters the burning house and comes out again with a big silver platter and a load of linen from the dining-room in her arms. And at that a trooper draws his sabre and strikes her with the flat o' the blade—God, what a blow!—so that the lady falls to her knees and the heavy silver platter rolls out on the grass and the fine linen is in the mud. I saw her blacks lift her and get her off through the orchard. I sneaked out of the brook willows, took a long shot at the beast who struck her, and then pulled foot."
There was a shacked silence among the officers who had gathered to listen. Until this moment our white enemies had offered no violence to ladies. So this brutality toward the Major's lady astounded us.
Somebody said in a low voice:
"They've fired the church, now."
Major Lockwood's house was also burning furiously, as also were his barns and stables, his sheds, and the new, unfinished barracks. We could see it all very plainly from the hilltop where we had gathered.
"Alsop Hunt was taken," said a militiaman. "They robbed him of his watch and purse, damning him for a rebel broad-brim. He's off to the Provost, I fear."
"They took Mr. Reed, too," said another. "They had a dozen neighbours under guard when I left."
Sheldon, looking like death, sat his saddle a little apart. No one spoke to him. For even a deeper disgrace had now befallen the dragoons in the loss of their standard left behind in Lockwood's house.
"What a pitiful mess!" whispered Boyd. "Is there nothing to be done but sit here and see the red beasts yonder sack the town?"
Before I could answer, I caught the sound of distant firing on the Lewisboro road. Colonel Thomas reared stiffly in his saddle, and:
"Those are my own men!" he said loudly, "or I lie like a Tory!"
A hill half a mile north of us suddenly became dark with men; we saw the glitter of their muskets, saw the long belt of white smoke encircle them, saw red-jacketed men run out of a farmhouse, mount, and gallop toward the burning town.
Along the road below us a column of Continental infantry appeared on the run, cheering us with their hats.
A roar from our dragoons answered them; our bugle-horn spoke, and I saw Major Tallmadge, with a trumpeter at his back, rein in while the troopers were reforming and calling off amid a whirlwind of rearing horses and excited men.
Below in the village, the British had heard and perfectly understood the volley from Thomas's regiment, and the cavalry and mounted infantry of the Legion were assembling in the smoke, and already beginning a rapid retreat by the Bedford road.
As Boyd and I went clattering down the hill, we saw Major Lockwood with Thomas's men, and we rode up to him. He passed his sword to the left hand, and leaning across in his saddle, exchanged a grip with us. His face was ghastly.
"I know—I know," he said hurriedly. "I have seen my wife and children. My wife is not badly injured. All are in safety. Thank you, gentlemen."
We wheeled our horses and fell in beside our infantry, now pressing forward on a heavy run, so that Colonel Thomas and Major Lockwood had to canter their horses.
Firing instantly broke out as we entered the smoky zone where the houses were burning. Into it, an our left, galloped Sheldon's light dragoons, who, having but five muskets in the command, went at the Yagers with naked sabres; and suddenly found themselves in touch with the entire Legion cavalry, who set up a Loud bawling:
"Surrender, you damned rebels! Pull up, there! Halt!"
I saw a trooper, one Jared Hoyt, split the skull of a pursuing British dragoon straight across the mouth with a back-handed stroke, as he escaped from the melee; and another, one John Buckhout, duck his head as a dragoon fired at him, and, still ducking and loudly cursing the fellow, rejoin us as we sheered off from the masses of red-jacketed riders, wheeled, and went at the mounted Yagers, who did not stand our charge.
There was much smoke, and the thick, suffocating gloom was lighted only by streaming sparks, so that in the confusion and explosion of muskets it was difficult to manoeuvre successfully and at the same time keep clear of Tarleton's overwhelming main body.
This body was now in full but orderly retreat, driving with it cattle, horses, and some two dozen prisoners, mostly peaceable inhabitants who had taken no part in the affair. Also, they had a wagon piled with the helmets, weapons, and accoutrements of Sheldon's dead riders; and one of their Hussars bore Sheldon's captured standard in his stirrup.
To charge this mass of men was not possible with the two score horsemen left us; and they retreated faster than our militia and Continentals could travel. So all we could do was to hang on their rear and let drive at them from our saddles.
As far as we rode with them, we saw a dozen of their riders fall either dead or wounded from their horses, and saw their comrades lift them into one of the wagons. Also we saw our dragoons and militia take three prisoners and three horses before we finally turned bridle after our last long shot at their rear guard.
For our business here lay not in this affair, and Boyd had disobeyed his orders in not avoiding all fighting. He knew well enough that the bullets from our three rifles were of little consequence to our country compared to the safe accomplishment of our mission hither, and our safe return with the Siwanois. Fortune had connived at our disobedience, for no one of us bore so much as a scratch, though all three of us might very easily have been done to death in the mad flight from the Meeting House, amid that plunging hell of horsemen.
Fortune, too, hung to our stirrup leathers as we trotted into Poundridge, for, among a throng of village folk who stood gazing at the smoking ashes of the Lockwood house, we saw our Siwanois standing, tall, impassive, wrapped in his blanket.
And late that afternoon we rode out of the half-ruined village, northward. Our saddle-bags were full; our animals rested; and, beside us, strode the Sagamore, fully armed and accoutred, lock braided, body oiled and painted for war—truly a terrific shape in the falling dusk.
On the naked breast of this Mohican warrior of the Siwanois clan, which is called by the Delawares "The Clan of the Magic Wolf," outlined in scarlet, I saw the emblem of his own international clan—as I supposed—a bear.
And of a sudden, within me, vaguely, something stirred—some faint memory, as though I had once before beheld that symbol on a dark and naked breast, outlined in scarlet. Where had I seen it before? At Guy Park? At Johnson Hall? Fort Johnson? Butlersbury? Somewhere I had seen that symbol, and in that same paint. Yes, it might easily have been. Every nation of the Confederacy possessed a clan that wore the bear. And yet—and yet—this bear seemed somehow different—and yet familiar—strangely familiar to me—but in a manner which awoke within me an unrest as subtle as it was curious.
I drew bridle, and as the Sagamore came up, I said uneasily:
"Brother, and ensign of the great bear clan of many nations, why is the symbol that you wear familiar to me—and yet so strangely unfamiliar?"
He shot a glance of lightning intelligence at me, then instantly his features became smoothly composed and blank again.
"Has my brother never before seen the Spirit Bear?" he asked coldly.
"Is that a clan, Mayaro?"
"Among the Siwanois only." "That is strange," I muttered. "I have never before seen a Siwanois. Where could I have seen a Siwanois? Where?"
But he only shook his head.
Boyd and Mount had pricked forward; I still lingered by the Mohican. And presently I said:
"That was a brave little maid who bore our message to you."
He made no answer.
"I have been wondering," I continued carelessly, "whether she has no friends—so poor she seems—so sad and friendless, Have you any knowledge of her?"
The Indian glanced at me warily, "My brother Loskiel should ask these questions of the maid herself."
"But I shall never see her again, Sagamore. How can I ask her, then?"
The Indian remained silent. And, perhaps because I vaguely entertained some future hope of loosening his tongue in her regard, I now said nothing more concerning her, deeming that best. But I was still thinking of her as I rode northward through the deepening dusk.
A great weariness possessed me, no doubt fatigue from the day's excitement and anxiety. Also, for some hours, that curious battle-hunger had been gnawing at my belly so that I had liked to starve there in my saddle ere Boyd gave the signal to off-saddle for the night.
CHAPTER IV
A TRYST
Above the White Plains the territory was supposed to be our own. Below, seventeen thousand red-coats held the city of New York; and their partisans, irregulars, militia, refugee-corps, and Legion-horsemen, harried the lines. Yet, except the enemy's cruisers which sometimes strayed far up the Hudson, like impudent hawks circling within the very home-yard, we saw nothing of red-rag or leather-cap north of our lines, save only once, when Lieutenant-Colonel Simcoe nearly caught us.
His Excellency's army lay in position all around us, now, from West Point down the river; and our light-horsemen patrolled as far south as the unhappy country from which we had retired through the smoke of Bedford's burning farms and the blaze of church and manor at Poundridge. That hilly strip was then our southern frontier, bravely defended by Thomas and Lockwood, shamefully neglected by Sheldon, as we had seen. For which he was broke, poor devil, and a better man set there to watch the red fox Tarleton, to harry Emmeriek, and to throw the fear o' God into that headlong blockhead, Simcoe, a brave man, but so possessed by hatred for "Mr." Washington that every move he made was like a goaded bull—his halts merely the bewilderment of baffled fury, his charges blind and bellowing.
I know how he conducted, not from hearsay alone, but because at sunrise on our second day northward, before we struck the river-road, we had like to have had a brush with him, his flankers running afoul of us not far beyond a fortified post heavily held by our Continentals.
It was the glimpse of cannon and levelled bayonets that bewildered him; and his bawling charge sheered wide o' the shabby Continental battle-line, through which we galloped into safety, our Indian sticking to my crupper like a tree-cat with every claw. And I remember still the grim laughter that greeted us from those unshaven, powder-blackened ranks, and how they laughed, too, as they fired by platoons at the far glimmer of Simcoe's helmets through the chestnut trees.
And in the meantime, all the while, even from the very first evening when we off-saddled in the rocky Westchester woods and made our first flying-camp, I had become uneasy concerning the Siwanois—uncertain concerning his loyalty to the very verge of suspicion.
I said nothing of this to Lieutenant Boyd, having nothing definite to communicate. Nor did I even hint my suspicions, because distrust in the mind of such a man as Boyd would be very difficult to eradicate, and the slightest mishandling of our delicate situation might alienate the Sagamore forever.
Yet, of one thing I had become almost convinced: the Siwanois, while we slept, met and held communication with somebody outside our camp.
On the first night this had happened; for, awaking and missing the Sagamore, who had been left on guard, I lay a-watching under my blanket, and when he came in to the fire once more, it seemed to me that far in the woods I heard the faint sound of another person retiring stealthily through the tell-tale bushes that choke all second growth hereabouts.
On the second day we crossed to the other side of the Hudson in flat boats, with our horses. But on that night it was the same, I feigning sleep when it came time for the Siwanois to relieve the man on guard. And once again, after he had silently inspected us all, the Sagamore stole away into leafy depths, but halted as before within earshot still. And once again some nascent sense within me seemed to become aware of another human being somewhere moving in the woods outside our fire.
How I divined it I do not know, because this time I could hear no sound in the starry obscurity of the Western Catskills, save only those familiar forest sounds which never cease by night—unseen stirrings of sleeping birds, the ruffle, of feathers, the sudden rustle of some furry thing alarmed, the scratchings and pickings in rotting windfalls, the whisper of some falling leaf severed by insects or relaxing its brief clasp of the mother stem in the precocity of a maturity premature.
Yet, so strong now had become my suspicions that I was already preparing to unroll my blanket, rise, and creep after the Siwanois, when his light and rapid footfall sounded on the leaves close to my head; and, as before, while again I feigned sleep, far in the thicket somebody moved, cautiously retreating into tangled depths. But whether I really heard or only guessed, I do not know down to this very day.
On the third night it rained and we made a bark hut. Perhaps the Siwanois did his talking with this unseen visitor while away in pretense of peeling bark, for he did not creep abroad that night. But, somehow, I knew he had kept some tryst.
Now, on this fourth day, and our journey drawing to its end, I resolved to follow the Siwanois if he stirred from our fire, and discover for myself with what manner of visitor he held these stealthy councils.
During the long day's march I lagged and watched and listened in vain for any follower along our route. Sometimes I even played at flanker, sometimes rode far on ahead, and, at times, stuck to the Indian hour after hour, seeming not to watch him, but with every sense alert to surprise some glance, some significant movement, some cunning and treacherous signal, to convince me that the forest had eyes that marked us, and ears which heard us, and that the Siwanois knew it, and aided and abetted under our very gaze.
But I had seen him do nothing that indicated him to be in secret communication with anybody. He marked neither tree nor stone, nor leaf nor moss, as far as I could see; dropped nothing, made no sound at all save when he gravely answered some observation that we offered. Once, even, I found a pretext to go back on the trail, searching to find some sign he might have left behind him: and had my journey for my pains.
Now, had this same Indian been an Iroquois I might have formed some reasonable judgment concerning his capacity for treachery; but I had seen few Delawares in my life, and had never heard them speak at all, save to boast in their cups of Uncas, Tamanund, and Miontonomoh. As for a Siwanois Mohican, this Sagamore of the Magic Clan was the first of his tribe and ensign that I had ever beheld. And with every motive and every interest and desire in the world to believe him honest—and even in my secret heart believing him to be so—yet I could not close eyes and ears to what so stealthily was passing in the midnight woods around me. And truly it was duty, nor any motive baser, that set me after him that starlit night, when, as before, being on guard, he left the fire about midnight: and I out of my blanket and after him in a trice.
The day was the 7th of July, a Wednesday, I remember, as I had writ it in my journal, my habit being to set down every evening, or as near the date as convenient, a few words which briefly recorded the day's events.
The night before we had camped in the woods along the Catskill road leading toward Cobus-kill; this night, being fine and warm, we made open camp along a stream, within a few miles' journey of the Middle Fort; and, soupaan being eaten, let the coals die and whiten into ashes. This, partly because we needed not the warmth, partly from precaution. For although on the open roads our troops in detachments were now concentrating, moving on Otsego Lake and the upper waters of the Delaware and Susquehanna, this was no friendly country, and we knew it. So the less firelight, the snugger we might lie in case of some stray scalping party from the west or north.
Now, as I say, no sooner did the Siwanois leave his post and go a-roving than I went after him, with infinite precaution; and I flatter myself that I made no more noise on the brookside moss than the moon-cast shadow of a flying cloud. Guy Johnson was no skilful woodsman, but his Indians were; and of them I learned my craft. And scout detail in Morgan's Rifles, too, was a rare school to finish any man and match him with the best who ran the woods.
Too near his heels I dared not venture, as long as his tall form passed like a shadow against the white light that the stars let in through the forest cleft, where ran the noisy stream. But presently he turned off, and for a moment I thought to lose him in the utter blackness of the primeval trees. And surely would have had I not seen close to me a vast and smoothly slanting ledge of rock which the stars shining on made silvery, and on which no tree could grow, scarce even a tuft of fern, so like a floor it lay in a wide oval amid the forest gloom.
Somewhere upon that dim and sparkling esplanade the Siwanois had now seated himself. For a while, straining my eyes where I lay flat among the taller fringing ferns, I could just make out a blot in the greyness where he sat upright, like a watching catamount under the stars.
Then, across the dimness, another blot moved to join him; and I felt my hair stir as chilling certainty shocked from me my lingering hope that I had been mistaken.
Faintly—oh, scarce audible at all—the murmur of two voices came to me there where I lay under the misty lustre of the stars. Nearer, nearer I crept, nearer, nearer, until I lay flat as a shadow there, stark on the shelf of rock. And, as though they had heard me, and as if to spite me, their voices sank to whispers. Yet, I knew of a certainty that I had neither been observed nor heard.
Hushed voices, whispers, undertones as soft as summer night winds—that was all I heard, all I could make of it; and sniffed treason as I lay there, making no question of the foulness of this midnight tryst.
It was an hour, I think, they sat there, two ghostly figures formless against the woods; then one rose, and presently I saw it was the Sagamore.
Noiselessly he retraced his steps across the silvery esplanade of rock; and if my vague, flat outline were even visible to him I passed for a shadow or a cleft beneath his notice—perhaps for a fallen branch or heap of fern and withered leaf—I know not. But I let him go, unstirring, my eyes riveted upon the other shape, seated there like some grey wraith upon a giant's tombstone, under the high stars.
Beyond the ferns I saw the shadow of the Sagamore against the stream pass toward our camp. Then I addressed myself to the business before me; loosened knife and hatchet in their beaded sheaths, stirred, moved forward inch by inch, closer, closer, then to the left to get behind, nearer, ever nearer, till the time had come for me to act. I rose silently to my moccasined feet, softly drew my heavy knife against events, and lightly struck the ringing blade against my hatchet.
Instantly the grey shape bounded upright, and I heard a whispering cry of terror stifled to a sob.
And then a stunning silence fell between us twain.
For I was staring upon the maid who had brought the Sagamore to us, and she was looking back at me, still swaying on her feet and all a-tremble from the dreadful fear that still possessed her.
"Lois?" I made out to whisper.
She placed one hand against her side, fighting for breath; and when she gained it sighed deeply once or twice, with a low sound like the whimpering wings of doves.
At her feet I saw a cup of water shining, a fragment of corn bread and meat. Near these lay a bundle with straps on it.
"In God's name," I said in a ghostly voice, "what does this mean? Why have you followed us these four days past? Are you mad to risk a scalping party, or, on the open road, hazard the rough gallantries of soldiers' bivouacs? If you had business in these parts, and desired to come, why did you not tell me so and travel with us?"
"I did not wish to ask that privilege of–" She hesitated, then bent her head. "–of any man. What harm have I caused you by following?"
I said, still amazed and wondering:
"I understand it all now. The Sagamore brings you food. Is that true?"
"Yes," she said sullenly.
"And you have kept in touch with us ever since we started?"
"With Mayaro."
"Why?"
"I have told you that I had no wish to travel in your company."
"But for protection–"
"Protection! I have heard that, too, from men. It is ever on men's lips—that word meaning damnation. I thank you, Mr. Loskiel, I require no protection."
"Do you distrust Lieutenant Boyd or me? Or what?"
"Men! And you twain are two of them."
"You fear such men as we are!" I demanded impatiently.
"I know nothing of you," she answered, "save that you are men."
"Do you mean Mr. Boyd—and his thoughtless gallantry–"
"I mean men! All men! And he differs in nothing from the rest that I can see. Which is why I travel without your leave on my own affairs and by myself—spite of the Iroquois." She added bitterly; "And it is known to civilization that the Iroquois are to be trusted where the white man is not!"
