University of Virginia Library

10. CHAPTER X.
THE FORESTERS.

—Bryant.

There were preparations for a hunter's carousal
in the heart of the forest. The scene of their revel
was a sunny glade, where a dozen idlers were
lounging away the noontide beneath the dappled
boughs. A fire had been kindled upon a flat rock
near by; and from the rivulet that gurgled around
its base, the neck of a black bottle protruded, where
it had been anchored to cool in the running water.
A fresh-killed buck lay as if just thrown upon the
sod in the midst of the woodland crew, who stirred
themselves from the shade as the hunter who had
flung the carcass from his strong shoulders turned
to lean his rifle against the fretted trunk of a walnut-tree
that spread its branches near.

“Why, Kit Lansingh, my boy, you are no slouch
of a woodsman to carry a yearling of such a heft as
that,” cried our old friend Balt, lifting the deer by
its antlers partly from the ground. “You must
have struck the crittur, too, a smart distance from
here, for none of us have heard the crack of your
rifle to-day.”

“Somebody may, though you have not, Uncle

Balt; for, let me tell you, boys, there's other folks
in the woods besides us chaps here.”

The hunters started up and were now all attention
—for the signs of strangers in the forest is ever a
source of keen interest to the woodsman, who, when
the frontier is in arms, never ventures to strike the
game of which he is in search without remembering
that he himself may be at that very moment the
human quarry of some more dangerous hunter that
hovers near.

“Nay, Conyer, go on cutting up the carcass. I've
left no trail to guide a Redskin to this spot,” said
the hunter, disembarrassing himself of his powder-horn
and shooting-pouch, which he hung upon a
wild plum-bush near by. “We can sit down to
dinner without any of Brant's people coming to take
pot-luck with us; for I've scouted every rod of
ground within miles of the camp. But the Redskins
are out nevertheless, I tell ye.”

“Where, Kit, where? How know you?” simultaneously
cried a dozen voices.

“Why, you see, it must be at least four hours
agone since I struck that yearling, which was down
in the Whooping Hollow by Cawaynoot Pond.”

“Cawaynoot Pond!” ejaculated a hunter. “What,
that little bog-bordered lake, with the island that
floats loose upon it like a toast in a tankard?”

“Go on, go on, Kit,” cried another. “We all
know the Whooping Hollow; but you were a bold
fellow to strike a deer there.”

“Yes, I stirred him first in the mash at this eend
of Cawaynoot, and that's a fact. But, instead of
taking the water there, he puts out westward, and
clips it right over toward the river till he brought
me in sight of the Potash Kettle.”

“Senongewah—`The Great Upturned Pot'—

the Abregynes call it,” ejaculated Balt; “I know
the mounting.”

“Well,” pursued Lansingh, “the buck doesn't
keep on toward the river, but hooks it right round
the rim of the Kettle, and back again toward the
east. It was, in course, long afore I could git a
shot; and, following hard on his trail along a hillside
overgrown with short sprangly bushes, I saw,
by the way in which they were trampled down, that
a white man must have passed that way before me.”

“A white man?” cried several voices, with increasing
interest.

“Yes, a white man; and that within no very
great time, any how.”

“How knew you that, Kit?” asked Balt.

“Why, I cleared the bushes aside, looked down,
and there, as plain as my Bible, I saw the print of
his shoe in the moss.”

“Which, in course, would not hold a foot-print
long if it was fresh and springy. Kit is right, boys,”
said Balt.

“And that wasn't all, uncle. I saw a shoe-print
in the fresh moss, with that of a small Injun moccasin
treading right in his footsteps. (A little salt,
Teunis; now let the gravy of that other slice drip on
my corn-cake till I'm ready for it—so fashion.)”

“A moccasin? Go on, go on, Kit,” cried an eager
young hunter.

“Let a man eat in whiles, won't you, lads?” said
Lansingh, who seemed disposed to make the most
of his narrative; “well, I went on, followed my deer
till I got a shot at him from behind a cranberry bush
in the Whooping Hollow, and just as he was bending
his knees to take the water near the very spot
where I first started him (it was natural, you know,
Uncle Balt, for the crittur to go back where he belonged—a
drop of that liquor, if you please), he

caught my bullet in the back of his neck, gave a
splurge, and was done for.

“So, after pulling him out of the water, I hangs
up the carcass out of reach of the wolves, and goes
back to look after the white man's trail.

“It kept along the hillside only a short distance,
and then struck suddently off atween two rocks and
among some dogbriers, where I nearly lost it, right
over the ridge; on the opposite side of which it led
right back in the direction from which I had first
traced it. Now, says I to myself, says I, it's after
all only some fool of a fellow that has lost himself
in these woods, which are about the easiest to travel
a human crittur could have, seeing that the hills are
so many landmarks all around. Let him go to the
old boy, says I, for a dunderhead as he is. No,
again says I, here's an Injun moccasin right in his
track, and perhaps it's some unfortunate who's been
driven to take to the brush by the troubles of the
times, and not come here to make a fool of himself
for pastime; so, Kit Lansingh, streak it ahead, man,
and look after your fellow-crittur.”

“I'd a disowned ye for my sister's son had ye
done otherwise,” interrupted Balt.

“Well,” pursued the hunter, “I did go ahead, and
that though it took me myself out of my way, Uncle
Balt. I followed the scent for miles toward the
east, till I thought it would take me clean out to
Lake George. But at last I saw what paid me for
my trouble; for, in crossing a bit of pine barren, I
came upon a raal Indian trail, and no mistake about
it—where a dozen men or more had streaked it
through the sand after my shoe and moccasin.”

“Tormented lightning!” cried Balt, rubbing his
hands in much excitement; “go on, go on, Kit;
d'ye say a dozen Injuns?”

“Yes, uncle, not a Copperskin less; and let me

tell you now that this discovery discomboberated
me considerably. Why, says I to myself, says I,
why should a dozen Redskins be led away thus
after one poor wanderer, when they might see already,
from the double trail, that he is a doomed
man, from the moccasin tread that is still fresh in
his footfalls; here's something new, now, to study
in Injun natur, and I'll see the eend of it. So, with
that, I ups and ons.

“And now I soon saw, by the way in which the
white man's track doubled and doubled again, crossing
and recrossing that of the Injuns in one etarnal
everlasting snarl, that the fellow could not be cutting
such carlicues for nothing. He knows what he's
about. He's a chap that understands himself, says
I; and I began to have a respect for him.

“By this time, though I ought to have said it
afore, the trail had led west again; yes, indeed, clean
across the river, which I forded in following it, and
then up and away over the ridge on the opposite
side, striking clean over the Sacondaga. I mistrusted
that it would cross that river, too, as it had down
the other branch; but no, it follows down to the
meeting of the waters, or Tiosaronda,[4] as the Abregynes
call it. There, where the falls of the main
river roar through the rocky chasm as it hurries
along like mad to join the other fork. And here,
says I, the game will either be up with Shoeties, or
he will give Moccasin the slip altogether. And
raally, boys, I defy the best woodsman among ye—
I defy the devil, or Uncle Balt himself—to find any
leavings of that white man around the place. You
may see there the woods trampled all round by
Injuns. You may see where they have slipped
down the bank, and where they've clomb up again.
You may follow their trail backward and forward

along either fork of the stream for a mile, and you
may see where they all united again, and trudged
off as if to take up the back track once more afresh,
and so make a new thing of it; but how or whither
that white man cleared himself, you cannot find
out!”

“That flogs natur!” cried a hunter. “And saw
ye no other trace of the critturs anywhere, Kit?
Not a hair's ashes of them?”

“Yes! but not thereabouts; and now, boys, I'm
about to tell you the curiosest part o' the hull business.
For you must know, that, if I had not left
my deer where I did, the snarl might have remained
without any farther clew. But as, after giving up
the chase, I made back-tracks up the river, recrossed,
and struck out again for Whooping Hollow to
bring the venison on here to camp, what should I
discover but the selfsame track of the white man
right in the heart of the hollow. I did not look to
see whether the floating island was near shore, or
if he had stepped aboard and floated off on it; but,
`my friend,' says I to him—I mean, says I to myself—`my
friend,' says I, `had I seen your first track
in the Whooping Hollow, and on the very shores of
Cawaynoot, you would never have led me sich a
Jack-a-lantern chase as this. I'm not a gentleman
that keeps company with the Striped Huntsman
or Red-heeled Rob, as the Scotch settlers call ye;
and, if we are ever to make acquaintance, your own
parlour in the Whooping Hollow is not exactly the
place I would choose for an introduction. With
that I cut out in quick order from the hollow, and
made clean tracks for camp. And that, boys, is the
hull o' my story; and now let's have something to
drink.”

The woodsmen all listened with deep attention
to this long rigmarole narrative as it was slowly de

tailed by the young hunter. By some it was received
merely as an idle tale of wonder, such as those
who love the marvellous may often hear from the
simple-minded rangers of our forest borders. It
was but one of the thousand stories told about the
Whooping Hollow, whose mysteries none could,
and few cared to solve. (For though the wild,
whooping sound, from which, in former times, the
hollow took its name, is now never heard, save in
echo to a human voice, the floating island is still
pointed out to the traveller as his road winds around
the basin at the bottom of which reposes the little
lake of Cawaynoot.[5] ) Others, again, regarded the
story of Christian's adventures as affording positive
evidence of the neighbourhood of Indians; and
though “The Striped Huntsman,” as he was called,
might be at the bottom of the business, yet it was
evident that a considerable band of mortals like
themselves had been equally, with young Lansingh,
misled by his deviltries and lured into their immediate
neighbourhood. This last was, in fact, the
view which old Balt took of the matter.

“Not,” said the honest woodsman, “that the crittur
whom folks call `The Striped Huntsman' be
ither a good sperrit or a bad sperrit, or whether or
no there be any sperrit at all about the matter!
Nother do I pretend to say, with some people, that
the Striped Huntsman is only some roguish half-breed
or outlawed Injun Medicine-man, who has
pitched upon this unsettled part of the patent between
the Scotch and German clearings and the
Mohawk hunting grounds, as the very corner of
the airth from which it was the business of no one
in partikler to oust him, whatever shines he might
cut up on his own hook. No, I leave it to the domine,

whose business it is to settle sich matters. (Pity
the good man couldn't catch some droppings o' eloquence
from yonder preaching brook to lifen his
sarmints!) But I tell ye, boys, that if it be raaly
the track of the crittur which lies fresh in our neighbourhood,
it's not such an unlikely sperrit after all;
for why may we not captivate some of the Redskins
that it has coaxed toward us, and thus, mayhap, git
tidings of the poor lost capting?”

“Oh, Balt,” said a hunter, “you are for ever
thinking of poor Capten Max, whose bones must
be long since cold.”

“And for what else, Rhynier Peterson, did we
come off on this tramp, if it was not that all of us
had some thought of the capting? And born heathens
we'd a' been had we not come to look after
him,” added Balt, indignantly.

“Yes; but, Balt,” said another, “though we all
of us followed you willingly enough at first, yet
haven't we all determined long ago that is was a
wildgoose chase you were leading us after? Here,
now, we've been fifty miles above here, poking about
among mountains so big, that, if the summer ever
manages to climb them, it is only to rest herself for
a week or so, when she slants down the other side,
and leaves the snow right off to settle in her place.
The old `North,' too, haven't we followed up the
river to where it dodges about, trying to hide its
raal head in a hundred lakes? These lakes, more-someover,
haven't we slapped through them into
five times as many more, and made portages up to
the leetlest tricklings of some of them? To be sure
we have; and what good has it done us, all this
trampoosing and paddling hither and thither in this
etarnal wilderness? We are now within ten miles
of Lake George, and less than half that distance of
the mouth of the Sacondaga, and my say is, either

to strike over at once to Fort William Henry, or to
cross the river below the forks, and make the best
of our way to Saratoga.”

“And that's my say too,” said a gray-headed
hunter who had not yet spoken. “It's a fool's errand
looking farther for the captain. I don't myself altogether
believe that young Max is completely done
for in this life; for we found traces enough of him
in the deserted squaw camp last autumn; and if the
Injuns kept him alive so long, he may yet wear his
scalp in safety. But it all comes to the same thing
if Brant has carried him off to Canada, where he'll
be sure to keep him till these wars are over.”

“What! you too, Hank Williams!” replied Balt,
with a look of keen reproach at the last speaker;
“you, who were the first to offer to take to the
woods with me, and keep there till, dead or alive,
we found the capting! Well, boys, I don't want to
git riled with ye when, mayhap, we are jist upon
the pint of a fight, where a man wants all his coolness;
but I tell ye one thing, I came out here after
young Max, and, dead or alive, I don't go in without
him. You may drop off one by one, or go away
the hull biling on ye together, ye may; but old Balt
will not leave these woods till he gits fairly upon
his trail; and, once upon it, he'll follow it up, if he
has to streak it again clean through the mountains to
Canada. So, now we understand each other, let's
eat our dinner without no more words said about the
matter, but go and look after these Injuns as soon
as may be.”

“Why, uncle,” said Christian Lansingh, as the
rest of the party now addressed themselves silently
to the rude meal before them, “I've never thought
for a moment of giving up the chase as long as you
thought it well to go ahead.”

“I know'd it, boy, I know'd it; the son of old

Christian and my nephew is not the chap to be skeered
from his promise by some nigger nurse's gammon
about the Striped Huntsman and such fooleries.”

“Oh, our friends don't stickle about the matter
we have now in hand,” said another young hunter,
modestly; “but, you know, Balt, some of them have
left their homes and—”

“Their hums? And who in all natur wants a
better hum nor this? Here are walls that rise
straight upward higher than any you see in housen,
keeping the wind away, yet letting you step about
where you choose without getting out o' doors—for
these walls follow you, as it were, and close around
you wherever you move; and as for them as wants
a fireside, why, aint the woods right full of clean
hearth-stones and cosy nestling-places? A hum?
Tormented lightning! is it a soft bed ye want there,
lads? Why, isn't yonder mossy tussock as fresh
and springy as e'er a pillow your good woman could
shake up for ye—there, I mean, where that woof of
vine-leaves, close as an Injun mat, spreads over to
keep alike the sun and dews away? Lads, lads, I'm
ashamed on ye to talk o' housen in a place like this,
where the very light from heaven looks young and
new—you may laugh, Bill, but it does, I say—the
light o' God looks bright, and fresh, and tender here,
as if it might a' been twinborn with the young Summer
this very year—see only—jist see for yourselves
how it scatters down through the green thatch
of yonder boughsm which lift each moment as if some
live and pleasant thing dropped from them on the
sod below!”

“It is of those they have left at home,” rejoined
the young hunter, the moment that Balt, pausing to
catch breath, allowed him to put in a word; “our
friends have left wives and families at home, whom
they must look after in times like these; but here's

half a dozen of us useless lads, who will keep the
woods with you until you yourself shall say that we
have made a clean thing of it.”

The doughty Balt seemed to wince a little under
the first of these remarks; for he was compelled to
admit the force of it. He did not reply, however,
save by patting the speaker on the shoulders, and
nodding to him kindly as he buried his face in the
flagon from which the whole of the company drank
in succession. The rest of the meal was despatched
in silence, and the party then made their preparations
for proceeding to the spot where Christian
Lansingh had last seen the mysterious footprints.

Leaving Balt and his crew of foresters to make a
cautious and wary reconnoisance of this enchanted
ground, let us give our attention to the two wanderers,
whom the reader may soon have cause to suspect
were the real flesh and blood actors in this
game of woodland magic.