University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
The Chase.

It was about two months previous to the time we have chosen for the
opening of our story, that Scarlet Feather, at the head of thirty young warriors
of his tribe, left his national lodges, on the beautiful lake Tuteloe,[1] for
a grand hunting expedition. As the past season the Nerigewecs had penetrated
his hunting-grounds, and driven the deer from the rivers to the wilderness,
Natanis resolved not only to pursue the chase towards the mountains,
but also invade the territories of the Nerigewecs, by crossing their
hunting grounds to the upper forest, instead of following the course of the
river, which, among all the tribes, was held sacred as a common thorough-fare.
The afternoon after leaving his own people, he crossed the Kennebis
above the falls of the Nerigewecs, and entered upon their hunting grounds.

The young men whom Scarlet Feather had selected from his warriors
for this expedition were about his own age, and among the very bravest of
his followers; and in nobleness of spirit, and pride of character they were
not unlike himself. After they had crossed the river and stood together
upon a rock upon which they had landed, with the towering forests of their
foes rising majestically around them, Natanis with a wave of his hand
gathered his braves around him, and thus addressed them:

`Warriors and brothers! we are now pressing with our feet the soil of
the haughty Nerijewee! In these forests they hunt their game, and from
the bosom of yonder hills ascend the smokes of their lodges. We are Abenaquies,
and do not fear to stand in the sight of the lodges of our foes. We
have entered their hunting grounds to pursue in them the deer and the bear
and the moose, as we do in our own. Natanis would not have been the first
aggressor upon their territories, for he is content with his own, and the deer
loves the shade of our forests as well as that of our foes! But the proud
Chief Canassa has invaded our lands, and hunted the doe before the very
doors of our lodges. His warriors have driven the game from our rivers
and lakes when we were hunting on the hills, and we must pursue the chase
even to the mountains that we may have food and raiment for ourselves and
our little ones. It is true, we can follow the river's course to where deer
are plenty, but 'tis a day's journey farther, than crossing the hunting grounds
of our foes. Let us enter them and pursue the chase, and at our leisure go
northward to the hills; it may be the forests of our enemies will furnish
game an abundance without seeking it in the wilderness of the north.—
Now, my braves, you know what is the mind of Natanis. Let us go onward
to the hunt, and while we pursue the game that offers, let us not forget that
we are surrounded with foes, and act with wisdom and prudence. Let no
warrior go alone, but keep together in parties of ten; and when danger
menaces, let us give the hunting war cry of the Abenaquies, and reunite for
defence! Attack none of the braves of the Nerigewecs if you cross them in
your path; for we are hunters and our arrows are sharpened only for the
deer and the wild beast. But if we are attacked we will let the Nerigewecs
know that we are the sons of Abanaquis!'

This address of the young chief wa received with a shout of warlike enthusiasm,
by the young braves around him, and the clashing of their bows
and spears together manifested a disposition more for the battle than the
chase. The scene presented at this moment was singularly brilliant, yet
wildly savage. Natanis stood alone upon a slight elevation of the rock
which overhung the dark water as it went wheeling and rushing past at its
base in a hundred involving circles. Above his head towered a majestic
oak, which overshadowed him and his braves. The opposite banks were
high and precipitous, clothed with wood to their summits, save where here
and there a bold boary rock forced its rugged brow, or shoulder through
the foliage that enveloped it like a mantle. Upon the lofty spine of a lightning-blasted
pine sat an eagle, who at intervals shook his immense pinions,
and uttered the fierce, shrill shriek, which the Indian Warrior imitates
and makes his war-cry. Around the young Chief stood his braves, a picturesque
and formidable band, dressed in skins or gay mantles, with plumes
nodding above their brows, spears or bows in their hands, painted quivers
at their backs, and with their bronzed breasts and right arm naked. They
stood around him with dark, earnest, brave countenances, and flashing eyes,
their nostrils working like those of the impatient charger, and their attitudes
spirited and daring.

`Yonder eagle gazes down upon us, and his shriek is warlike; but let us
not catch his spirit to-day, my braves!' said Natanis, as he looked from the
noble bird upon his followers with an air of pride. `We are hunters and
not warriors, until the war-cry of the Nerijewecs is heard in our ears.—
Then, let us sheath the hunting-knife, and grasp the war-hatchet as become
Abanaquies. Now to thee hase, brothers. He who strikes down the
first stag shall have a feather from the crest of yonder eagle.'

As he spoke, he fitted an arrow to his yew-bow and sent the fatal missile
flying upward and onward over the river with unerring velocity. The Eagle
uttered a fierce cry as he saw the whizzing messenger of death approaching,
and spread his heavy wings to soar. But the light dart pierced his
majestic breast and fastened its barbs deep in his body. He nevertheless
rose, and darted wildly through the air in irregular flight, now essaying to
ascend, and then plunging impotent perpendicularly far downward; but
recovering himself ere he struck the water soared again, madly, the while,
plucking at the arrow with his strong beak, and vainly endeavoring to tear
it from his body.

`Nay! Let him soar, Ayane', cried Natanis to a youthful Indian by his
side who suddenly drew an arrow to the bead, and was about to launch it
from the string, as he saw the Eagle, after nearly striking the water, rise
perpendicularly upward again; `Let him battle with his fate, Ayane. He
struggles bravely, and has a noble spirit! I would my arrow had not flown
so truly, for I am sorry that I sent him his death. It is like seeing a brave
warrior-chief die. Look! Behold! he has torn the dart from his bosom
with his ferocious beak, and holding it in his talon rises proudly and triumphantly
into the air!'

All eyes watched the Eagle as he went soaring into the skies, higher and
higher, till he appeared to the eye no bigger than a sparrow. He then
seemed to become stationery, when Natanis exclaimed,

`The noble bird will live; he deverves his life. My shaft pierced not to
his proud heart. No! See, my braves! he descends like the lightning from
a cloud!'

There was a general murmur of surprise and savage admiration, as they
saw the bird falling from the skies with the velocity of an arrow. The descent,
though as rapid as the eye could follow its course, was erratic and
irregular, the wings now wildly flapping, and now pressed closely to the
body, and then again flaring wide. It was therefore evident that the bird

was either dead, or had no control over himself. Nearer and nearer the
earth came the huge body, making the air roar as it passed through it, in its
swift descent, when suddenly it plunged into the current close at the feet of
the hunting party, dashing over them, in its heavy plunge, a shower of
spray.

Ayane, the young Indian, leaped into the flood, and bearing it to the shore,
laid at the feet of Natanis the dead monarch of the mountain peaks, the
arrow which the young Chief had launched at his breast, still clenched in
the iron-grasp of his talon.

Natanis plucked from the crest of the war-eagle a tuft of feathers, and
placing them among those of his own coronet, said,

`Now, my braves, to the chase. He who strikes down the first stag in
the hunting-grounds of the Nerijewec shall wear this Eagle's crest in token
of his rank as a hunting-chief.'

Tne party of hunters now formed in three divisions, and in a few moments
were moving in as many lines, nearly parrallel with each other,
through the forest, in the direction of the river uplands, where they knew
the dear would be, at that hour feeding. For the night, Natanis had appointed
a rendezvous at a fountain about two leagues north ward, near the
river's bank. Leaving the two hunting parties to which Natanis was not
attached, to pursue the chase in their own way, we shall follow our young
Chief and his hunters. Natanis kept on for about a mile without seeing
any game, but crossing three trails which he knew to belong to some hunting-party
of the hostile tribe, whose territories he was so boldly invading.
He at length came to a small, but beautiful lake placed in the midst of the
forest, like a crystal vase set in a bed of flowers. Gentle hillsides, clothed
with fragrantly blooming trees, ascended from its circular brim, birds were
singing in the over-hanging branches, fishes were glaucing in the sun-light
beneath its surface, and the deep blue sky without a cloud, was reflected in
its bosom. To add to the rare beauty of this gem in the wilderness, a
small island, green as emerald, with a few old oaks growing upon it, and
casting beneath an inviting shade, was anchored in the midst. On this island,
the shores of which, on all sides of it, were about a quarter of a mile
or a long bow's shot from the shores of the lake, the birds were more numerous
than on the main, filling the old oak grove with melody, while deer
and does were grazing or reclining in the peaceful glades. The island was
not large, being not two arrow-flights across, either in length or breadth.

When Natanis came suddenly upon this beautiful lake of the forests, he
paused upon its shores a few moments to contemplate its quiet; for the
child of nature loves to gaze on the features of the Great Parent, on whose
bosom he has been nourished, and has a heart to feel and a mind to appreciate
the fairer lines of her beauty.

While he stood there, wrapped in pleased surprise, a herd of deer was
discovered by his warriors, cooling their limbs in the water, about half way
round the circle of the lake. There were visible, full a score of
these animals, among them three stately stags. Desirous of striking the
first stag, the whole party started in excited pursuit, not even looking round
to see if they were followed by their Chief, but rather emulous to outstrip
him in the chase. Ayane, however, after running along the sparkling sands
of the beach a few hundred yards and seeing that Natauis did not follow,
turned back and rejoined him.

`Go with the hunters, Ayane;' said the Chief to him in the kind tone in
which he always spoke to the youth whose eyes, looks and manner evinced
the closest devotion and love for his Chieftain.

`Ayane would not leave Natanis alone, with foes around,' answered the
young Abanaquis.

`Then come with me! I see on the island the antlers of a nobler stag

than stands in the water among yonder herd they have gone in pursuit of.
He must be the King of his species, and as such worthy to receive his death
wound at the hand of Natanis!' The young chief spoke with that simple
and ingenuous pride, that native dignity of character peculiar to the Indian,
as if properly conscious of his power and independence as the Princely
head of a warlike tribe.

`How can we react the island, my chief?' asked Ayane, his dark eyes
brightening as he beheld the majestic autlers which Natanis had pointed
out, peering above a group of shrubbery near the shore of the island.

`There lies a canoe of the Nerijewecs' answered Natains, pointing to a
birchen conoi half-concealed under the drooping foliage of a willow that
hung like like a vast green umbrella over the bank, leaving beneath a sort of
arching shelter, within which the little bark was moored.

Ayane sprang into the canoe, and emerged in it from its covert, and the
chief standing upright in its centre, the young Indian propelled it swiftly
towards the island. Natanis stood up with his bow strung, and the feather
of his arrow betwen his fore-finger and thumb, and with his eye keenly
watching the moving antlers over the top of the bushes. Suddenly a dashing
of water came from the lake shore and Natanis saw the whole herd of
deer in motion, having discovered the approaching party of hunters, who,
as they came near them, had separated so as to encircle them and enclose
them with the lake in their rear. But the stags first took the alarm and
tossing their branching heads high into the air, shook them, snuffed up the
wind, snorted like horses when alarmed, and then dashed towards the forest
coverts. Then came the wild, answering cries of the hunters, and arrows
winged with death flew among the terrified fugitives, and one here
and one there plunged headlong in full course and struggled in the ensanguined
waters around them. The stag and a dozen of the does reached
the wood and went flying down its glades, the Indian hunters in fierce pursuit.

Natanis watched this spirited scene with an excited countenance, and
then turned his eyes upon the island which they were closely approaching.
The majestic stag, which had allured him from the main, had taken the
alarm, and unable to see, from his position, the hunters and the herd they
were pursuing, on account of the intervention of trees, he stood still upon a
green knoll, to which he had trotted, his antlers aloft, his head thrown back,
his eyes strained and starting, and his attitude was that of flight without
motion.

He was a noble animal, as large as a war-charger, with a skin the tawny
hue of the lion's, and a broad, massive chest, white as snow. Natanis drew
his arrow to his ear, when the stag discovered him, and tossing his head
up and down several times in defiance, the arrow of the young Chief was
caught upon his shield-like antlers, and shivered like glass. The next moment
Natanis was upon the shore with his hunting lance in his band. He
launched it as he struck the beach, but the stag was already in full flight.—
Natanis recovered his lauce, and his dog, which had accompanied
him, swimming along with the boat from the main, bringing him to
bay, he a second time cast it, and wounded the noble animal in the shoulder.
The stag again fled, and was again brought to bay by the staunch
hound, and maddened by his wound, he rushed, forward and by a fierce
stroke of his antler embowelled the dog, and then trampled upon him with
his strong hoofs. An arrow from the bow of Natanis fastened itself in his
neck, and the outraged monarch of the forest, shaking it to the ground, and
made furious by the pain, dashed towards the young Chief, emitting a harsh
noise from his lungs, like the angry roaring of a bull. So sudden and unexpected
was the change that Natanis, who, at that moment had his hand in
the quiver withdrawing a third arrow, would have been thrown down by
the infuriated animal, but for an arrow from the bow of Ayane who was

close behind him. The young Indian had aimed so truly that the point of
the dart penetrated deep into the breast of the stag, who reared high in the
air and gave utterance to a cry as shrill as the shriek of an Eagle. Ayane,
seeing him stagger and bleed copiously, sprang forward, elevating his knife
to strike him to the heart, when the stag, lowering his head caught him upon
his broad antlers, and tossed him high into the air. With the effort, the
stag reeled and fell to the earth, while the sharp dagger of Scarlet Feather
entered his heart. The young chief then flew to the succor of his young
brave, who lay insensible upon the ground, where he had descended in his
heavy fall. Raising him up in his arms he tenderly bore him to the water-side,
where he bathed his temples and used other means to restore him to
consciousness, while he carefully bound up a wound that was freshly bleeding
in his side. At length Ayane opened his eyes and gratefully acknowledging
by a glance of affection the kindness of his chief, breathed a deep
sigh of pain, and again sunk into unconsciousness.

Natanis, distressed for the fate of the young warrior, to whom his soul
was bound with the bonds of more than brotherly love, looked round as if
seeking for assistance. None of his people were visible, and he hastened to
a slight eminence in the centre of the island, where he could obtain a view
of the main on the opposite side of it, where the hunters had surprised the
herd of deer. But he could see only two or three wounded does dragging
themselves to the water, to quench their feverish thirst but all else was without
life.

`They have penetrated the forest and are now lost to sight. I will give
the hunting cry of recall, though it may bring upon me even a band of my
foes. Ayane must not perish, but be borne to our lodges by some of the
warriors. Poor Ayane! This thou hast suffered to save me. I had rather
it had been me than thee, for thou hast the love of a gentle maiden, whose
eyes will weep tears of grief for thee. But I am alone.'

As he spoke he raised his fingers to his lips, and the shores of the lake
and the deep forests beyond, rung and echoed with the shrill eagle-cry of
the young chief. Again the wild alarm of the hunter rose upon the air,
rising note after note, till the very eagles of the cliffs on the river, soared
from their eyries and answered it from the sky. But no human reply reached
his ears.

With a look of disappointment he hastened back to his friend whom he
found in a deep, yet suffering sleep. He took him in his arms and bore him
far into the grove where the coolness and shelter invited to repose. Here
he laid him upon a bed of moss, softer than piled velvet; and seating himself
by his side, he took his hand and gazed sadly upon him, forgetful of the
chase, and of all else save the sacred offices of friendship.

The day was drawing to a close, and the long lines of alternate sun-beams
and shadows that the setting sun leaves in his path, were stretching across
the green sward of the island, and Natanis still remained by the stumbering
youth, carefully watching each motion and anxiously regarding every sign
of returning sensibility. Before him was an opening in the trees which
gave him a glimpse from the island across the water into the wood on the
main, and up a narrow and secluded creek that lost itself in the forest-depths,
It was on the side of the island oposite to that on which the herd of deer
had been started, and the inlet had not before been noticed by him, especially
as its mouth was closely shielded by overhanging trees. While his eyes
were absently regarding the spot, he fancied he detected a thin, blue
smoke winding its way over the distant tree tops and gently curling in the
sunny air. He watched the appearance more steadily and was satisfied that
he was not deceived.

`There is a lodge!' he exclaimed with animation; `whether of foe or
friend it matters not! Ayane must have shelter to-night! I will leave him to

seek the place whence the smoke issues. Even thy haughty chief Canassa
will not refuse hospitality to his enemy who craves it.

He gazed a few moments anxiously upon the wounded and insensible
young hunter, and seeing that there was no change manifest in his condition,
he was about to rise to depart on his errand, when he felt a tongue licking
his hand. He turned and saw the large, noble stag-hound, whom he had
forgotten, and supposed dead, crouching by his side. Behind him he saw
a trail of blood with which he had died the grass as he slowly dragged himself
over it to his master's side.

`Poor Keenuck!' said Natanis sadly, laying his hand kindly upon his majestic
head; `sorrowing for Ayane I had not a thought for thee. The fierce
stag has torn thee terribly, poor dog!'

Keenuck looked gratefully and affectionately with his blood shot and heavy
eyes up into the face of his friend, stretched forth his shaggy neck to
lick his hand once more, and then keeping his fading eyes upon his countenance,
till the slowly drooping lid shut in his sight forever, the faithful
creature, with just strength enough to lay his head upon his master's knee,
sighed heavily and died.

Natanis surveyed him a few moments with a look of melancholy regret,
and then, brushing a manly tear from his eyes, he hastened to the shore and
cast himself into the canoe.