10 A Morning Surprise

The seigneur and Louise were sent under escort the next day to Lake George, and we heard a little later from our scouts that they had reached the French lines in safety. One of these scouts was Zebedee Crane, who soon became the very good friend of both Culverhouse and myself.

While the army was marching to Lake George, we joined Zebedee in one of his scouting expeditions, and on a bright morning in early summer saw a streak of silver shining through the trees.

“What is that, Zebedee?” asked Culverhouse.

“Cold water. You ought to know the sight of it, even if you are an English officer.”

“Zebedee, if you were not so useful to us, I would resent that remark. I fear much that you will never be a good courtier!”

“What’s a courtier, leftenant?”

“Never mind. But, at least, it’s what you are not.”

“All right, leftenant. Come to the top of this hill here an’ you can get a better view of the water. See it a-shinin’ like silver through them trees. That’s the lake, and the dark line above it is the mountain on the other side. But the risin’ sun will turn both lake and. mountain to yellow gold pretty soon.”

It was full daylight when Culverhouse, Zebedee Crane, and I caught this first glimpse of the lake that we call George, but for which the Indians have a finer and more romantic name. The sun was peeping over the high mountains, and his first rays fell upon the lake, splashing drops of gold upon its silver bosom. The birds of the morning were singing with full throats. The mountains, save now and then a peak, which rose savage and naked as if scorning any adornment, were covered with the deep, rich, luxuriant green of an American forest in the fullness of summer. Set deep in the mountains, spread the sparkling lake. Wild flowers sprang up at our feet. In our faces blew the west wind, crisp and sweet with the odor of the woods.

“How pleasant is the breath of the green wood!” said Culverhouse, standing up and inhaling the breeze. “It makes me feel as if I would like to be a Robin Hood.”

“Who’s Robin Hood?” asked Zebedee, who was much given to curiosity.

“Robin Hood,” replied Culverhouse, “was an estimable gentleman with tastes and habits to which yours, I suspect, are much akin, friend Zebedee.”

“Then he must have been a mighty fine man,” said Zebedee with calm egotism.

Culverhouse laughed, and lay down in the deep, rich grass, luxuriating like a wild animal in the forest.

“It was worth coming across the sea to get a view like this and to feel like this,” he said.

“But s’pose it was winter,” said Zebedee, “an’ it was a-hailin’ an’ a-snowin’ an’ it was sixty miles from the nearest settlement, an’ you had no powder in your powder horn an’ no bullets in your bullet pouch, how’d you like it then?”

“We will not contemplate such a combination of misfortunes, Zebedee,” said Culverhouse. “I could lie in this grass and go to sleep feeling as if I were halfway to heaven.”

“An’ most likely you’d wake up all the way to heaven or t’other place,” said Zebedee, “an’ without your scalp, too. Don’t you know these woods are full of Indians—Hurons and the like?”

“I suppose I do know it,” said Culverhouse lazily. “It has been told to me often enough, but I don’t seem to realize it.”

“That’s what ails you English,” said Zebedee. “If you thought more about Indians an’ less about hoss parades an’ beatin’ drums, more of you might keep your scalps where they belong, on top of your heads.”

Zebedee, who was sitting on a fallen log, with his long rifle resting on his knees, spoke very earnestly, and Culverhouse felt the reproof, for he said:

“It must be confessed, Zebedee, that your remarks are true. We have not yet proved ourselves to be adepts at this sort of warfare. But we can learn.”

“It’s time to set about it,” said Zebedee tersely.

No one could ever accuse Zebedee of shuffling or evasive speech.

“Perhaps an Indian concealed somewhere in the undergrowth is regarding us now,” I said.

“It’s not impossible,” replied Zebedee.

“A cheerful thought!” said Culverhouse.

“You should have thought of that before we asked permission to come ahead of the army on this scouting expedition,” I said. “We are within the enemy’s lines, are we not, Zebedee?”

“I don’t know much about lines,” replied the boy, “but we are within his reach. Across yonder, toward Champlain, is Ticonderoga, that we’re comin’ with such a power of men an’ bayonets an’ drums to take.”

“And we will take it too, Zebedee,” said Culverhouse. “Don’t be a prophet of evil.”

Zebedee did not reply, but, shading his eyes with his hand from the brilliant sunshine, gazed long in the direction in which we knew the kernel of the French force lay. Then he turned his eyes down toward the lake, and presently he said:

“There’s a canoe across yonder under the bank of the hill.”

“Indians in it?”

“Indians or French, or more likely both,” he said.

He pointed out the distant object keeping so carefully within the shadow of the cliff that without Zebedee neither Culverhouse nor I would ever have seen it. It was moving up the lake, but remained so close to the wall of rock that we could not distinguish its occupants.

“That means somethin’, I guess,” said Zebedee. “The French know our army is comin’, an’ Montcalm don’t sleep twenty-four hours a day. When we go a-scoutin’ we ought to go a-scoutin’, an’ we’d better find out what that canoe means. I’ll take one of you an’ go further up the lake, while the other can stay here an’ watch from this p’int.”

“All right,” said Culverhouse, “I’ll go with you. I don’t like waiting.”

“I don’t like waiting either,” I said. “I’ll go with Zebedee.”

“Toss up a shillin’,” said Zebedee, “an’ settle it atween you.”

It was curious how this lank, half-wild boy asserted rulership over us when we were in the wilderness. But his domain was the woods. Obediently we tossed up the shilling, and it fell to the lot of Culverhouse to go and to mine to stay.

“Now lay close,” said Zebedee to me with an air of authority, “an’ don’t make any noise. Be sure an’ don’t let your rifle or your pistol off.”

I promised faithfully to heed his directions, and then, after an equally sharp injunction to Culverhouse “to walk lighter than a cat,” they disappeared in the green underbrush, leaving me alone on the hill.

I watched the canoe for some time. Then it curved around a peninsula of rock and disappeared, and there was nothing left for me to watch—at least, nothing that moved—except the waves of the lake. But I felt no temptation to violate Zebedee’s command and move about or make a noise.

I was lying in the long grass, which rose above me. I did not believe that any one more than ten feet away could discern my figure, even if he had eyes of preternatural acuteness. Before coming on the scout, Culverhouse and I, obedient to Zebedee’s advice, had discarded our officers’ coats and were arrayed in green hunting shirts, which blended with the colors of the forest. Instead of our swords, we carried rifles. Mine lay beside me within convenient reach of my hand.

I was alone in the wilderness, but I felt no fear. Though I knew the hostile Hurons and their equally cunning allies the French were lurking through all these forests, I was like Culverhouse, I could not realize the danger. Why should I, when there was nothing around me but the whispering silence and the blaze of green forest and golden sunshine? I laughed to myself at the idea of danger, and rolled my body into an easier position on the soft turf. I gazed sleepily out at the lake, where the waves, tossed up by the west wind, pursued each other briskly across its glistening surface until they crumbled away and sank back into the lake. A little brown bird dropped lightly upon a bough over my head and poured out a flood of song.

It was all so gentle and so soothing that my mind turned naturally to reflection, to all the incidents of our advance since we had departed from New York, to those whom we had left there, and then to Louise de St. Maur.

These thoughts were agreeable, and conduced to rest. I was tired and drowsy, too. We had been traveling through the forest nearly all the night before, for Zebedee said that when the Hurons were abroad it was safer to scout after the sun had gone down. Zebedee and Culverhouse were gone very long, and I half closed my eyes as I listened to the bird’s slumber song.

A hare hopped through the grass near me. I was so quiet that he stood up for a moment and looked at me with fearless eyes. Then he hopped calmly away. A squirrel ran up a tree, saucily curving his bushy gray tail over his back as he dashed toward the highest bough. Some green lizards crawled along the side of a fallen tree trunk. A sharp gray nose thrust itself up from the grass twenty or thirty feet away. I looked a second time at the gray nose, and then saw the lank body behind it. A gray wolf! They were common in these woods. I would have drawn my pistol and fired at the animal merely for sport’s sake, but it would be insanity to risk a shot within the shadow of the enemy’s defenses.

I drew my hand away from the pistol butt toward which I had moved it unconsciously, and regarded the wolf. He was a bold fellow. All but his head was now concealed in the grass, but he gazed at me with glowing red eyes.

“You would probably like to make a meal of me, my fine fellow,” I thought, “but I am not for you.”

I picked up a broken stick and threw it at the animal. The missile fell short, but the sharp nose and the glowing red eyes disappeared in the denser undergrowth, and I was left to my musings.

I looked out again at the lake, but saw only the crumbling waves that still pursued each other over its surface. I wondered why Zeb and Culverhouse stayed so long. I had not supposed they would go far in such a place as this. But as there was no answer to these unspoken inquiries, I sleepily allowed my eyes to close. But I opened them again when I heard the fluff of something moving through the grass.

There was the wolf again! He had moved around to the right of me, but he was a little nearer, and his gray nose looked sharper and his eyes redder than before. It was a persistent and evidently an inquisitive brute.

Perhaps it wanted to make friends with me! I snapped my fingers in the manner of a man calling a dog. The brute cocked his head on one side and came a little closer, though his body remained concealed in the thick undergrowth. Wondering at his tameness, I snapped my fingers again, but the wolf would come no nearer. I repeated my invitation several times, but without effect, and then, tiring of the business, I again threw a piece of fallen wood at him. He disappeared a second time with marvelous quickness. Perhaps if I were such an attraction for animals, the bears and panthers which prowled through these woods would also be coming to see me. The thought amused me for a moment, and then I turned my attention again to the lake, where I was to watch for whatsoever I might see.

Five minutes passed, and I heard behind me the noise of something brushing through the grass. I whirled over and found the wolfs gray nose and glowing eyes thrust almost in my face. Startled, I was about to spring back, but at that moment the shape of a wolf dropped away, and as the empty hide fell to the ground an Indian warrior in all the glory and hideousness of his war paint sprang to his feet. He uttered no sound, not even the customary war whoop, but his glowing eyes expressed his triumph.

My pistol was in my belt scarcely a foot from my hand, but I made no motion to reach it. The terrible surprise and the triumphant gaze of the Indian numbed me. The power of action slipped away from me like breath from the dying. I could do nothing but lie there and return the gaze of the triumphant warrior.

Even in that moment, with my will enchained and expecting death, I was curiously observant. I noted every feature of the Indian’s face, and I shall never forget them, though I live to be as old as Adam and all the years be crowded with events. I observed the knife also, and saw that it was of French make. No doubt one of the rewards that Montcalm gave to his savage allies.

All this passed in the falling of an eyelid. Then my eyes closed, and I passively awaited the stroke.

I heard the report of a rifle sounding at this terrific moment like the roar of a cannon in my ears. A heavy form crushed down upon me. Warm blood spurted upon my face, and for the moment I became dizzy and half unconscious.

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