The Road to Frontenac

“Did the Governor have much trouble with the Senecas?”

“Oh, he had to fight for it. He was–My God, Menard, what about the girl? I was so shaken up at meeting you like this that it got away from me. The column had hardly got to the fort on their way up from Montreal before everyone was asking for you. La Grange had a letter from her father saying that she was with you, and he’s been in a bad way. He says that he was to have married her, and that you’ve got away with her. It serves him right, the beast. One night, at La Famine, he was drunk, and he came around to all of us reading that letter at the top of his voice and swearing to kill you the moment he sees you. He’s been talking a good deal about that.”

“She is here, asleep.”

“Thank God.”

“Where is La Grange now?”

“He’s over at Frontenac. He got into trouble before we left La Famine. He’s drinking hard now, you know. He had command of a company that was working on the stockades, and he made such a muss of it that his sergeant had to take hold and handle it to get the work done at all. You can imagine what bad feeling that made in his company. Played the devil with his discipline. Well, he took it like a child. But that night, when he got a little loose on his legs, he hunted up the sergeant and made him fight. The fellow wouldn’t until La Grange came at him with his sword, but then he cracked his head with a musket.”

“Hurt him?”

“Yes. They took him up to Frontenac. He’s in the hospital now, but it’s pretty generally understood that d’Orvilliers won’t let him go out until the Governor gets back from Niagara. He’s well enough already, they say. It’s hard on the sergeant, too; no one blames him.”

Du Peron looked around and saw Teganouan lying near.

“Who’s this Indian?” he asked in a low tone.

“He is with me. A mission Indian.”

“Does he know French? Has he understood us?”

“I don’t know. I suppose so. Here is Father Claude de Casson. You remember him, don’t you?”

“Yes, indeed.”

The Lieutenant rose to greet the priest, and then the three sat together.

“You asked me about the fight, didn’t you, Menard? I don’t seem able to hold to a subject very long to-night. We struck out from La Famine on the morning of the twelfth of July. You know the trail that leads south from La Famine? We followed that.”

Menard smiled at the leaping fire.

“Don’t laugh, Menard; that was no worse than what we’ve done from the start. The Governor never thought but what we’d surprise them as much on that road as on another. And after all, we won, though it did look bad for a while. There was a time, at the beginning of the fight,–well, I’m getting ahead of myself again. We were in fairly good order. Callières had the advance with the Montreal troops. He threw out La Durantaye, with Tonty and Du Luth,–the coureurs de bois, you know,–to feel the way. La Durantaye had the mission Indians, from Sault St. Louis and the Montreal Mountain, on his left, and the Ottawas and Mackinac tribes on his right.”

“How did the Ottawas behave?”

“Wretchedly. They ran at the first fire. I’ll come to that. The others weren’t so bad, but there was no holding them. They spread through the forest, away out of reach. Perrot had the command, but he could only follow after and knock one down now and then.”

“The Governor took command of the main force?”

“Yes. And he carried his bale like the worst of us; I’ll say that for him. It was hot, and we all drooped a bit before night. And he made a good fight, too, if you can forgive him that bungling march. When we bivouacked, some of Du Luth’s boys scouted ahead. They got in by sunrise. They’d been to the main village of the Senecas on the hill beyond the marsh,–you know it, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And they saw nothing but a few women and a pack of dogs. The Governor was up early,–he’s not used to sleeping out doors in the mosquito country,–sitting on a log at the side of the trail, talking with Granville and Berthier. I wasn’t five yards behind them, trying to scrape the mud off my boots–you know how that mud sticks, Menard. Well, when the scouts came in with their story, the Governor stood up. ‘Take my order to La Durantaye,’ he said, ‘that he is to move on with all caution, that the surprise may be complete. He will push forward, following the trail. You,’ he said, to a few aides who stood by, ‘will see that the command is aroused as silently as possible.’ Well, I didn’t know whether to laugh at the Governor or pity myself and the boys. Any man but the crowd of seigniors that he had about him would have foreseen what was coming. I knew that the devils were waiting for us, probably at one of the ravines where the trail runs through that group of hills just this side of the marsh. You know the place,–every one of us knows it. But what could we say? I’d have given a month’s pay to have been within ear-shot of La Durantaye when he got the order. La Valterie told me about it afterward. ‘What’s this?’ he says, ‘follow the trail? I’ll go to the devil first. There’s a better place for my bones than this pest-ridden country.’ He calls to Du Luth: ‘Hear this, Du Luth. We’re to “push forward, following the trail.”’ I can fairly hear him say it, with his eyes looking right through the young aide. ‘Not I,’ says Du Luth, ‘I’m going around the hills and come into the village over the long oak ridge!’ ‘You can’t do it. I have the Governor’s order.’ And then Du Luth drew himself up, La Valterie says, and looked the aide (who wasn’t used to this kind of a soldier, and wished himself back under the Governor’s petticoats) up and down till the fellow got red as a Lower Town girl. ‘Tell your commanding officer,’ says Du Luth, in his big voice, ‘that the advance will “push forward, following the trail,”–and may God have mercy on our poor souls!’

“Well, Menard, they did it, nine hundred of them. And we came on, a quarter of a league after, with sixteen hundred more. We got into the first defile, and through it, with never a sound. Then I was sure of trouble in the second, but long after the advance had had time to get through, everything was still. There was still the third defile, just before you reach the marsh, and my head was spinning, waiting for the first shot and wondering where we were to catch it and how many of us were to get out alive. And then, all at once it came. You see the Senecas, three hundred of them at least, were in the brush up on the right slope of the third defile; and as many more were in the elder thickets and swamp grass ahead and to the left. They let the whole advance get through,–fooled every man of Du Luth’s scouts,–and then came at them from all sides. We heard the noise–I never heard a worse–and started up on the run; and then there was the strangest mess I ever got into. They had surprised the advance, right enough,–we could see Du Luth and Tonty running about knocking men down and bellowing out orders to hold their force together,–but you see the Senecas never dreamed that a larger force was coming on behind, and we struck them like a whirlwind. Well, for nearly an hour we didn’t know what was going on. Our Indians and the Senecas were so mixed together that we dared not shoot to kill. Our own boys, even the regulars, lost their heads and fell into the tangle. It was all yelling and whooping and banging and running around, with the smoke so thick that you couldn’t find the trail or the hills or the swamp. I was crowded up to my arms in water and mud for the last part of the time. Once the smoke lifted a little, and I saw what I thought to be a mission Indian, not five yards away, in the same fix. I called to him to help me, and he turned out to be a Seneca chief. Our muskets were wet,–at least mine was, and I saw that he dropped his when he started for me,–so we had it out with knives.”

“Did he get at you?”

“Once. A rib stopped it–no harm done. Well, I was tired, but I got out and dodged around through the smoke to find out where our boys were, but they were mixed up worse than ever. I was just in time to save a coureur from killing one of our Indians with his own hatchet. Most of the regulars scattered as soon as they lost sight of their officers. And Berthier,–I found him lying under a log all gone to pieces with fright.

“I didn’t know how it was to come out until at last the firing eased a little, and the smoke thinned out. Then we found that the devils had slipped away, all but a few who had wandered so far into our lines–if you could call them lines–that they couldn’t get out. They carried most of their killed, though we picked up a few on the edge of the marsh. It took all the rest of the day to pull things together and find out how we stood.”

“Heavy loss?”

“No. I don’t know how many, but beyond a hundred or so of cuts and flesh-wounds like mine we seemed to have a full force. We went on in the morning, after a puffed-out speech by the Governor, and before night reached the village. The Senecas had already burned a part of it, but we finished it, and spent close to ten days cutting their corn and destroying the fort on the big hill, a league or more to the east. Then we came back to La Famine, and the Governor took the whole column to Niagara,–to complete the parade, I suppose.”

The story told, they sat by the fire, silent at first, then talking as the mood prompted, until the flames had died and the red embers were fading to gray. Father Claude had stretched out and was sleeping.

“I must look about my camp,” Du Peron said at length. “Good-night.”

“Good-night,” said Menard; and alone he sat there until the last spark had left the scattered heap of charred wood.

The night was cold and clear. The lake stretched out to a misty somewhere, touching the edge of the sky. He rose and walked toward the water. A figure, muffled in a blanket stood on the dark, firm sand close to the breaking ripples. He thought it was one of Du Peron’s sentries, but a doubt drew him nearer. Then the blanket was thrown aside, and he recognized, in the moonlight, the slender figure of the maid. She was gazing out toward the pole-star and the dim clouds that lay motionless beneath it. The splash of the lake and the call of the locusts and tree-toads on the bank behind them were the only sounds. He went slowly forward and stood by her side. She looked up into his eyes, then turned to the lake. She had dropped the blanket to the sand, and he placed it again about her shoulders.

“I am not cold,” she said.

“I am afraid, Mademoiselle. The air is chill.”

They stood for a long time without speaking, while the northern clouds sank slowly beneath the horizon, their tops gleaming white in the moonlight. Once a sharp command rang through the night, and muskets rattled.

“What is that?” she whispered, touching his arm.

“They are changing the guard.”

“You will not need to watch to-night, M’sieu?”

“No; not again. We shall have an escort to Frontenac.” He paused; then added in uncertain voice, “but perhaps–if Mademoiselle–”

She looked up at him. He went on:

“I will watch to-night, and to-morrow night, and once again–then there will be no need: we shall be at Frontenac. Yes, I will watch; I will myself keep guard, that Mademoiselle may sleep safely and deep, as she slept at the Long Lake and in the forests of the Cayugas. And perhaps, while she is sleeping, and the lake lies still, I may dream again as I did then–I will carry on our story to the end, and then–”

He could not say more; he could not look at her. Even at the rustle of her skirt, as she sank to the beach and sat gazing up at him, he did not turn. He was looking dully at the last bright cloud tip, sinking slowly from his sight.

“Frontenac lies there,” he said. “I told them I should bring you there. It has been a longer road than we thought,–it has been a harder road,–and they have said that I broke my trust. Perhaps they were not wrong–I would have broken it–once. But we shall be there in three days. I will keep my promise to the chiefs; and we–we shall not meet again. It will be better. But I shall keep watch, to-night and twice again. That will be all.”

He looked down, and at sight of the mute figure his face softened.

“Forgive me–I should not have spoken. It has been a mad dream–the waking is hard. When I saw you standing here to-night, I knew that I had no right to come–and still I came. I have called myself a soldier”–his voice was weary–“see, this is what is done to soldiers such as I.” One frayed strip of an epaulet yet hung from his shoulder. He tore it off and threw it out into the lake. A little splash, and it was gone. “Good-night, Mademoiselle,–good-night.”

He turned away. The maid leaned forward and called. Her voice would not come. She called again and again. Then he heard, for he stood motionless.

“M’sieu!”

He came back slowly, and stood waiting. She was leaning back on her hands. Her hair had fallen over her face, and she shook it back, gazing up and trying to speak.

“You said–you said, the end–”

He hesitated, as if he dared not meet his thoughts.

“You said–See,” she fumbled hastily at her bosom, “see, I have kept it.”

She was holding something up to him. In the dim light he could not make it out. He took it and held it up. It was the dried stem and the crumbling blossom of a daisy. For a moment he kept it there, then, while he looked, he reached into his pocket and drew out the other.

“Yes,” he said, “yes–” His voice trembled; his hand shook. Her hair had fallen again, and she was trying to fasten it back. He looked at her, almost fiercely, but now her eyes were hidden. “We will go to Frontenac;” he said; “we will go to Frontenac, you and I. But they shall not get you.” He caught the hands that were braiding her hair, and held them in his rough grip. “It is too late. Let them break my sword, if they will, still they shall not get you.”

Her head dropped upon his hands, and for the second time since those days at Onondaga, he felt her tears. For a moment they were motionless; he erect, looking out to the pole-star and over the water that stretched far away to the stone fort, she sobbing and clinging to his scarred hands. Then a desperate look came into his eyes, and he dropped on one knee and caught her shoulders and held her tightly, close against him.

“See,” he said, with the old mad ring in his voice, “see what a soldier I am! See how I keep my trust! But now–but now it is too late for them all. I am still a soldier, and I can fight, Valerie. And God will be good to us. God grant that we are doing right. There is no other way.”

“No,” she whispered after him; “there is no other way.”