The Star Woman/Book 3/Chapter 4

N the silence that followed spoke up Black Kettle, who was less restrained than the elder chief.

"If the Star Woman knew that Metaminens came to seek her, then her heart would be glad. She would send her spirit to make him well. She would send her young men to meet him."

At this hint, Crawford woke up. Why not, indeed? He seized the opening and asserted himself, for that was Hal Crawford's way. His orders were decisive, and were entirely unquestioned, for the Mohegans were accustomed to the guidance of a white man.

"Good. Two of us must remain here to move camp and tend Sieur Perrot; that will be perilous enough. The other two must travel to the Star Woman and send back her young men to help, and this will be equally dangerous. Settle between yourselves which is to go. Frontin, you understand the affair? Clip two sticks and arrange it. Long stick goes, short stays here. There must be no delay."

Frontin comprehended perfectly. There was no question of abandoning the helpless Perrot, the Mohegans were invaluable allies, and a separation was inevitable. Either of them, with one of the Mohegans, could reach the Star Woman in half the time it would otherwise take them.

Frontin whipped out his knife, clipped two twigs, and prepared them. He enclosed them in his hand with the ends showing even, and held them out. Crawford leaned forward and drew one. Frontin opened his hand and showed the other—and both were of equal length. At this, the two Mohegans laughed softly.

"All right, old friend," said Crawford. "I choose to stay."

Frontin leaped up. "Which of you goes with me, Loups?"

"I go." Le Talon rose. "My brother Black Kettle has hurt his foot. Come!"

The two shook their powder-horns, examined firebags, divided meat and bullets. In five minutes they were ready.

"Take care of the star, cap'n," said Frontin. Then he added, in his assumed cynicism, "Ora pro nobis!"

The next moment, with a wave of his hand, he vanished among the trees in the wake of Le Talon. The two were gone.

Crawford and Black Kettle fell hastily to work, since there was much to be done ere nightfall. Perrot, fast bound in fever, was tossing and moaning. After locating a sheltered and hidden spot on a hillside, they carried him to it; there was a bed of pine boughs to be laid, a shelter to be constructed, precious dry wood to be uncovered and collected. The packs had to be moved and the fire-embers transferred. In all this Black Kettle was at a disadvantage, for he had twisted his ankle badly and walking was painful.

Crawford resigned himself to this delay, the more easily because of the singular coincidence which had brought him and Perrot together. Or was it coincidence? He had come from the northeast, Perrot from the southeast, roughly aiming at a mutual point; why, then, should they not have met before reaching that point? It was natural enough.

During two full days he devoted himself to caring for the sick man. Black Kettle scouted and reported no sign of any foe in forest or on horizon. During these two days, Crawford pondered the reason for Perrot's presence here. The Mohegan explanation, that his manitou had impelled the action, was absolutely accurate; but Crawford was slow to accept it. Sieur Perrot was an example of the ingratitude of princes, since he occupied no position in Canada. He had no official reason to be here, then.

These thirty years, Nicholas Perrot had sowed where other men had reaped. No other Frenchman had his influence among the western tribes. His very name of Little Indian Corn spoke of the godhead with which the Green Bay tribes had endowed this first white man to come among them. Since 1665 he had blazed the trails where others walked to wealth and fame. To the red men, he was always known as the sun-bringer. Where others fanned hot sparks of wrath, Perrot had made peace, composed quarrels, kept the tribes in alliance to Onontio. And now he sought the Star Woman—why? In the end, Crawford renewed this question to Black Kettle, and received a story whose implications left him thoughtful.

"My brother, I will tell you what I know," said the Mohegan gravely. "It is now more than thirty winters since my father Metaminens went among the Iowa and the Dacotah nations. There he met this Star Woman, who saved his life. What passed between them, I do not know. My father Metaminens saw her only once or twice, yet he has often spoken of her. My brother, there are two roads open to every man, of which the one ends always, soon or late, at the grave; but Metaminens has never followed that road. Does my brother understand?"

Crawford nodded. He was startled by the unexpected depth of thought in this redskin, by the dignified significance of these last words. Black Kettle continued.

"Always the Star Woman has sent her manitou to watch over Metaminens. Perhaps he met her again in the west, when he was Commandant; I do not know. He has often told of how her spirit saved him from danger, how her influence was exerted to help him in time of trouble, how her power among the western tribes aided him. No other white man has seen the Star Woman. This is all I know."

Was this some old romance, then? Crawford frowned thoughtfully.

"Do you know what this Star Woman looks like?"

"She has hair of gold, and blue eyes, and wears a great star of blue stones."

An exclamation of astonishment burst from Crawford. Thus had Moses Deakin described his vision in the witch-fluid! Yet it was impossible that he should have seen her thus, exactly as Perrot had seen her thirty years ago. No, undoubtedly he had heard Perrot's description of her—this would account for the seeming wonder.

Crawford slept upon the matter, and in the morning found himself still perplexed. He looked at Perrot, found the latter sleeping easily and naturally. Black Kettle had been gone for an hour or more, seeking fresh meat, and Crawford now stole away to get a new stock of wood, which had to be chosen carefully if the fire were to be smokeless.

In half an hour he returned with his burden. He dropped this by the fire, straightened up—and found Perrot on one elbow, staring at him. Those clear and penetrating eyes, looking out at him from the white-bearded face, were sane. Crawford poured out some hot broth, and knelt beside the invalid.

"This first, then talk if you must," he said. Perrot obeyed, then sank back and scrutinized him in frank wonder. Crawford lighted his pipe and sat down.

"Where are the Mohegans?" demanded Perrot.

Crawford puffed and considered this question, which contained many unuttered queries. His patient was weak, but well enough to talk, and would only fret if left unanswered. So Crawford began to speak, and went on to relate the most essential parts of his own tale. While he talked, the gaze of Perrot devoured him and mirrored the man's inner mind; the Frenchman passed from amazement to incredulity, and then to a slow but still more amazed credence.

In his younger days this man, who by dint of his personality alone had conquered whole tribes, who had walked unarmed into a council-lodge of hostile Ottawas and had taken captives from the very torture stake, had shown himself a very Odysseus in craft and guile; but he had also shown that he could be all things to all men in a most astonishing degree. So it was now. Once convinced of Crawford's story, comprehending what manner of man this was, he attempted no dissimulation but met frankness with frankness. When the tale was done, he uttered a shaky laugh and asked to see the Star of Dreams. Crawford displayed the jewel, and Perrot nodded.

"Thanks be to the saints!" he said slowly. "I perceive now why I came into this land. You see, my friend, I knew not the reason. Something urged me to the trip, something forced me despite myself. With men like you and me, men who obey the hidden voice of the spirit, some reason always discloses itself. Me, I am a religious man, as the good fathers at Green Bay have cause to know, yet I also have some belief in the manitou of the red men. I thought it was only a desire to see the Star Woman again which drew me, but in truth it was something greater and more definite. And the same with you."

Crawford smiled, not comprehending this very clearly. "Not in the least, Sieur Perrot. I am here only because of my whim."

"No, my friend." Perrot spoke gravely. "We are agents of the unseen destiny which guards this empire of the wilderness—remember that! It is a stern taskmaster, this destiny; it demands much of one's spirit and body. Me, I believe in this unseen destiny."

"I do not believe in the incredible," said Crawford. "He who denies the incredible," came Perrot's voice, "must then deny God."

Crawford started slightly. "I cannot answer that, Sieur Perrot," he said simply. "I think you may have the right of it. What, then, do you assign as the reason for our presence in this place?"

"Ah, but we are here for France!" Perrot's voice gathered strength, and a swift flash leaped into his eyes. "I struck axe into earth at Michillimackinac and took all that region for France. I did the same at Saint Anthony's Falls, in the far west. With your help, I shall do the same here"

"Not with my help," intervened Crawford coolly. "I take no land for France, and I have no interest in the matter. I shall stop Maclish because he murdered Phelim Burke; I was a fool not to kill the dog when I could have done so, but we all make mistakes. I desire to find the Star Woman—why? Because she is unknown, inaccessible, a mystery! That's all. So you have come to do the errands of King Louis, eh?"

"Not at all," replied Perrot, studying him. "I came because I was drawn by the spirit; and now I see that work is awaiting me. Maclish—Maclish! This man must be defeated in his aim. The Stone Men and the Dacotah must be restrained from war. You, who know not why you came hither—oh, the mad humour of it! Have you, like Maclish, some dream of marrying the Star Woman?"

"Heaven forbid!" Crawford laughed a little. "If you knew her thirty years ago, she's no slender lass now. Besides, I've put the world behind me, Perrot. I've rotted in irons, I've had my moments of happiness and of tears; now it's dead. I want to go over the horizon, wander on to the end while there are things to be done and seen. That's all."

Perrot eyed him with a singular expression, partly cynical, partly sad. Then it seemed as though a veil dropped over the man's thoughts. There was something deep in his mind, some mystery, which he had been about to explain; he refrained. Instead, he came to one elbow.

"Look!" he exclaimed. "Play your own hand; you are a man whom I could love, and you do not interfere with me. As for me, I shall do what is given me to do. Here is my mission—I must turn Maclish's game back upon him. Maclish, the blind fool, has an awakening ahead of him! He thinks to seize the Star Woman, make peace between Stone Men and Dacotah, and get all the inland trade for the bay. It is an idle dream, but I shall utilize it, you comprehend? Me, I shall prevent the seizure, confirm the peace between these tribes, and draw the trade of the Stone Men to the Lake Superior posts. France shall have a new empire here in the northwest!"

"Another idle dream." Crawford shook his head. "They are too firmly wedded to the English—but play your own game, and I'll play mine. So the Star Woman is not young, eh?"

Perrot veiled his gaze. "How should she be?" he said evasively. "I saw her thirty years ago, and again a few years later. Are many of the Dacotah with her?"

"A few lodges only."

"She is a great medicine woman, living off to herself by this lake of many stars. She is a healer, a communer with the good God, to whom the chiefs and medicine men go for advice. It may be blasphemous, but I think she is little short of a saint, my friend."

Crawford did not reply.

He began to perceive why this man, despite his great deeds, was still simple Sieur Perrot instead of being a great seigneur. Here was a man of action, yes; but behind that a dreamer, a visionary. He had now conceived a vague scheme not half so coherent as that which Maclish was pursuing. Perrot was a fanatic on the question of winning the west to France; and those who sat in high places, having all the wilderness country they could well handle already, wanted none of his plans. So now, driving off into the northwest, Perrot was only too eager to grasp at the work which he conceived to be awaiting his hand.

Suddenly and without a sound, Black Kettle appeared in the clearing and set down the hind quarters of a caribou. He stood erect, his eyes flickering to Perrot, and grunted.

"My father Metaminens is awake—good! I crossed the trail of three Stone Men and heard them talking. One they call Red Bull is following, with three-score young men. They have English muskets. They are going to take the Star Woman as a wife for Red Bull."

To this Perrot sat up. "Give me food, for to-morrow we must abandon our packs and travel."

Crawford shrugged, deeming travel on the morrow an impossibility.

Yet, incredible as it seemed, Sieur Nicholas Perrot was on his feet the next morning; before breakfast he was shaven, dressed and ready to depart. Crawford held his peace, for he realized that Perrot would regard no reason, and in this he was right. He was not right in thinking Perrot's ambitious scheme impossible, however. Crafty old Perrot knew the redskins better than any other white man alive, knew his own ability, and was entirely competent to bring his dream to fruition if he had the chance.

For thirty years Perrot had been encountering men like Maclish, and had one by one left them defeated behind him. For thirty years Metaminens had ruled the western tribes, compelling them from war to peace. No other man was like him or would be like him again, in this singular influence which he exerted.

The packs were cached away and the three men set forth, carrying only arms and food. Perrot started off gaily enough, but within two hours he was staggering from exhaustion. Deaf to all protests, he drove ahead by dint of his iron will alone. The woods were silent and deserted, no sign of life appeared, but now Crawford knew that Maclish and the Stone Men were not many miles distant.

It was close to noon when Perrot silently collapsed in his tracks. And now Crawford, aiding the Mohegan to cut pine-boughs and make camp, felt his last hope gone. For days to come the old rover could only nurse back strength, and was out of the game. Even did Standing Bull send help, even did Frontin and Le Talon reach the Star Woman, what could be expected from them? Nothing. Crawford felt that in this vast wilderness three wandering men could not be located. The immensity of the country smote him and weighed him down. And meantime, he knew, Maclish was sweeping the war-party forward.

So, when he had done what he could for Sieur Perrot, Crawford lighted his pipe and stared gloomily through the smoke, being tempted of the devil to leave his companions and plunge into the wilderness alone. He had no sympathy with Perrot's ambitions. He wanted to be on his way to Frontin, pushing his quest for the Star Woman; to sit here doing nothing was maddening. The spur of freedom was goading him roughly. When he was playing a lone hand, dependent only on himself, he was happiest—there was his tragedy, if you like. Yet he could not gainsay the urge, and this news of Maclish was like a thorn in his flesh.

Now, while Crawford smoked and pondered temptation, and the Mohegan picked over dry wood, and Perrot lay in exhausted coma, there came quavering up through the trees from far away a thin, queer cry. That high cry sent a shiver over Crawford, for it was foreign to his limited northland experience, with its uncanny cadence of shaking mirth, its hint of weird and unearthly laughter. He had never before heard the call of a loon. Black Kettle stood like a dog pointing birds, but for a very different reason; the Mohegan had never before heard the call of a loon at high twelve.

"What was that?" asked Crawford. Black Kettle wrinkled up his nose.

"That," he said, putting hand to powder-horn, "was the cry of a bird, which came from the throat of a man."

Crawford saw that the redskin was puzzled and alarmed, so asked no more questions. He loaded and primed his gun, and came to his feet. Once again that strange cry reached them, and this time it was much closer. Crawford distinctly saw the Mohegan shiver to the sound of it, as though reading something singular and terrible in the cry.

Black Kettle gestured. Crawford followed him out from camp among the trees. He soon realized that the other was retracing their trail of the morning; it was an easy one to follow, because of Perrot's heavily plunging tracks. A third time lifted that quavering call, now so close upon them that Black Kettle made a startled gesture and vanished from sight among the trees. Crawford waited, peering through the dead brown masses of a fallen pine.

A moment of waiting—then a man came into sight, following the trail. But what a man! He was a misshapen Indian, with a huge head set between wide shoulders, a shaven scalp, and a fearful caricature of a face; it was the distorted countenance of an idiot. His dress was peculiar and remarkable, being composed of snake-skins sewn over hide, the heads hanging intact. Once seen, this hideous creature could never be forgotten—and perhaps this fact was the reason for such a costume. The wilderness is a stickler for simple and logical causes of apparently remarkable effects.

Although he certainly could not see either of the hidden men, the demented redskin now came to a sudden halt. He peered around, lifted that horrible countenance, and sniffed the air. A loose grin came to his lips. He spoke aloud in a mingled Cree and English which was comprehensible to Crawford.

"Where are you, Wandering Star? I bring you a talking bark, a message from afar. I am Singing Loon, and no man harms me because my medicine is very strong. The Stone Men are afraid to hurt me. Where are you, Wandering Star? I can smell you close by. I have followed your trail a long way from the lodges of the Crees."

This, in effect, was one of those unhappy beings whom the red men believed touched by the Great Spirit, and from whom they shrank in fear and awe; none of them, at any cost, would lift a finger to harm this man. Crawford did not hesitate, but laid down his gun and stepped out to face the messenger.

"So here you are, Wandering Star!"

The idiot grinned. How he recognized Crawford was a mystery; yet, at the creature's girdle, Crawford saw one of his own old and cast-off moccasins, and caught that sniffing gesture again. Did this imbecile, then, have some remarkable gift of scent? Perhaps.

"Here is my message for you." Singing Loon fumbled beneath his snake-skins and produced a roll of birchbark. "I smell another man hidden, but he will not hurt me. You should have seen how the Stone Men ran away when they saw me yesterday! Now I shall go and frighten them again."

Giving the birch roll into Crawford's hand, the chuckling idiot turned and disappeared at a shambling but rapid run.

Crawford stood transfixed, gripped by the wonder of it—the way this creature had come straight to him amid the wilderness! It was almost past his comprehension; but to the Mohegan it was not at all incredible. Black Kettle came into sight, crossed himself twice like the good Christian he was, and stepped forward.

"I did well not to fire. That man has a powerful spirit. What did he say?"

"He brought me a message."

"His spirit knew where to find you. Good."

Crawford unrolled the stiff bark. Words had been scrawled on the inner surface of the bark, scrawled there with a sharpened bullet. They were not easy to decipher, some of them were lost; but he knew that Art Bocagh had been one of Phelim Burke's Irishmen, able to read and write in English.

Keen news, this, from Art the Lame! Instead of sending Crawford's men to the coast, Maclish had ordered the Assiniboines to slaughter them. Four of the Irish had somehow escaped and were safe among the Crees, on their way to New Severn—one of the two posts remaining to the English on the bay. Art Bocagh had sent this word that Crawford might be warned against Maclish, and might know where to find the remnant of his men if ever he returned.

"The murdering hound!" said Crawford. A swirl of hatred swept up in his heart. Something burst within him—all his restraint was gone, all his self-control, all his cold caution. He whirled on Black Kettle, a blaze in his blue eyes. "You shall look after Metaminens—he needs only food and rest. This message says that Red Bull has murdered my men. I am going on ahead of him, past him, over him, to find the Star Woman—and to find him, also!"

The Mohegan regarded him steadily, then made indirect protest.

"My white brother is very angry. Does his manitou tell him that anger is a good companion on such a trail?"

Crawford snarled an oath. The murder of his men was the last straw. Every atom of his cold reserve was swept away.

"If I find that dog Maclish I'll slit his throat instead of his face, this time! What about you and Perrot? Will the Stone Men follow that idiot here?"

"No," said the Mohegan. "They are not coming this way. They are north of us."

"You'll be safe if the Dacotah war-party finds you, then?"

"My father Metaminens is a chief of the Dacotah."

"Then farewell."

The Mohegan grunted in reply. Pausing only to retrieve his musket, Crawford plunged into the trees, with hatred of Maclish burning like a living flame in his heart.