The Reckoning Part 43

When had this unknown entered? Was any one here _now_? At the thought my skin roughened as a dog bristles. Was I alone in this house?

Listening, motionless, nostrils dilated, every sense concentrated on that narrow crack of light, I crouched there. Then, very gradually, I raised the trap, higher, higher, laying it back against the upright of white oak.

I was in a tiny room--a closet, lighted by a slit of a window.

Everywhere around me in the dust were small moccasin prints, pointing in every direction. I could see no door in the wooden walls of the closet, but I stepped out of the stair-well and leaned over, examining the moccasin tracks, tracing them, until I found a spot where they led straight up to the wall; and there were no returning tracks to be seen.

A chill crept over me; only a specter could pa.s.s through a solid wall.

The next moment I had bent, ear flattened to the wooden wainscot. _There was something moving in the next room!_

CHAPTER XII

THENDARA

Motionless, intent, holding my breath, I listened at the paneled wall.

Through the wainscot I could hear the low rustling of paper; and I seemed to sense some heavier movement within, though the solid floor did not creak, nor a window quiver, nor a footfall sound.

And now my eyes began traveling cautiously over the paneled wall, against which I had laid my ear. No crack or seam indicated a hidden door, yet I knew there must be one, and gently pressed the wainscot with my shoulder. It gave, almost imperceptibly; I pressed again, and the hidden door opened a hair's breadth, a finger's breadth, an inch, widening, widening noiselessly; and I bent forward and peered into another closet like the one I stood in, also lighted by a loop for rifle-fire. As my head advanced, first a corner of the floor littered with papers came into my range of vision, then an angle of the wall, then a shadowy something which I could not at first make out--and I opened the door a little wider--scarcely an inch--holding it there.

The shadowy something moved; it was a human foot; and the next instant my eyes fell on a figure, partly in shade, partly in the light from the loophole--an Indian, kneeling, absorbed in deciphering a doc.u.ment held flat on the bare floor.

Astounded, almost incredulous, I glared at the vision. Gradually the shock of the surprise subsided; details took shape under my wondering eyes--the slim legs, doubled under, clothed with fringed and beaded leggings to the hips, the gorgeously embroidered sporran, moccasins, and clout, the smooth, naked back, gleaming like palest amber under curtains of stiffly strung scarlet-and-gold traders' wampum--traders' wampum?

What did _that_ mean? And what did those heavy, double ma.s.ses of hair indicate--those soft, twisted ropes of glossy hair, braided half-way with crimson silk shot with silver, then hanging a cloudy shock of black to the belted waist?

Here was no Iroquois youth--no adolescent of the Long House attired for any rite I ever heard of. The hip-leggings were of magnificent Algonquin work; the quill-set, sinew-embroidered moccasins, too. That stringy, iridescent veil of rose, scarlet, and gold wampum on the naked body was _de fantasie_; the belt and knife-sheath pure Huron. As for the gipsy-like arrangement of the hair, no Iroquois boy ever wore it that way; it hinted of the _gens de prairie_. What on earth did it mean?

There was no paint on limb or body to guide me. Never had I seen such a being so dressed for any rite or any practise in North America! Oh, if Little Otter were only here! I stole a glance out of the loop, but saw nothing save the pale suns.h.i.+ne on the weeds. If the Oneida had arrived, he had surely already found my horse tied in the lilac thicket, and surely he would follow me where the weeds showed him I had pa.s.sed. He might wait for a while; but if I emerged not from the house I knew he would be after me, smelling along like a wolfhound until he had tracked me to a standstill. Should I wait for him? I looked at the kneeling figure. So absorbed was the strange young Indian in the doc.u.ment on the floor that I strained my eyes to make out its script, but could not decipher even the corner of the paper exposed to my view. Then it occurred to me that it was a strange thing for an Indian to read. Scarce one among the Iroquois, save Brant and the few who had been to Dr.

Wheelock's school, knew A from Zed, or could more than scrawl their clan-mark to a birchen letter.

Suspicious lest, after all, I had to do with a blue-eyed Indian or painted Tory, I examined the unconscious reader thoroughly. And, after a little while, a strange apprehension settled into absolute conviction as I looked. So certain was I that every gathered muscle relaxed; I drew a deep, noiseless breath of relief, smiling to myself, and stepped coolly forward, letting the secret door swing to behind me with a deadened thud.

Like a startled tree-cat the figure sprang to its feet, whirling to confront me. And I laughed again, for I was looking into the dark, dilated eyes of a young girl.

"Have no fear," I began quietly; and the next instant the words were driven into my throat, for she was on me in one bound, hunting-knife glittering.

Round the walls we reeled, staggering, wrestling, clinched like infuriated wolverines. I had her wrist in my grip, squeezing it, and the bright, sparkling knife soon clattered to the boards, but she suddenly set her crooked knee inside mine and tripped me headlong, hurling us both sideways to the floor, where we rolled, desperately locked, she twisting and reaching for the knife again and again, until I kicked it behind me and staggered to my feet, dragging her with me in all her fury. But her maddened strength, her sinuous twisting, her courage, so astonished me that again and again she sent me reeling almost to my knees, taxing my agility and my every muscle to keep her from tripping me flat and recovering her knife. At length she began to sway; her dark, defiant eyes narrowed to two flaming slits; her distorted mouth weakened into sullen lines, through which I caught the flash of locked teeth crus.h.i.+ng back the broken, panting breath. I held her like a vise; she could no longer move. And when at last she knew it, her rigid features, convulsed with rage, relaxed into a blank, smooth mask of living amber.

For a moment I held her, feeling her whole body falling loose-limbed and limp--held her until her sobbing breath grew quieter and more regular. Then I released her; she reeled, steadying herself against the wall with one hand; and, stepping back, I sank one knee, and whipped the knife from the floor.

That she now looked for death at my hands was perfectly evident, I being dressed as a forest-runner who knows no s.e.x when murder is afoot.

I saw the flushed face pale slightly; the lip curl contemptuously.

Proudly she lifted her head, haughtily faced me.

"Dog of b.a.s.t.a.r.d nation!" she panted; "look me between the eyes and strike!"

"Little sister," I answered gravely, using the soft Oneida idiom, "let there be peace between us."

A flash of wonder lit her dark eyes. And I said again, smiling: "O Heart-divided-into-two-hearts, te-ha-eho-eh, you are like him whom we name, after 'The Two Voices'--we of the Wolf. Therefore is there peace and love 'twixt thee and me."

The wonder in her eyes deepened; her whole body quivered.

"Who are you with a white skin who speak like a crested sachem?" she faltered.

"Tat-sheh-teh, little sister. I bear the quiver, but my war-arrows are broken."

"Oneida!" she exclaimed softly, clasping her hands between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

I stepped closer, holding out my arms; slowly she laid her hands in mine, looking fearlessly up into my face. I turned her palms upward and placed the naked knife across them; she bent her head, then straightened up, looking me full in the eyes.

Still smiling, I laid both my hands on the collar of my hunting-s.h.i.+rt, baring throat and chest; and, as the full significance of the tiny tattoo dawned upon her, she s.h.i.+vered.

"Tharon!" she stammered. "Thou! What have I done!" And, shuddering, cast the knife at my feet as though it had been the snake that rattles.

"Little sister----"

"Oh, no! no! What have I done! What have I dared! I have raised my hand against Him whom you have talked with face to face----"

"Only Tharon has done that," I said gently, "I but wear his sign.

Peace, Woman of the Morning. There is no injury where there is no intent. We are not yet '_at the Forest's Edge_.'"

Slowly the color returned to lip and cheek, her fascinated eyes roamed from my face to the tattooed wolf and mark of Tharon crossing it. And after a little she smiled faintly at my smile, as I said:

"I have drawn the fangs of the Wolf; fear no more, Daughter of the Sun."

"I--I fear no more," she breathed.

"Shall an ensign of the Oneida cherish wrath?" I asked. "He who bears a quiver has forgotten. See, child; it is as it was from the beginning.

Hiro."

I calmly seated myself on the floor, knees gathered in my clasped hands; and she settled down opposite me, awaiting in instinctive silence my next words.

"Why does my sister wear the dress of an adolescent, mocking the False Faces, when the three fires are not yet kindled?" I asked.

"I hold the fire-right," she said quickly. "Ask those who wear the mask where cherries grow. O sachem, those cherries were ripe ere I was!"

I thought a moment, then fixed my eager eyes on her.

"Only the Cherry-Maid of Adriutha has that right," I said. My heart, beating furiously, shook my voice, for I knew now who she was.

"I am Cherry-Maid to the three fires," she said; "in bud at Adriutha, in blossom at Carenay, in fruit at Danascara."

"Your name?"

"Lyn Montour."

I almost leaped from the floor in my excitement; yet the engrafted Oneida instinct of a sachem chained me motionless. "You are the wife of Walter Butler," I said deliberately, in English.

A wave of crimson stained her face and shoulders. Suddenly she covered her face with her hands.