The Hunters of the Hills | Page 6

want."
"I think like the Great Bear that we'll not have to look far for deer," said
the Onondaga, "and I leave my rifle with you while I take my bow and
arrows."
"I'll keep your rifle for you, Tayoga, and if I didn't have anything else
to do I'd go along with you two lads and see you use the bow. I know
that you're a regular king with it."
Tayoga said nothing, although he was secretly pleased with the
compliment, and took from the canoe a long slender package, wrapped
carefully in white, tanned deerskin, which he unrolled, disclosing the
bow, waano.
The young Onondaga's bow, like everything he wore or used, was of
the finest make, four feet in length, and of such powerful wood that
only one of great strength and equal skill could bend it. He brought it to
the proper curve with a sudden, swift effort, and strung it. There he
tested the string with a quick sweeping motion of his hand, making it
give back a sound like that of a violin, and seemed satisfied.

He also took from the canoe the quiver, gadasha, which was made of
carefully dressed deerskin, elaborately decorated with the stained quills
of the porcupine. It was two feet in length and contained twenty-five
arrows, gano.
The arrows were three feet long, pointed with deer's horn, each
carrying two feathers twisted about the shaft. They, like the bow and
quiver, were fine specimens of workmanship and would have compared
favorably with those used by the great English archers of the Middle
Ages.
Tayoga examined the sharp tips of the arrows, and, poising the quiver
over his left shoulder, fastened it on his back, securing the lower end at
his waist with the sinews of the deer, and the upper with the same kind
of cord, which he carried around the neck and then under his left arm.
The ends of the arrows were thus convenient to his right hand, and with
one sweeping circular motion he could draw them from the quiver and
fit them to the bowstring.
The Iroquois had long since learned the use of the rifle and musket, but
on occasion they still relied upon the bow, with which they had won
their kingdom, the finest expanse of mountain and forest, lake and river,
ever ruled over by man. Tayoga, as he strung his bow and hung his
quiver, felt a great emotion, the spirit of his ancestors he would have
called it, descending upon him. Waano and he fitted together and for
the time he cherished it more than his rifle, the weapon that the white
man had brought from another world. The feel of the wood in his hand
made him see visions of a vast green wilderness in which the Indian
alone roamed and knew no equal.
"What are you dreaming about, Tayoga?" asked Robert, who also
dreamed dreams.
The Onondaga shook himself and laughed a little.
"Of nothing," he replied. "No, that was wrong. I was dreaming of the
deer that we'll soon find. Come, Lennox, we'll go seek him."

"And while you're finding him," said Willet, "I'll be building the fire on
which we'll cook the best parts of him."
Tayoga and Robert went together into the forest, the white youth taking
with him his rifle, which, however, he did not expect to use. It was
merely a precaution, as the Hurons, Abenakis, Caughnawagas and other
tribes in the north were beginning to stir and mutter under the French
influence. And for that reason, and because they did not wish to alarm
possible game, the two went on silent foot.
No other human beings were present there, but the forest was filled
with inhabitants, and hundreds of eyes regarded the red youth with the
bow, and the white youth with the rifle, as they passed among the trees.
Rabbits looked at them from small red eyes. A muskrat, at a brook's
edge, gazed a moment and then dived from sight. A chipmunk cocked
up his ears, listened and scuttled away.
But most of the population of the forest was in the trees. Squirrels
chattering with anger at the invaders, or with curiosity about them, ran
along the boughs, their bushy tails curving over their backs. A huge
wildcat crouched in a fork, swelled with anger, his eyes reddening and
his sharp claws thrusting forth as he looked at the two beings whom he
instinctively hated much and feared more. The leaves swarmed with
birds, robins and wrens and catbirds and all the feathered tribe keeping
up an incessant quivering and trilling, while a distant woodpecker
drummed portentously on the trunk of an old oak. They too saw the
passing youths, but since no hand was raised to hurt them they sang, in