The Hunters of the Hills | Page 2

individual and unlike, none of
them bearing any resemblance to the other two. The man sat in the
stern. He was of middle years, built very powerfully and with muscles
and sinews developed to an amazing degree. His face, in childhood
quite fair, had been burned almost as brown as that of an Indian by long
exposure. He was clothed wholly in tanned deerskin adorned with
many little colored beads. A hatchet and knife were in the broad belt at
his waist, and a long rifle lay at his feet.
His face was fine and open and he would have been noticed anywhere.
But the eyes of the curious would surely have rested first upon the two
youths with him.
One was back of the canoe's center on the right side and the other was
forward on the left. The weight of the three occupants was balanced so
nicely that their delicate craft floated on a perfectly even keel. The lad
near the prow was an Indian of a nobler type than is often seen in these
later days, when he has been deprived of the native surroundings that fit
him like the setting of a gem.
The Indian, although several years short of full manhood, was tall, with
limbs slender as was usual in his kind; but his shoulders were broad
and his chest wide and deep. His color was a light copper, the tint
verging toward red, and his face was illumined wonderfully by black
eyes that often flashed with a lofty look of courage and pride.

The young warrior, Tayoga, a coming chief of the clan of the Bear, of
the nation Onondaga, of the League of the Hodenosaunee, known to
white men as the Iroquois, was in all the wild splendor of full forest
attire. His headdress, gustoweh, was the product of long and careful
labor. It was a splint arch, curving over the head, and crossed by
another arch from side to side, the whole inclosed by a cap of fine
network, fastened with a silver band. From the crest, like the plume of a
Roman knight, a cluster of pure white feathers hung, and on the side of
it a white feather of uncommon size projected upward and backward,
the end of the feather set in a little tube which revolved with the wind,
the whole imparting a further air of distinction to his strong and
haughty countenance.
The upper part of his body was clothed in the garment called by the
Hodenosaunee gakaah, a long tunic of deerskin tanned beautifully,
descending to the knees, belted at the waist, and decorated elaborately
with the quills of the porcupine, stained red, yellow and blue and varied
with the natural white.
His leggings, called in his own language giseha, were fastened by
bands above the knees, and met his moccasins. They too were of
deerskin tanned with the same skill, and along the seams and around
the bottom, were adorned with the quills of the porcupine and rows of
small, colored beads. The moccasins, ahtaquaoweh, of deerskin, were
also decorated with quills and beads, but the broad belt, gagehta,
holding in his tunic at the waist, was of rich blue velvet, heavy with
bead work. The knife at his belt had a silver hilt, and the rifle in the
bottom of the canoe was silver-mounted. Nowhere in the world could
one have found a young forest warrior more splendid in figure, manner
and dress.
The white youth was the equal in age and height of his red comrade,
but was built a little more heavily. His face, tanned red instead of
brown, was of the blonde type and bore an aspect of refinement unusual
in the woods. The blue eyes were thoughtful and the chin, curving
rather delicately, indicated gentleness and a sense of humor, allied with
firmness of purpose and great courage. His dress was similar in fashion

to that of the older man, but was finer in quality. He was armed like the
others.
"I suppose we're the only people on the lake," said the hunter and scout,
David Willet, "and I'm glad of it, lads. It's not a time, just when the
spring has come and the woods are so fine, to be shot at by Huron
warriors and their like down from Canada."
"I don't want 'em to send their bullets at me in the spring or any other
time," said the white lad, Robert Lennox. "Hurons are not good
marksmen, but if they kept on firing they'd be likely to hit at last. I
don't think, though, that we'll find any of 'em here. What do you say,
Tayoga?"
The Indian youth flashed a swift look along the green wall of forest,
and replied in pure Onondaga, which both Lennox and Willet
understood: