He paused to glance at the sky and swipe at his mouth with the back of his hairy hand.
“I can’t for the life a me figure where he picked up such a habit,” he murmured in conclusion.
Matt felt that they were wandering far from the important matters at hand. He turned back to the young major. “Sir, what do you think will happen if the French decide not to pull back into Canada?”
Washington raised one eye and pursed his mouth slightly. “I personally feel that the French’s attitude is the same as an open declaration of war. It may be that the King will decide to drive them out.”
Shad snorted his disgust. “I’ve seen how that works before. The English get all pop-eyed with alarm over what the French are doing and they scream and wail like tom cats with ice water spilled on ’em—Oh, my goodness! We can’t have this! We’ve got to get in there and whip ’em! We’ve got to drive them nasty Frenchies clear back to the North Pole! And then who finally goes out and does the fightin’? I’ll tell you who—the Americans! That’s who! Look what happened at Louisburg in ’Forty-five!”
“Shad,” Matt said, “this land is as much ours as it is England’s. If we help England to fight their battle, by the same token they are helping us to fight ours.”
Washington nodded, his eyes curiously alight. “That’s a good thing to remember,” he said quietly. “England claims the land, but it is in name only. We are the land. Someday I hope that its name will also be ours.”
Shad turned and peered closely at Chief. “Look at old Chief,” he demanded with a grin, “laughing himself to death.”
They all paused to look at the old Seneca and saw him regarding them with an impassive stare. Gist stepped closer to study Chief’s board-wall expression. “How can you tell?” he asked dubiously.
“You got to know him,” Shad replied. Then he spoke to Chief in his own tongue. Matt, who had picked up a smattering of Seneca, could follow the flowery speech.
“What is it that delights my brother so?” Shad inquired.
“Oh my brother, is it not vastly amusing to behold the French and English and the Seneca Half King running in an endless circle, each shouting tragically: ‘It is my land! It is my land!’ Is it always this way with the civilized? If it be true, then I wash my hands of it. Let any man call it his land if he so wishes. Let him erect his forts and trading posts. Let him lay his boundaries and march his soldiers. I go where I please and when I please; because I know that it is all, all my land, and that to the children of the wilderness a name is without meaning.”
Shad tossed his great head and roared with laughter. He pounded Chief on the back and winked at Washington.
“Chief’s got the whole problem licked,” he said. “He says it’s all his land. So the rest a you fellas might as well pack up your forts and go home!”
Something landed with a flat smack against a tree just beyond Washington’s head and a split second later the six men heard the hollow plam of a musket. Instantly they were on their feet, reaching for their weapons. Half King and Chief turned without a word or sound and blended themselves into the forest.
“Came from behind you, Gist!” Shad bellowed. “Spread out and run him down afore he can reload!”
Matt ducked into a crouch, humping over his musket, and, cutting into an oblique away from the line of fire, ran for the trees. A ragged dead thicket rose to meet him at the edge of the wood. He leaped into the air and came down in its center. He crouched there for a moment peering through the network of brittle branches, opening his mouth wide so that the sound of his breathing would not obstruct his hearing. To the right of him he heard the cush-cush-cush of men running through the snow, and a shout or two. Then, abruptly, a Mingo darted across his path, head down, attempting to reload his musket as he ran.
Matt stood up in the thicket, covering the Indian with his gun. The Mingo came to a startled halt and stared at the young trapper with wide startled eyes.
“Hadi’nonge dedji’aon’gwa!” Matt said. We are all around you.
The Mingo hesitated only a moment, then pitched his musket into the snow. He folded his arms across his chest and assumed an unafraid attitude.
“Shad! Major! Over here! I’ve got him!” Matt called.
In the late shadows of afternoon the six men gathered about the strange Mingo. Shad, catching the would-be assassin by the neck in his great paw, pushed him up against a linden tree and held him there.
“Anybody know this fish-eyed scum?” he asked.
Half King stepped up and raised a finger to show that he was about to speak. “It is a French Indian from Murthering Town,” he said in stiff English. Then, in Seneca, he addressed the Mingo.
The savage from Murthering Town answered glibly, his eyes leaping quickly from face to face as he spoke. Half King grunted and turned to Washington.
“He claims that he was hunting for his dinner. His gun went off by accident. He is sorry that he nearly killed my brother. I do not believe him.”
“Don’t believe him!” Shad bellowed. “I hope to beat myself silly, we don’t believe him! He lies in his teeth, that’s what he does! I’m amazed his teeth don’t rot and fall right out a his head from the stinkin’ lies he tries to strain through ’em!”
Gist seemed of the same opinion. He raised his musket and placed the barrel to the Mingo’s head. “I see no reason why we should worry about it any further,” he said fiercely.
But Washington interposed quickly. “Wait, Gist. I’m not inclined to believe our friend any more than you; but that is hardly proof that he’s guilty. If war comes we may yet be able to swing his people over to our side. Killing this man will only give us new enemies.”
Matt, having no desire to see a defenseless man killed in cold blood, nodded, saying, “I agree with you. But you must face the fact that Joncaire and Cassanna have set their friends on you. You and Gist are in grave danger.”
“That is now quite obvious,” Washington said calmly. “Gist and I will have to double our pace, as well as our caution.”
Shad heaved a great sigh of reluctance and removed his hand from the Mingo’s throat. “Well, if you fellas have decided to let this cross-eyed bug-eater go, we better get shed of him afore he ears in on our plans.”
He grabbed the Mingo by the shoulder and propelled him bodily into the thicket. “Run you! Hy-Yi! Before I kick your breeches clear up to your ears and make you look like all legs with a pair a eyes!”
The Mingo picked his way quickly from the thicket and paused to stare blank hate at the white men. Then he turned and loped off into the mistlike gloom. Glancing at Chief, Matt realized that the old Seneca was laughing to himself. Chief loved to see other people pitched head-first into bramble bushes.
“Major,” Shad said huskily, his little eyes jumping from right to left with the strain of concentration, “I guess this St. Pierre message is pretty important to you and old Dumwiddie, so here’s what you do. You’n Gist hit straight south-east for the Forks of the Ohio, and me’n Matt’n Chief will angle past Murder Town and unload our guns into it as we go. That will draw them Mingoes off you, and us three will give ’em a chase clear over to the Allegheny River.”
Matt caught the natural hesitation in the major’s face, and he hastened to say, “Don’t worry about Shad and me, sir. With Chief to guide us, we can outrun any savage born.” He glanced at the frosty sky. “Besides, it’s going to snow. They’ll lose our tracks within an hour.”
Washington smiled and put out his hand, giving Matt a warm clasp.
“You’ve been most helpful. Thank you,” he said simply. Then he turned and shook Shad’s huge hand, his eyes crinkling with humor.
“I