THE DOOM TRAIL BY ARTHUR D. HOWDEN SMITH _Author of_ "Spears of Destiny," "The Audacious Adventures of Miles McConaughy," "The Wastrel," etc. NEW YORK BRENTANO'S _Publishers_ COPYRIGHT 1922, BY BRENTANO'S COPYRIGHT 1921, BY THE RIDGWAY COMPANY _All rights reserved_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CONTENTS CHAPTER I The Fray in Mincing Lane II Small Talk and Mulled Ale III Before the Lords of Trade IV Five Berths on the New Venture V The Fifth Passenger VI The Opening of Hostilities VII A Truce VIII I Hear First of the Doom Trail IX The Governor in Council X The Red Death XI Ta-Wan-Ne-Ars Understands XII Into the Wilderness XIII The Trailers XIV Along the Great Trail XV Joncaire is Hospitable XVI Trapped XVII La Vierge Du Bois XVIII The Mistress of the False Faces XIX The Moon Feast XX The Argosy of Furs XXI A Scout of Three XXII Red Death and Black Death XXIII Governor Burnet is Defied XXIV An Appeal to the Long House XXV The Council of the Roy-an-ehs XXVI The Evil Wood XXVII Ga-Ha-No's Sacrifice XXVIII The Might at the Long House XXIX The Barring of the Doom Trail XXX Pearl Street to Hudson's River PROLOGUE O my reader, rest a while at our Council Fire before you set your feet upon the long trail which leads into the dim regions of Ta-de, which is--or was--Yesterday. See, we will sprinkle tobacco leaves upon the flames and on the spirals of the smoke ascending upward our words shall be carried to the ears of Ha-wen-ne-yu, the Great Spirit. Behold, O my reader, we give you a White Belt in token that our words are straight. That which has been is no more. We of the Ho-de-no-san-nee, the People of the Long House, are scattered so that only Ga-oh, the Old Man of the Winds, can tell where the remnants dwell. The Long House, where our women sowed and reaped and our warriors hunted, is the spoil of the white man. His roads have wiped out the trails stamped by our war parties in the days of our power. His towns have replaced our villages. He has chased the wild things into the recesses of the Adirondack hills. The Great League itself, which Da-ga-no-we-da and Ha-yo-wont-ha, the Founders, intended should live for all time, is no more than a memory locked in our breasts. The Council Fire which they kindled no longer burns at Onondaga. Gone is the Ho-yar-na-go-war, the Council of the Roy-an-ehs, whose word was supreme from the shores of the Great Lakes to the lands of the Wa-sa-seh-o-no, whom the white men call the Sioux, and the O-ya-da-ga-o-no, whom the white men name the Cherokees. The Seneca Wolves have abandoned their watch at the Western Door of the Long House which opens upon the Thunder Waters of Jagara; the Mohawk Wolves no longer guard the Eastern Door by the shores of the Ska-neh-ta-de, which the white men have renamed the Hudson.