Chambers Robert William
The Little Red Foot
Now, on the Otsego trail, which was but a vile one and nigh impassable with undergrowth, we beat toward the Mohawk like circling hounds cast out and at fault to find a scent.
And at evening of that day, the seventh of August, I saw a man in the woods, and, watching, ordered my Indians to surround him and bring him in alive.
Judge, then, of my chagrin when presently comes walking up, and arm in arm with my Oneidas, one Daniel Wemple in his militia regimentals, a Torloch farmer whom I knew.
"Great God, John!" says he, "what are you doing here with your tame panthers and a pair o' raw scalps that smell white in my nostrils?"
I told him, and asked in turn for news.
"You know nothing?" he demanded.
"Nothing, Dan, only that we heard cannon to the eastward yesterday."
"Well," says he, "there has been a bloody fight at Oriska, John; and Tryon must mourn her sons.
"For our fine regiments marched into an ambuscade on our way to drive Sir John from Stanwix, which he had invested. Colonel Cox is dead, and Majors Eisinlord and Klepsattle and Van Slyck. Colonel Paris is taken, and our brigade surgeon, Younglove, and Captain Martin of the batteaux service. John Frey, Major of brigade, is missing, and so is Colonel Bellinger. Scarce an inferior officer but is slain or taken; our dead soldiers are carted off by waggon-loads; our wounded lie in their alder-litters. And among them our general, – old Honikol Herkimer! – and I myself saw that brave Oneida die – our interpreter, Spencer – "
A cry escaped me, instantly checked as I looked at Thiohero. The girl came and rested her arm on my left shoulder and gazed steadily at the militia man.
He passed his hand wearily through his hair: "Only one regiment ran," he said dully. "I shall not name it to you because it was not entirely their fault; and afterward they lost heavily and fought bravely. But this is a dreadful blow to Tryon, John Drogue."
"We were routed, then?"
"No. We drove them from the field pell mell! We cut Brant's savages to pieces. We went at Sir John's Greens with our bayonets and tore the guts out of them! We put the fear o' God into Butler's green-coats, too, and there'll be caterwauling in Canada when the news is carried, for I saw young Stephen Watts39 dead in his blood, and Hare running off with a broken arm a-flapping and he a-screaming like a singed wildcat – "
"Steve Watts! Dead!"
"I saw him. I saw one of our soldiers take his watch from his body. God! What a shambles was there at Oriska!"
But I was thinking of young Stevie Watts, Polly Johnson's brother, and my one-time friend, lying dead in his blood. And I thought of his boyish passion for Penelope. And her kindness for him. And remembered how last I had seen him… And now he lay dead; and I had seen his sister but a few hours ago – seen her for the last time I should ever behold her.
I drew a breath like a deep and painful sigh.
"And the Fort?" I asked in a low voice.
"Stanwix holds fast, John Drogue. Willett is there, and Gansevoort with the 3rd New York of the Line."
"Have you news of McDonald, Dan?"
"None."
"Whither do you travel express?"
"To Johnstown with the news if I can get there."
I warned him concerning conditions in Schoharie. We shook hands, and I watched the brave militia man stride away through the forest all alone.
When we camped that night, Thiohero touched her brow and breasts with ashes from our fire. That was her formal symbol of mourning for Spencer. Later we all should mourn him in due ceremony.
Then she came and lay down close against me and rested her child's face on my hollow'd arm. And so slept all night long, trembling in her dreams.
I know not how it chanced that I erred in my scouting and lost direction, but on the tenth day of August my Indians and I came out into a grassy place where trees grew thinly.
The first thing I saw was an Indian, hanging by the heels from a tree, and lashed there with the traces from a harness.
At the same time one of my Oneidas discovered a white man lying with his feet in a pool of water. But when Tahioni drew the cocked hat from his head to see his countenance, hair and skin stuck to it, and a most horrid smell filled the woods.
And now, everywhere, we beheld evidences of the Oriska combat, for here lay a soldier's empty knapsack, and yonder a ragged shirt, and there a rusting tin cup, and here a boot all bloody and slit to the toe.
And now, looking about me, I suddenly comprehended that we were nearer to Stanwix Fort than to Oriska; and had no business any nearer to either place.
We now were in a most perilous region and must proceed with every caution, for in this forest Brant's Iroquois must be roaming everywhere in the rear of the troops which had invested Stanwix.
My Oneidas understood this without explanation from me; and they and I also became further alarmed when, to our astonishment, we came upon a broad road running through a forest where I swear no road had existed a twelve-month past.
Where this road led, and from whence, neither my Oneidas nor I knew. It was a raw and new road, yet it had been heavily travelled both ways by horse, foot, and waggons. It seemed to have as many windings as the Kennyetto at Fonda's Bush; and I saw it had been builded to run clear of hills and swampy land, as though made for a traffic heavier than a log road might easily sustain.
We left the road but scouted eastward along its edge, I desiring to learn more of it; for it seemed to bear toward Wood Creek; and if there were enemy batteaux to be seen I wished to count them.
Suddenly Thiohero touched my arm, – caught my sleeve convulsively.
"Hahyion – Royaneh – my elder brother – O my white Captain!" she stammered, clinging to me in her excitement, "here is the place! Here is the place I saw in my vision! Here I saw strange uniforms and cannon smoke – and a strange white shape – and you – O Hahyion – my Captain! – "
I looked around me, suddenly chilled and shivering in spite of the heat of a summer afternoon. But I perceived nobody except my Oneidas. We were on a long, sparsely-wooded hillock where juniper spread waist high. Below I could see the new road curving sharply to the eastward. But nobody moved down there; there was not a sound to be heard, not a movement in the forest. All around us was still as death.
Something about the abrupt bend in the empty road below me attracted my attention. I examined it intently for a while, then, cautioning my Indians, I ventured to move forward and around the south slope of the hillock, wading waist-deep in juniper, in order to get a look at what might lie behind the bend in this road of mystery.
The road appeared to end abruptly just around the curve, as though it had been opened only so far and then abandoned. This first amazed me and then alarmed me, because I knew it could not be so as I had seen on the roadbed evidences of recent and heavy travel.
I stood peering down at it where it seemed to stop short against the green and tangled barrier of the woods which blocked it like a living abattis —
God! It was an abattis! – a mask!
As I realized this I saw a man in a strange, outlandish uniform run out from the green and living barrier, look up at me where I stood in the juniper, shout out something in German, and stand pointing up at me while a score of soldiers, all in this same outlandish uniform, swarmed out upon the road and started running toward where I stood.
Then I came to my senses, clapped my rifle to my cheek and fired, stopping one of these strange soldiers and curing him of his running habits forever.
To me arrived swiftly my Oneidas, and dropped in the juniper, kneeling and firing upon the soldiers below. Two among them fell down flat on the road, and then the others turned and fled straight into their green barrier of branches. From there they fired at us wildly, keeping up a strange, hoarse shouting.
"Hessian chasseurs!" I exclaimed. "These troops can be no other than the filthy Germans hired by King George to come here and cut our throats!"
"Those men wear the uniform I saw in my vision of this place!" whispered Thiohero, quietly reloading her rifle. "I think that this is truly your battle, my Captain."
Then, as her prophecy of cannon came into my mind, there was a blinding flash from that green barrier below; a vast cloud blotted it from view; the pine beside which I stood shivered as though thunder-smitten; and the entire top of it crashed down upon us, burying us all in lashing, writhing branches.
So stunned and stupefied was I that I lay for an instant without motion, my ears still deafened by that clap of thunder.
But now I floundered to my feet amid the pine-top's débris; around me rose my terrified Oneidas, nearly paralyzed with fright.
"Come," said I, "we should pull foot ere they blow us into pieces with their damned artillery. Thiohero, where are you?"
"I come, Royaneh!"
"Tahioni! Kwiyeh! Hanatoh!" I called anxiously.
Then I saw them all creeping like weasels from under the green débris.
"Hasten," I muttered, "for we shall have all the Iroquois in North America on our backs in another moment."
As we started to retreat, the Germans emptied their muskets after us; but I did not think anybody had been hit.
We now were running in single file, our rifles a-trail, Tahioni leading, and I some distance in the rear, turning my head over my shoulder from moment to moment to see if we were followed.
And now, as I ran on, I understood that this accursed road had been made expressly to transport their siege artillery; that their guns were still in transit; that they had masked a cannon and manned it with Hessian chasseurs to keep their gun-road safe against surprise from any party scouting out of Oriska.
Lord, what an ambuscade! And what an escape for us!
As I jogged on at the heels of my Indians, still dazed and shaken by the deadly surprise of it all, I saw Thiohero, who was some little distance in front of me, reel sideways as though out o' breath, and stand still near a beech tree, holding her scarlet blanket against her body.
When I came up to her she was leaning against the tree, clutching her blanket to her face and breast with both hands. But she heard me and lifted her head from the gaily coloured folds.
"Hahyion – Royaneh!" she panted, "this was your battle… And now – it is over … and you shall live!.."
My Oneidas had halted and were looking back at us. And now they returned rapidly and clustered around us.
"Are you exhausted, little sister?" I demanded, drawing nearer. "Are you hurt – "
"Listen – my brother and – my Captain!" she burst out breathlessly. "This was the battle of my vision! – the strange uniforms – the cannon-cloud – the white shape!.. I saw it near you where – where you stood in the cannon smoke! – a shape like mist at sunrise… Haihee! It was the face and shape of the Caughnawaga girl!.. It was Yellow Hair who floated there beside you in the cannon smoke! – covered to her eyes in white and flowers – "
The Little Maid of Askalege clutched her gay blanket closer to her breast and began to sway gently on her feet as though the thumping of a distant partridge were a witch-drum.
"Haihya Hahyion!" she whispered – "Thiohero Oyaneh salutes – her Captain… I speak – as one dying… Haiee! Haie – e! Yellow Hair is – is quite – a witch! – "
Her voice failed; down on her knees she sank. And, as I snatched her from the ground and lifted her, she looked up into my face and smiled. Then, in a long-drawn sigh, her soul escaped between my arms that could not stay its flight to Tharon.
Her face became as wax; her head fell forward on my breast; her eyes rolled upward. And, as I pressed her in my arms, all my body grew warm and wet with bright blood pouring from her softly parted lips.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE WOOD OF BRAKABEEN
It was the 12th day of August when we came again to the Wood of Brakabeen, – we four young warriors of the clan of the Little Red Foot.
We were ragged and bruised and weary, and starving; but the fierce rage burning in our breasts gave to each a strength and purpose that nerved our briar-torn and battered bodies to effort inexhaustible.
Under scattered and furtive shots from German muskets we had retreated through the forest with our dead prophetess, until night ended pursuit by the chasseurs, and we ourselves had lost our direction.
All the next day we travelled southwest with our dead. On the tenth day we came out on Otsego Lake, near to Croghan's new house.
Where he had cleared the bush and where Indian grass was growing as tall as a man's head, we made a deep grave. And here we four clansmen buried the Little Maid of Askalege; and sodded the mound with wild grasses where strawberries grew, and blue asters and plumes of golden-rod.
A Canada whitethroat called sweetly, sadly, from the forest in the sunset glow. We made for the grave a white cross of silver birch. We placed parched corn and a cup of water at the foot of the cross; and her bow and scarlet arrows against her needs where deer, God willing, should be plenty. And near these we set her little moccasins lest in that unknown land her tender feet should suffer on the trail.
In the morning we made a fire of ozier, sweet-birch, cherry wood, and samphire.
When the aromatic smoke blew over us I rose and spoke. After I had finished, the others in turn rose and spoke their mind, saying very simply what was in their hearts concerning their little prophetess, who had died wearing a little red foot painted on her body.
So we left her at rest under the wild flowers and Indian grass, near to Croghan's empty house, with a vast wilderness around to guard the sanctuary, and the sad whitethroats to mourn her.
And now, fierce and starved and ragged, we came once more to the Wood of Brakabeen. And heard McDonald's guns in the valley and his pibroch on the hills.
The afternoon was still and hot, the deep blue sky cloudless. Over Vrooman's Land a brown smoke hung; more smoke was rising above Clyberg; more rolled up beyond the swampy ground near the Flockey.
From the edge of Brakabeen Wood, looking out over the valley, we could hear firing in the direction of Stone House, more musketry toward Fox Creek.
"McDonald is in Schoharie," I said to Tahioni. "There will be many dead here, women and children and the grey-haired. Are my brothers of the Little Red Foot too weary to strike?"
The young Oneida warrior laughed. I looked at my ragged comrades where they crouched in their frightful paint, listening excitedly to the distant firing, and I saw their lean cheeks twitching and their nostrils a-flare as they scented the distant fighting.
The wild screaming of the pibroch, too, seemed to madden them; and it enraged me, also, because I saw that Sir John's Highlanders were here with McDonald's fantastic crew and had come to slaughter us all with their dirks and broad-swords as they had threatened before Sir John fled North.
We turned to the left and I led my Oneidas in a file through the ferny glades of Brakabeen Wood, and amid still places where clear streams ran deep in greenest moss; where tall lilies nodded their yellow Chinese caps in the flowery swale; where, in the demi-light of forest aisles, nothing grew save the great trees bedded there since the dawn of time, which sprung their vast arches high above us to support their glowing tapestry of leaves.
It was mid-afternoon when, smelling hot smoke, we came near the woods by the river; and saw, close to us, a barn afire, and three men carrying guns, running hither and thither in a hay field and setting every stack aflame with their torches.
One o' the fellows was a drummer in the green uniform of Butler's Rangers, and his drum was slung on his back. And I knew him. He was Michael Reed of Fonda's Bush, and cousin to Nick Stoner.
And then, to my astonishment and rage, I saw Dries Bowman in his farmer's clothes; and the other man was a huge German – one of their chasseurs, who wore a stiff pig-tail that was greased, and a black mustache, and waist-high spatter-dashes – a very barbarian in red and blue and green; and grunting and puffing as he ran about in the hot sunshine to set the hay-cocks afire with his torch.
I remember giving no command; we sprang out of the woods, trailing our rifles in our left hands; and Bowman fired at me and, missing, started to run; but I got him by his collar and knocked him over with my gun-butt.
The Hessian chasseur instantly drew up and fired in our direction; and Tahioni shot him dead in his tracks, where he fell heavily on his back and lay in the grass with limbs outspread.
"You may take his scalp! I care not!" shouted I, watching my Oneidas, who had got at Micky Reed and were striving to take him alive as I had ordered.
But Reed had a big dragoon's pistol in his belt and would have used it had not Kwiyeh killed him swiftly with his hatchet.
But I would not permit them to take Reed's scalp, and bade them despoil the body quickly and bring the leather cross-belts and girdle to me.
Hanatoh ran up and caught Dries Bowman by the collar; and we jerked him to his feet and dragged and hustled him into the woods. And here despoiled him, pulling from his pockets a Royal Protection and a bundle of papers, which revealed him as a spy sent down to preach treason in Schoharie and carry what men he might corrupt as recruits to McDonald and Sir John.
"That's enough to hang him!" I said sharply to Tahioni. "Link me up those drummer's cross-belts!"
"What – what do you mean, John Drogue!" stammered the wretch. "Would you murder an old neighbour?"
"That same old neighbour would have murdered me at Howell's house. And now is come disguised in civilian clothing to Schoharie with a spy's commission, to raise the district in arms against us."
"My God!" he shrieked, as Tahioni flung the leather halter about his neck, "is it a crime if honest men stand by their King?"
"Not when they stand out in plain day and wear a red coat or a green," said I, flinging the leather halter over the oak tree's limb.
Hanatoh swiftly pinioned his arms and tied his wrists; I tossed the halter's end to Kwiyeh. Tahioni also took hold of it.
"Hoist that spy!" I said coldly. And in a second more his feet were kicking some half dozen inches above the ground.
My Oneidas fastened the halter to a stout bush; I was shaking all over and felt sick and dizzy to hear him raling and choking in the leather noose which was too stiff for the ghastly business.
But at that instant Tahioni shouted a shrill warning; I looked over my shoulder and saw a great number of soldiers wearing red patches on their hats, running across the burning hayfield to surround us.
Yet it needed better men than McDonald's to take me and my Oneidas in Brakabeen Wood. We turned and plunged into the bush, leaving the wretched spy40 hanging to the oak, his convulsed body now spinning dizzily round and round above the ground.
Looking back as I ran, I soon saw that the men who were chasing us had little stomach for a pursuit which must presently lead to bush-fighting. They shouted and halooed, but lagged as they arrived at the denser woods; and they seemed to have no officers to encourage them, or if they indeed possessed any I saw none.
Tahioni came fiercely to me, where I had halted, to watch the red-patch soldiers, saying that we had now been out thirteen days and had taken but three scalps. He said that to hang a man was not a proper vengeance to atone the death of Thiohero; and wanted to know why my prisoners should not be delivered to him and his Oneida comrades, who knew how to punish their enemies.
Which speech so angered me that I had a mind to take him by the throat. Only the sudden memory of our Red Foot clan-ship, and of Thiohero, deterred me. Also, that was no way to treat any Indian; and to lose my self-control was to lose the Oneidas' respect and my authority over them.
"My brother, Tahioni," said I coldly, "should not forget that he is my younger brother.
"If Tahioni were older, and possessed of more wisdom and experience, he would know that unless a chief asks opinions none should be offered."
The youth's eyes flashed at me and he stiffened under a rebuke that is hard for any Iroquois to swallow.
"My younger brother," said I, "ought to know that I am not like an officer of Guy Johnson's Indian Department, who delivers prisoners to the Mohawks. I deliver no prisoner to any Indian. I obey my orders, and expect my Indians to obey mine. They are free always to take Indian scalps. The scalps of white men they take only if permitted by me."
Tahioni hung his head, the Screech-owl and the Water-snake nodded emphatic assent.
"Yonder," said I, "are the red-patch soldiers. They are Tory marauders and outlaws. If you can ambush and cut off any of them, do so. And I care not if you scalp them, either. But if any are taken I shall not deliver them to any Oneida fire. No prisoner of this flying scout shall burn."
The Water-snake twitched my sleeve timidly.
"Hahyion," he said, "we obey. But an Iroquois prefers the fire and torment to the noose. Because he can sing his death songs and laugh at his enemies through the flames. But what man can sing or boast when a rope chokes his speech in his throat?"
I scarcely heeded him, for I was watching the red-patch soldiers, who now were leaving the woods and crossing the hayfield, which still was smoking where the fire made velvet-black patches in the dry grass.
The barn had fallen in and was only a great heap of glowing coals, over which a pale flame played in the late afternoon sunshine.
Listening and looking after the red-patches, I heard very distinctly the sound of guns in the direction of Stone House.
Now, while it was none of my business to hang on McDonald's flanks for prisoners and scalps, it was my business to observe him and what he might be about in Schoharie; and to carry this news to Saratoga by way of Johnstown, along with my budget concerning Stanwix and St. Leger.
Besides, Stone House lay on my way. So I signalled my Indians and started west. And it was not very long before we came upon two Schoharie militia-men whom I knew, Jacob Enders and George Warner, who took to a tree when they discovered my Oneidas in their paint, but came out when I called them by name, and gave an account that they were hunting a notorious Tory, – a renegade and late officer in the Schoharie Regiment, – a certain George Mann, a captain, who would have carried his entire company to McDonald, but was surprised in his villainy and had fled to the woods near Fox Creek.
I told them that we had not seen this fellow, and asked for news; and Warner showed me a scalp which he said he took an hour ago from Ogeyonda, after shooting that treacherous savage at the Flockey.
He gave it to Tahioni, which pleased the Oneida mightily and contented me; for I hate to see any white man take a scalp, though Tim Murphy and Dave Elerson took them as coolly as they took any other peltry.
Warner said that McDonald was up the valley, murdering and burning his way westward; that cavalry from Albany had just arrived, had raided Brick House and taken prisoner a lot of red-patch militia, forced them to tear up their Royal Protections, tied up the most obnoxious, and kicked out the remainder with a warning.
He said, further, that Adam Crysler and Joseph Brown, of Clyberg, were great villains and had joined McDonald with Billy Zimmer and others; and that McDonald had a motley army, full of kilted Highlanders, chasseurs, red-patches, Indians, and painted Tories; and that the cavalry from Albany were marching to meet them, reinforced by Schoharie mounted-militia under Colonel Harper.
And now, even as Warner was still speaking, we heard the trumpet of the cavalry on the river road below; and, running out to the forest's edge, we saw the Albany Riders marching up the river, – two hundred horsemen in bright new helmets and uniforms, finely horsed, their naked sabers all glittering in the sun, and their trumpeter trotting ahead on a handsome white charger.
The horses, four abreast, were at a fast walk; flankers galloped ahead on either wing. And, as we hurried down to the road, an officer I knew, Lieutenant Wirt, came spurring forward to meet and question us, followed by two troopers, – one named Rose and the other was Jake Van Dyck, whom I also recognized.
"Jack Drogue, by all the gods of war!" cried the handsome lieutenant, as I saluted and spoke to him by name.
"Dave Wirt!" I exclaimed, offering my hand, which he grasped, leaning wide from his saddle.
He turned his mount toward the road again, and I and my Oneidas walked along beside him.
"Are those your tame panthers?" he demanded, pointing toward my Oneidas with his sword. "If they are, then we should have agreeable work for them and for you, Jack Drogue. For Vrooman and his men are in Stone House and the red-patches fire on them whenever they show a head; and our cavalry are like to strike McDonald at any moment now. We caught two of his damned spies – "
At that instant, far down the road I saw a woman; and even at that distance I recognized her.
"Yonder walks a bad citizen," said I sharply. "That is Madame Staats!"
We had now arrived beside the moving column of riders; and, as I spoke, a dozen cavalrymen shouted: "Here comes Rya's Pup!"
A captain of cavalry who spoke English with a French accent shouted to the Pup and beckoned her; but she turned and ran the other way.
Immediately two troopers spurred after her and caught her as she was fording the river; and each seized her by a hand, turned their horses, and trotted back to us with their prisoner, amid shouts of laughter.
Rya's Pup, breathless from her enforced run, fairly spat at us in her fury, cursing and threatening and holding her panting flanks in turn.
"You dirty rebel dogs!" she screamed, "wait till McDonald catches you! Ah – there'll be blood enow for you all to wade in as I waded in the river yonder, when your filthy cavalry headed me!"
Wirt tried to question her, but she mocked us all, boasted that McDonald had a huge army at the Flockey, and that he was now on his way to Stone House to destroy us all.
"Turn that slut loose!" said the Captain sharply.
So we let go the Pup, and she turned and legged it, yelling her scorn and fury as she ran; and we saw her go floundering and splashing across the river, doubtless to carry news of us to McDonald.
And it contented us that she so do, because now we came upon Stone House, where the small garrison under a Lieutenant Wallace had ventured out and were a-digging of a ditch and piling fence rails across the road to stop McDonald's riders in a charge.
Here, also, were Harper's mounted militia, sitting their saddles, poorly armed with militia fire-locks.
But we had a respectable force and were ashamed to await the outlaws behind ditch and rail; so we marched on through the gathering dusk to a house about two miles further, where a dozen strangely painted horsemen galloped away as we approached.
A yell of rage at sight of those blue-eyed Indians arose from our riders. Our trumpet sounded; the cavalry broke into a gallop.
It was now twilight.
I begged some mounted militia-men to take me and my Oneidas up behind them; and they were obliging enough to do so; and we jogged away into the rosy dusk of an August evening.
Almost immediately I saw the Flockey ahead, and Adam Crysler's house on the bank; and on the lawn in front of it I saw McDonald's grotesque legion drawn up in line of battle.
As I came up our cavalry was forming to charge; Lieutenant Wirt had just turned in his saddle to speak to me, when one of the outlaws ran out to the edge of the lawn and called across the road to Wirt that he should never live to marry Angelica Vrooman,41 but would die a dog's death as he deserved.
As the cavalry charged, Wirt rode directly at this man, who coolly shot him out of his saddle.
I saw and recognized the outlaw, who was a Tory named Shafer.
As Wirt fell to the grass, stone dead, his horse knocked down Shafer. The Tory got up, streaming with blood but not badly hurt, and, clubbing his piece, attempted to dash out Wirt's dead brains; but Trooper Rose swung his horse violently against Shafer, sabred him, and, in turn, fell from his own saddle, fatally wounded.
Another trooper dismounted to pick up poor Rose, who was in a bad way, but one of McDonald's painted Tories fired on them and both fell.
I fired at this man and wounded him, and Tahioni chased him, caught him, and slew him by the fence.
Then, above the turmoil of horses and gun-shots, the Oneida's terrific scalp-yell rang out in the deepening dusk; and at that dread panther-cry a panic seemed to seize McDonald's men, for their grotesque riders suddenly whirled their horses and stampeded ventre-à-terre, riding westward like damned men; and I saw their Highlanders and Chasseurs and renegade Greens break and scatter into the forest on every side, melting away into the night before our eyes.
Into the brush leaped my Oneidas; their war-yells awoke the shuddering echoes of Brakabeen Wood. I saw a chasseur leap a rail fence, stumble, and fall with the Screech-owl on top of him. Again the awful Oneida scalp-yelp rang out under the first dim stars.
The cavalry returned and camped at Stone House that night. They brought in their dead by torch-light; and I saw Wirt's body borne on a stretcher, and the corpse of Trooper Rose, and others.
One by one my Oneidas returned like blood-slaked and weary hounds. All had taken scalps, and sat late at our fire to hoop and stretch them, and neatly plait the miserable dead hair that hung all draggled from the pitiful shreds of skin.
At a cavalry watch-fire near to ours were also some people I knew – Mayfield men of a scout of six, just come in; and I went over to their fire and greeted them and questioned them concerning news from home.
Truman Christie was their lieutenant; Sol and Seely Woodworth, the two Reynolds, and Billy Dunham composed the scout; and all were in rifle-dress and keen to try their rifles on McDonald, but were arrived too late, and feared now that the outlaws were on their way to Canada.
