Chambers Robert William
The Reckoning
"Yo o-nen o-nen wen-ni-teh onen–"
"Now—now this day—now I come to your door where you mourn.... I will enter your door and come before the ashes and mourn with you there. And these words will I speak to comfort you!"
The music of the voice thrilled me:
"To the warriors, to the women, and also to the children; and also to the little ones creeping on the ground, and also to those still tied to the cradle-board.... This we say, we three brothers....
"Now another thing we will say, we younger brothers. You mourn. I will clear the sky for you so that you shall not behold a cloud. And also I give the sun to shine upon you, so that you can look peacefully upon it when it goes down. You shall see it when it is going. Yea, ye shall look peacefully upon it when it goes down....
"Now another thing we say, we younger brothers. If any one should fall, then the antlers shall be left on the grave....
"Now another thing we say, we younger brothers. We will gird the belt on you with the quiver, and the next death will receive the quiver whenever you shall know that there is death among us, when the fire is made and the smoke is rising. This we say and do, we three brothers.
"Now I have finished. Now show me the man!"
Slowly the Oneida rose from my side and crossed the circle. Every eye was on him; he smiled as he halted, sweeping the throng with a tranquil glance. Then, drawing his blanket about him he stepped from the sanctuary of the council-ring out into the forest; and after him glided a Mohawk warrior, with face painted black, in token of his terrific office.
A dead silence fell upon the council.
The pulse was drumming in ears and throat when I arose; and, as the Mohawk executioner slipped noiselessly past me, I seized him by the clout-belt, and, summoning every atom of strength, hurled him headlong at my feet, so that he lay stunned and like one dead.
A roar of astonishment greeted me; a score of voices cried out savagely on my violation of the fire.
"It is you who violate it!" I answered, trembling with fury; "you who dare pronounce the sentence of death without consulting the four classes of the Oneida!"
A Mohawk sachem arose, casting his scarlet robes at his feet, and pointed at me, hissing: "Where are the Oneida classes? I dare you to tell us where the ensigns hide! Where are they? Speak!"
"Here!" I said, tearing my cape open. "Read that sign, O Canienga! I answer for the four classes of my nation, and I say that Oneida shall go free! Now let him who dare accuse me stand forth. It is a Wolf of Tharon who has spoken!"
Absolute silence greeted me. I had risked all on the hazard.
The executioner had staggered to his feet again, and now stood outside the circle leaning against a young oak-tree, half stunned, mechanically rubbing the twigs and dead leaves from the sticky black paint that masked his visage. I wheeled on him and bade him remain where he was until the council's will was made known; then I walked into the circle; and when they cried out that I had no franchise, I laughed at them, challenging them to deny me my right to stand here for the entire Oneida nation.
For there was nothing now to do but to carry the desperate enterprise through or perish. I dared not stop to consider; to attempt to remember precedents. I turned on the Mohawks haughtily, demanding that privilege which even they could not refuse; I claimed clan-brotherhood from every Wolf in the Long House; and when the council accorded it, I spoke:
"Now I say to you, O you wise men and sachems, that this Oneida shall not die, because the four classes speak through my mouth! Who is there to give me the lie? Why are your eight score Oneidas absent—the eight score who still remain in the Long House? Surely, brothers, there are sachems among them? Why are they not here? Do you fear they might not agree to the punishment of the Oneida nation?"
I folded my arms and stared at the Mohawks.
"Clan ties are close, national ties closer, but strongest and closest of all, the six iron links that form the Great League! Why do you punish now? How can you punish now? Is it well to break the oldest League law to punish those who have broken the law of the League?"
A Mohawk sachem answered in a dozen stinging words that the League itself was broken; but ere he could finish I stopped him with a gesture.
Then, summoning all my powers, I burst out into a passionate protest, denying that the Great League was broken, glorying in its endurance, calling on every nation to uphold it. And instantly, although not a muscle moved nor a word was uttered, I felt that I had the council with me, that my passion was swaying them, that what I asserted they believed. I laughed at the neutrality of the Tuscaroras, at the half-hearted attitude of the Onondagas; I made light of the rebellion of the greater portion of the Oneida nation.
"It is a passing fancy, a whim. The battle-breeze from this white man's war has risen to a tempest, unroofing the Long House, scattering you for the moment, creating a disorder, inciting a passion foreign to the traditions of the Iroquois. I tell you to let the tempest pass and blame no one, neither Tuscarora, Onondaga, nor Oneida. And when the storm has died out, let the Six Nations gather again from their hiding-places and build for the Long House a new roof, and raise new lodge-poles, lest the sky fall down and the Confederacy lie in ashes forever!"
I had ended. A profound hush followed, broken by a low word of approval, then another, then another. Excited, scarcely knowing what I had done, incredulous that I alone had actually stemmed the tide, and, in a breath, overturned the entire plan of the Butlers and of the demoralized Iroquois, I seated myself beside the Tuscaroras, breathing heavily, alert for a sound that might indicate how my harangue had been received.
Muttered expressions of approval, an emphatic word here and there, and not an orator to dispute me!—why, this was victory—though, until the clans had deliberated, I could not know the Federal verdict. But gradually it dawned on me that I had at least stopped the murder of my Oneida, and had lulled all suspicion concerning myself. With a thrill of joy I heard the Seneca spokesman call for the youth to be raised in place of the dead chief; with a long-drawn breath of relief I saw the ancient belts brought, and listened to the reading of the archives from them.
The council ended. One by one the sachems spoke to me kindly, then went their way, some taking to canoes, others filing off through the forest, until I found myself standing there alone before the smoldering fire, the forest before me, the noon sun blazing overhead.
The Oneida, motionless now in the midst of those who had but an hour before decreed his death, watched the plumed sachems pass him in silence. Neither he nor they uttered a word; but when the last canoe had glided off down the Dead Water toward the Sacandaga, and the last tall form faded from view in thicket, marsh, and forest, Little Otter turned and came quietly to me, laying my hands on his heart, and looking me steadily in the eyes. Then together we returned, picking our path through the marsh, until we came to Lyn Montour. As she rose to meet us, a distant sound in the forest attracted the Oneida's attention. I heard it, too; it was the gallop of horses, coming from the north. No Iroquois rode a horse.
Nearer, nearer sounded the drumming thud of the hoofs. I could feel the sodden marsh jarring now—hear the brush crackle and snap.
Suddenly a horseman galloped out of the forest's edge, drew bridle at the clearing, bent and examined the covered fire, struck his forehead, and stared around him.
The horseman was Walter Butler.
CHAPTER XIII
THENDARA NO MORE
Astounded at the apparition, yet instantly aware of his purpose, I sprang forward to meet him. That he did not immediately know me in my forest dress was plain enough, for he hastened my steps with an angry and imperious gesture, flung himself from his saddle, laid down his rifle, and strode to the heap of ashes that had once been the council-fire of Thendara—now Thendara no more.
His face was still flushed with passion when I came up, my rifle cradled in the hollow of my left arm; his distorted features worked silently as he pointed at the whitening ashes. Suddenly he burst out into a torrent of blasphemy.
"What in God's name does this mean?" he shouted. "Have the Iroquois dared leave this fire before I've had my say?"
His rifle rested between him and me, barrel tilted across a rotting log, butt in the wet marsh grass. I took a quick step forward and dislodged the weapon, as though by accident, so that it lay where I could set my foot upon it if necessary. Instantly he faced me, alert, menacing; his dusky eyes lighted to a yellow glare; but when his gaze met mine sheer astonishment held him dumb.
"Captain Butler," I said, controlling the fierce quiver in my voice, "it is not this dead council-fire of Thendara that concerns a Yellow Wolf-whelp."
"No," he said, drawing a long breath, "it is not this fire that concerns us—" The voice died in his throat. Astonishment still dominated; he stared and stared. Then a ghastly laugh stretched his features—a soundless, terrible laugh.
"So you have come to Thendara after all!" he said. "In your fringes and thrums and capes and bead-work I did not know you, Mr. Renault, nor did I understand that Gretna Green is sometimes spelled Thendara!" He pointed at the ashes; an evil laugh stretched his mouth again:
"Thendara was! Thendara will be! Thendara—Thendara no more! And I am too late?"
The evil, silent laugh grew terrible: "Well, Mr. Renault, I had business elsewhere; yet, had I known you had taken to forest-running, I would have come to meet you at Thendara. However, I think there is still time to arrange one or two small differences of opinion that have arisen between you and me."
"There is still time," I said slowly.
He cast an involuntary glance at his rifle; made the slightest motion; hesitated, looking hard at me. I shook my head.
"Not that way?" he inquired blandly. "Well," with a cool shrug, "that was one way to arrange matters, Mr. Renault—and remember I offered it! Remember that, Mr. Renault, when men speak of you as they speak of Boyd!"
The monstrous insult of the menace left me outwardly unmoved; yet I wondered he had dared, seeing how helpless he must be did I but raise my rifle.
"Well, Mr. Renault," he sneered, "I was right, it seems, concerning that scrap o' treason unearthed in your chambers. God! how you flouted that beast, Sir Henry, and his fat-headed adjutant!"
He studied me coldly: "Do you mean to let me have my rifle?"
"No."
"Oh! you mean murder?"
"I am no executioner," I said contemptuously. "There are those a-plenty who will paint black for a guinea—after a court martial. There are those who paint for war, too, Mr. Butler."
I talked to gain time; and, curiously enough, he seemed to aid me, being in nowise anxious to force my hand. Ah! I should have been suspicious at that—I realized it soon enough—yet the Iroquois, leaving Thendara for the rites at the Great Tree, were not yet out of sound of a shout, or of a rifle-shot—though I meant to take him alive, if that were possible. And all the while I watched his every careless gesture, every movement, every flutter of his insolent eyelids, ready to set foot upon his rifle and hold him to the spot. He no longer appeared to occupy himself with the recovery of his rifle; he wore neither pistol nor knife nor hatchet; indeed, in his belt I saw a roll of paper, closely scribbled, and knew it to be a speech composed for delivery at this fire, now burned out forever.
He placed his hands on his hips, pacing to and fro the distance between the fire and the edge of the Dead Water, now looking thoughtfully up into the blue sky, now lost in reverie. And every moment, I believed, was a precious moment gained, separating him more and more hopelessly from his favorite Senecas, whom he might even now summon by a shout.
Presently he halted, with an absent, upward glance, then his gaze reverted to me; he drew out a handsome gold watch, examined it with expressionless interest, and slowly returned it to the fob-pocket.
"Well, sir," he inquired, "do I take it that you desire to further detain me here, or do you merely wish to steal my rifle?"
"I think, truly, that you no longer require your rifle, Mr. Butler," I said quietly.
"A question—a matter of opinion, Mr. Renault." He waved his hand gracefully. "Who are your red friends yonder?" pointing toward the two distant forms at the edge of the willows.
"An Oneida and a quarter-breed."
"Oh—a squaw? By the head-gear I take the smaller one to be a Huron squaw. Which reminds me, Mr. Renault," he added, with a dull stare, "that the last time I had the pleasure of seeing your heels you were headed for the nearest parson!"
That awful, soundless laugh distorted his mouth again:
"I could scarcely be expected to imagine," he added, "that it was as far as this to Gretna Green. Is the Hon. Miss Grey with you here?"
"No, Mr. Butler, but your wife is with me."
"Oh!" he sneered; "so you have learned at last what she is?"
"You do not understand," I continued patiently. "I speak of your wife, Mr. Butler. Shall I name her?"
He looked at me narrowly. Twice his lips parted as though to speak, but no sound came.
"The woman yonder is Lyn Montour," I said in a low voice.
The yellow flare that lighted his black eyes appalled me.
"Listen to me," I went on. "That I do not slay you where you stand is because she is yonder, watching us. God help her, you shall do her justice yet! You are my prisoner, Mr. Butler!" And I set my foot upon his rifle.
He did not seem to hear me; his piercing gaze was concentrated on the two distant figures standing beside the horse.
I waited, then spoke again; and, at the sound of my voice, he wheeled on me with a snarl.
"You damned spy!" he stammered; "I'll stop your dirty business now, by God!" and, leaping back, whipped a ranger's whistle to his lips, waking the forest echoes with the piercing summons ere I had bounded on him and had borne him down, shoulder-deep in moss and marsh-grass.
Struggling, half smothered by the deep and matted tangle, I heard the startled shout of the Oneida; the distant crashing of many men running in the underbrush; and, throttling him with both hands, I dragged him to his feet and started toward the Oneida, pulling my prisoner with me. But a yell from the wood's edge seemed to put fresh life into him; he bit and scratched and struggled, and I labored in vain to choke him or stun him. Then, in very desperation and fear of life, I strove to kill him with my hands, but could not, and at last hurled him from me to shoot him; but he had kicked the flint from my rifle, and, as I leveled it, he dropped on the edge of the Dead Water and wriggled over, splash! into the dark current, diving as my hatchet hit the waves. Then I heard the loud explosion of rifles behind me; bullets tore through the scrub; I turned to run for my life. And it was time.
"Ugh!" grunted the Oneida, as I came bursting headlong through the willows. "Follow now!" He seized the horse by the bridle; the girl mounted; then, leading the horse at a trot, we started due south through the tossing bushes.
A man in a green uniform, knee-deep in the grass, fired at us from the Stacking-Ridge as we passed, and the Oneida shook his rifle at him with a shout of insult. For now at last the whole game was up, and my mission as a spy in this country ended once and forever. No chance now to hobnob with Johnson's Greens, no chance to approach St. Leger and Haldimand. Butler was here, and there could be no more concealment.
Such an exhilaration of savage happiness seized me that I lost my head, and begged the Oneida to stop and let me set a flint and give the Royal Greens a shot or two; but the wily chief refused; and he was wise, for I should have known that the Sacandaga must already be a swarming nest of Johnson's foresters and painted savages.
The heat was terrific in the willows; sweat poured from the half-naked Oneida as he ran, and my hunting-shirt hung soaked, flapping across my thighs.
We had doubled on them now, going almost due west. Far across the Vlaie I could see dark spots moving along the Dead Water, and here and there a distant rifle glimmering as the sun struck it. Now and then a faint shout was borne to our ears as we halted, dripping and panting in the birches to reconnoiter some open swale ahead, or some cranberry-bog crimsoning under the October sun.
We swam the marshy creek miles to the west, coming out presently into a rutty wagon-trail, which I knew ran south to Mayfield; but we dared not use it, so steered the dripping horse southeast, chancing rather to cross Frenchman's Creek, four miles above Varicks, and so, by a circle bearing east and south, reaching the Broadalbin trail, or some safe road between Galway and Perth, or, if driven to it, making for Saratoga as a last resort.
My face was burned deep red, and I was soaked from neck to heels, so that my moccasins rubbed and chafed at every step. The girl had sat her saddle while the horse swam, so that her legs only were wet. As for the Oneida, his oiled and painted skin shed water like the plumage of a duck. Lord knows, we left a trail broad and wet enough for even a Hessian to follow; and for that reason dared not halt north of Frenchman's Creek or short of Vanderveer's grist-mill.
As I plodded on, rifle atrail, I began to comprehend the full import of what had occurred since the day before, when I, with soul full of bitterness, had left Burke's Inn. Was it only a day ago? By Heaven, it seemed a year since I had looked upon Elsin Grey! And what a change in fortune had come upon us in these two score hours! Free to wed now—if we dared accept the heart-broken testimony of this poor girl—if we dared deny the perjured testimony of a dishonored magistrate, leagued with his fellow libertine, who, thank God, had at length learned something of the fury he used on others. Strange that in all this war I had never laid a rifle level save at him; strange that I had never seen blood shed in anger, through all these battle years, except the blood that now dried, clotting on my cheek-bone, where his shoulder-buckle had cut me in the struggle. His spurs, too, had caught in the skirt of my hunting-shirt, tearing it to the fringed hem, and digging a furrow across my instep; and the moccasin on that foot was stiff with blood.
Ah, if I might only have brought him off; if I might only have carried this guilty man to Johnstown! Yet I should have known that Sir John's men were likely to be within hail, fool that I was to take the desperate chance when a little parley, a little edging toward him, a sudden blow might have served. Yet I was glad in my heart that I had not used craft; cat traits are not instinctive with me; craft, stealth, a purring ambush—faugh! I was no coward to beat him down unawares. I had openly declared him prisoner, and I was glad I had done so. Why, I might have shot him as we talked, had I been of a breed to do murder—had I been inhuman enough to slay him, unwarned, before the very eyes of the woman he had wronged, and who still hoped for mercy from him lest she pass her life a loathed and wretched outcast among the people who had accepted her as an Iroquois.
Thinking of these things which so deeply concerned me, I plodded forward with the others, hour after hour, halting once to drink and to eat a little of our parched corn, then to the unspotted trail once more, imperceptibly gaining the slope of that watershed, the streams of which feed the Mayfield Creek, and ultimately the Hudson.
Varicks we skirted, not knowing but Sir John's scouts might be in possession, the peppery, fat patroon having closed his house and taken his flock to Albany; and so traveling the forest east by south, made for the head waters of that limpid trout-stream I had so often fished, spite of the posted warnings and the indignation of the fat patroon, who hated me.
I think it was about four o'clock in the afternoon when, pressing through brush and windfall, we came suddenly out into a sunny road. Beside the road ran a stream clattering down-hill over its stony bed—a clear, noisy stream, with swirling brown trout-pools and rapids, rushing between ledges, foaming around boulders, a joyous, rolicking, dashing, headlong stream, that seemed to cheer us with its gay clamor; and I saw the Oneida's stern eyes soften as he bent his gaze upon it. Poor little Lyn Montour slipped, with a sigh, from her saddle, while my horse buried his dusty nose in the sparkling water, drawing deep, cold draughts through his hot throat. And here by the familiar head waters of Frenchman's Creek we rested in full sight of the grist-mill above us, where the road curved west. The mill-wheel was turning; a man came to the window overlooking the stream and stood gazing at us, and I waved my hand at him reassuringly, recognizing old Vanderveer.
Beyond the mill I could see smoke rising from the chimneys of the unseen settlement. Presently a small barefoot boy came out of the mill, looked at us a moment, then turned and legged it up the road tight as he could go. The Oneida, smoking his pipe, saw the lad's hasty flight, and smiled slightly.
"Yes, Little Otter," I said, "they take us for some of Sir John's people. You'll see them coming presently with their guns. Hark! There goes a signal-shot now!"
The smacking crack of a rifle echoed among the hills; a conch-horn's melancholy note sounded persistently.
"Let us go on to the Yellow Tavern," I said; and we rose and limped forward, leading the horse, whose head hung wearily.
Before we reached the Oswaya mill some men in their shirt-sleeves shot at us, then ran down through an orchard, calling on us to halt. One carried a shovel, one a rifle, and the older man, whom I knew as a former tenant of my father, bore an ancient firelock. When I called out to him by name he seemed confused, demanding to know whether we were Whigs or Tories; and when at length he recognized me he appeared to be vastly relieved. It seemed that he, Wemple, and his two sons had been burying apples, and that hearing the shot fired, had started for their homes, where already the alarm had spread. Seeing us, and supposing we had cut him off from the settlement, he had decided to fight his way through to the mill.
"I'm mighty glad you ain't shot, Mr. Renault," he said in his thin, high voice, scratching his chin, and staring hard at the Oneida. "Seein' these here painted injuns sorter riled me up, an' I up an' let ye have it. So did Willum here. Lord, sir, we've been expecting Sir John for a month, so you must kindly excuse us, Mr. Renault!"
He shook his white head and looked up the road where a dozen armed men were already gathered, watching us from behind the fences.
"Sir John is on the Sacandaga," I said. "Why don't you go to Johnstown, Wemple? This is no place for your people."
He stood, rubbing his hard jaw reflectively.
"Waal, sir," he piped, "it's kind er hard to leave all you've got in the world." He added, looking around at his fields: "I'd be a pauper if I quit. Mebbe they won't come here, after all. Mebbe Sir John will go down the Valley."
"Besides, we ain't got our pumpkins in nor the winter corn stacked," observed one of his sons sullenly.
We all turned and walked slowly up the road in the direction of the big yellow tavern, old Wemple shaking his head, and talking all the while in a thin, flat, high-pitched voice: "It seems kind'r hard that Sir John can't quit his pesterin' an' leave folks alone. What call has he to come back a-dodgin' 'round here year after year, a-butcherin' his old neighbors, Mr. Renault? 'Pears to me he's gone crazy as a mad dog, a-whirlin' round and round the same stump, buttin' and bitin' and clawin' up the hull place. Sakes alive! ain't he got no human natur'? Last Tuesday they come to Dan Norris's, five mile down the creek, an' old man Norris he was in the barn makin' a ladder, an' Dan he was gone for the cow. A painted Tory run into the kitchen an' hit the old woman with his hatchet, an' she fetched a screech, an' her darter, 'Liza, she screeched, too. Then a Injun he hit the darter, and he kep' a-kickin' an' a-hittin', an' old man Norris he heard the rumpus out to the barn, an' he run in, an' they pushed him out damn quick an' shot him in the legs. A Tory clubbed him an' ripped his skelp off, the old man on his knees, a-bellowin' piteous, till they knifed him all to slivers an' kicked what was left o' him into the road. The darter she prayed an' yelled, but 'twan't no use, for they cut her that bad with hatchets she was dead when Dan came a-runnin'. 'God!' he says, an' goes at the inimy, swingin' his milk-stool—but, Lord, sir, what can one man do? He was that shot up it 'ud sicken you, Mr. Renault. An' then they was two little boys a-lookin' on at it, too frightened to move; but when the destructives was a-beatin' old Mrs. Norris to death they hid in the fence-hedge. An' they both of 'em might agot clean off, only the littlest one screamed when they tore the skelp off'n the old woman; an' he run off, but a Tory he chased him an' ketched him by the fence, an' he jest held the child's legs between his'n, an' bent him back an' cut his throat, the boy a-squealin' something awful. Then the Tory skelped him an' hung him acrost the fence. The only Norris what come out of it was the lad who lay tight in the fence-scrub—Jimmy. He's up at my house; you'll see him. He come here that night to tell us of them goin's on. He acts kinder stupid, like he ain't got no wits, an' he jests sets an' sets, starin' at nothin'—leastways at nothin' I kin see–"
His high-pitched, garrulous chatter, and the horrid purport of it, were to me indescribably ghastly. To hear such things told without tremor or emphasis or other emotion than the sullen faces of his two strapping sons—to hear these incredible horrors babbled by an old man whose fate might be the same that very night, affected me with such an overpowering sense of helplessness that I could find no word to reassure either him or the men and boys who now came crowding around us, asking anxiously if we had news from the Sacandaga or from the north.
All I could do was to urge them to leave their homes and go to Johnstown; but they shook their heads, some asserting that Johnstown was full of Tories, awaiting the coming of Walter Butler to rise and massacre everybody; others declaring that the Yellow Tavern, which had been fortified, was safer than Albany itself. None would leave house or land; and whether these people really believed that they could hold out against a sudden onslaught, I never knew. They were the usual mixture of races, some of low Dutch extraction, like the Vanderveers and Wemples, some high Dutch, like the Kleins; and, around me, I saw, recognized, and greeted people who in peaceful days had been settled in these parts, and some among them had worked for my father—honest, simple folk, like Patrick Farris, with his pretty Dutch wife and tow-headed youngsters; and John Warren, once my father's head groom, and Jacob Klock, kinsman of the well-known people of that name.
The Oneida, pressed and questioned on every side, replied in guarded monosyllables; poor Lyn Montour, wrapped to the eyes in her blanket, passed for an Iroquois youth, and was questioned mercilessly, until I interposed and opened the tavern door for her and for Little Otter.
"I tell you, Wemple," I said, turning on the tavern porch to address the people, "there is no safety here for you if Walter Butler or Sir John arrive here in force. It will be hatchet and torch again—the same story, due to the same strange Dutch obstinacy, or German apathy, or Yankee foolhardiness. In the grain belt it is different; there the farmers are obliged to expose themselves because our army needs bread. But your corn and buckwheat and pumpkins and apples can be left for a week or two until we see how this thing is going to end. Be sensible; stack what you can, but don't wait to thresh or grind. Bury your apples; let the cider go; harness up; gather your cattle and sheep; pack up the clock and feather bed, and move to Johnstown with your families. In a week or two you will know whether this country is to be given to the torch again, or whether, by God's grace, Colonel Willett is to send Walter Butler packing! I'll wait here a day for you. Think it over.
"I have seen the Iroquois at the Sacandaga Vlaie. I saw Walter Butler there, too; and the woods were alive with Johnson's Greens. The only reason why they have not struck you here is, no doubt, because there was more plunder and more killing to be had along the Sacandaga. But when there remain no settlements there—when villages, towns, hamlets are in ashes, like Currietown, like Minnesink, Cherry Valley, Wyoming, Caughnawaga, then they'll turn their hatchets on these lone farms, these straggling hamlets and cross-road taverns. I tell you, to-day there is not a house unburned at Caughnawaga, except the church and that villain Doxtader's house—not a chimney standing in the Mohawk Valley, from Tribes Hill to the Nose. Ten miles of houses in ashes, ten miles of fields a charred trail!
"Now, do as you please, but remember. For surely as I stand here the militia call has already gone out, and this country must remain exposed while we follow Butler and try to hunt him down."
The little throng of people, scarcely a dozen in all, received my warning in silence. Glancing down the road, I saw one or two women standing at their house doors, and children huddled at the gate, all intently watching us.
"I want to send a message to Colonel Willett," I said, turning to the Oneida. "Can you go? Now?"
The tireless fellow smiled.
"Give us what you have to eat," I said to Patrick Farris, whose round and rosy little wife had already laid the board in the big room inside. And presently we sat down to samp, apple-sauce, and bread, with a great bowl of fresh milk to each cover.
