Robert W. Chambers

“ De Luysnes and Johnny Silver I stationed on Maxon's honest nose, where the valley of the Sacandaga and the Drowned Lands lay like a vast map at their feet, while Nick Stoner and I prowled the silent Iroquois trail or slid like a pair of otters through the immense desolation of the Drowned Lands, from the jungle-like recesses of which we could see the distant glitter of muskets where our garrison was drilling at Fish House, and a white speck to the southward, which marked the little white and green lodge at Summer House Point. ”

“ And up rose their astounded comrades from every hollow, bush and windfall, only to drop flat at our rifles' crack, and no knowing if we had hit any among them.
A veil of smoke lay low among the ferns in front of us. There was a terrible silence in the forest, then screech on screech rent the air, as the panther slogan rang out from our unseen foes; and, like a dreadful echo, my Oneidas hurled their war cry back at them; and we all sprang to our feet and moved swiftly forward, crouching low in our own rifle smoke. ”

“ What is your choice, Penelope?"
"I have no passion for a cloister," replied the girl, so candidly that all laughed, and she blushed prettily.
"That is best," nodded Claudia; "accept the creature as he is. We're fools if we're bitten before we're married, and fortunate if we're not nipped afterward. Anyway, I love men, and so God bless them, for they can't help being what they are and it's our own fault if they play too roughly and hurt us."
Lady Johnson laughed and laid her hand lightly on my shoulder.
"Dear Jack," said she, "we do not mean you, of course." ”

“ I want strong men, keen men, tough men, rough men.
"I want men who fear God, if that may be, or who fear the devil, if that may be; but who fear nothing else on earth!"
He shot a look at Nick, "—like that boy there!" he exclaimed—"or I am no judge of men! And like yourself, Mr. Drogue, when once they blood you! Come, sir; can you find a few such men for me, and take full charge?"
"Yes, sir."
"A pledge!" he exclaimed, beating his gloved palms. "And when you can collect a dozen—the first full dozen—I want you to stop the Iroquois trail at the Sacandaga. ”

“ Eh, John? By heaven, is she not fresh and pink as a dewy strawberry in June—my pretty little wench? Is she not apt as a school-learned lass with any new lesson a man chooses to teach?"
"Yes, too apt, perhaps," said I, shaking my head but laughing. "But I think they have had already a lesson or two in such frolics, less innocent, perhaps, than the lesson we gave."
"I'll break the back of any red-coat who stops at Pigeon-Wood!" cried Nick Stoner with an oath. "Yes, red-coat or any other colour, either!" ”

“ That day I wore a light, round cap of silver mole fur with my unshorn hair, all innocent of queue or powder, curling crisp like a woman's. Of which I was ashamed and eager to visit Toby Tice, our Johnstown barber, and be trimmed.
My new forest dress, as I say, was of doe-skin—a laced shirt belted in, shoulder-caped, cut round the neck to leave my throat free, and with long thrums on sleeve and skirt against need.
Trews shaped to fit my legs close; and thigh moccasins, very deep with undyed fringe, but ornamented by an infinite pattern of little green vines, made me brave in my small mirror. ”

“ We had taken ten scalps; and, as only Johnny Silver among my white people fancied such trophies, my Oneidas skinned the noddles of our quarry, and, like all Indians, counted any scalp a glory, no matter whose knife or bullet dropped the game.
We all bore scratches, and some among us were stiff, so that the scratch might, perhaps, be called a wound. A bullet had barked de Golyer, another had burned Tahioni; Silver proudly wore a knife wound; the Screech-owl had been beaten and somewhat badly bitten. As for Nick, his head was cracked, and the little maid of Askalege still spewed water. ”

“ Again and again, checked by some high dam of drifted windfall, we were forced to make a swampy carry, waist high through bog and water.
Often, so, we were forced to rest; and we sat silent, panting, skin-soaked in the chilly night air, gazing at the distant fire, which, though now miles away, seemed so near. And I could even see trees black against the blaze, and smoke rolling turbulently, and a great whirl of sparks mounting skyward.
It was long past midnight when I hailed the picket at the grist-mill and drove our canoe shoreward into the light of a lifted lantern.
"Is Nick Stoner in?" ”

“ And, at the stair-head, met Nick.
"Well," said I savagely, "you may not have her. For she loves Steve Watts and dotes on his picture in her bosom. And as for you, you may go to the devil!"
"Why, you sorry ass," says he, "have you thought I desired her?"
"Do you not?"
"Good God!" cried he, "because this poor and moon-smitten gentleman hath rolled sheep's eyes upon a yellow-haired maid, then, in his mind, all the world's aflame to woo her too and take her from his honest arms! What the plague do I want of your sweetheart, Jack Drogue, when I've one at Pigeon Wood and my eye on another, too!" ”

“ It was late in April, and I had boiled my sap and had done with my sugar bush for another year. The snow was gone; the Kennyetto roared amber brilliant through banks of melting ice, and a sweet odour of arbutus filled all the woods.
Spring was in the land and in my heart, too, and when Nick Stoner galloped to my door in his new forest dress, very fine, I, nothing loath, did hasten to dress me in my new doe-skins, not less fine than Nick's and lately made for me by a tailor-woman in Kingsborough who was part Oneida and part Dutch. ”

“ What a battle! For all were filthy with blood, and there were brains and hair and guts sticking to knives and hatchets, and bodies and limbs all smeared. Good God! Was this war? And the green flies already whirling around us in the sunshine, and settling on the faces of the dead!—
The little maid of Askalege, leaning on her brother's shoulder, was coughing up water she had swallowed.
Nick, with a bloody sconce, but no worse damage, sat upon a rock and washed out his clotted hair.
"Hell!" quoth he, when he beheld me. "Here be I with a broken poll, and yonder goes the Indian who gave it me." ”

“ I turned to Tahioni:
"Brother, why are you in battle-paint?" I demanded.
At that the eyes of the Oneida youths began to sparkle and burn; and Tahioni straightened up and struck the knife-hilt at his belt with a quick, fierce gesture.
"Give me a name that I may know my brother," he said bluntly. "Even a tree has a name." And I flushed at this merited rebuke.
"My name is John Drogue, and I am lieutenant of our new State Rangers," said I. "And this is my comrade, Nicholas Stoner, of Fonda's Bush, and first sergeant in my little company." ”

“ Tahioni had gathered a dry faggot; Kwiyeh carried a bundle of cherry-birch, samphire, and witch-hopple. The Water-snake laid the fire.
All seated themselves; I struck flint, blew the tinder to a coal, and lighted a silver birch-shred.
The scented smoke mounted straight up through the trees; I rose in silence; and when the first burning stick fell into soft white ashes, I took a few flakes in my palm and rubbed them across my forehead. Then I spoke, facing the locked gates of morning in the dark:
"Now—now I hear your voice coming to us through the forest in the night. ”

“ It was plain to me that my Indians meant to make a night of it—even those who, dog weary, had but now returned with me from the futile brant chase and sat eating their samp.
The French trappers squatted in a row, smoking their pipes and looking on with that odd sympathy for any savage rite, which, I think, partly explains French success among all Indians.
Firelight glimmered red on their weather-ravaged faces, on their gaudy fringes and moccasins.
Near them, lolling in the warm young grass, sprawled Nick and Godfrey. I sat down by them, my back against a log. My Saguenay crept to my side. ”

“ What do they amount to, these Keepers of the Eastern Gate, since Sir William died?
"They have become outlaws and there is no honour among them!
"Their clan-right is destroyed and neither Wolf, Bear, nor Tortoise know them any longer. Nor does any ensign of my own clan of the Heron know these mad yellow wolves that howl and tear the Long House with their teeth to destroy it! Like carcajoux, they defile the Iroquois League and smother its fire in their filth! Dig up the ashes of Onondaga for any living ember, O you Oneidas! You shall find not one live spark! ”

“ Clear my glebe?"
"Remove thither—in proper person, Mr. Drogue?"
"As soon as may be, Sir John."
At that Lady Johnson gave me a quick look and Claudia said: "What! Would you bury yourself alive in that wilderness, Jack Drogue?"
I smiled. "But I must hew out for myself a career in the world some day, Sacharissa. So why not begin now?"
"Then in Heaven's name," she exclaimed impatiently, "go somewhere among men and not among the wild beasts of the forest! Why, a young man is like to perish of loneliness in such a spot; is he not, Sir John?"
Sir John's inscrutable gaze remained fixed on me. ”

“ Alas for poor New York, where fire and explosion had laid a third of the city in ruins; where the drums of the red-coats now rolled brazenly along the Broadway; where Delancy's horsemen scoured the island for friends to liberty; where that great wretch, Loring, lorded it like an unclean devil of the pit.
God! to think on it when all had gone so well; and Boston clean o' red-coats, and Canada all but in our grasp; and old Charleston shaking with her dauntless cannonade, and our people's volleys pouring into Dunmore's hirelings through the levelled cinders of Norfolk town! ”

“ All asses are made to be ridden.
The first snow came, as I have said, like shot-scattered down from a wild-duck's breast. Then days of golden stillness, with mornings growing ever colder and the frost whitening shady spots long after sun-up.
I remember a bear swam Vlaie Water, but galloped so swiftly into the bush that no rifle was ready to stop him.
We mangered our cattle o' nights; and, as frosty grazing checks milk flow, Nick and I brought in hay from the stacks which the Continental soldiers had cut against a long occupation of Summer House Point. ”

“ This sweet April day, taking the air near Lord Stirling's marquee, I see the first white butterflies a-fluttering like windblown bits o' paper across the new grass.... In the North the woodlands should be soft with snow; and, in warm places, perhaps the butterfly we call the beauty of Camberwell may sit sipping the first drops o' maple sap.... And there should be a scent of pink arbutus in the breeze, if winds be soft.... Lord—Lord—I am become sick for home.... And would see my glebe again in Fonda's Bush; and hear the spring roaring of the Kennyetto between melting banks.... ”

“ Yet, Sir William had seen the child at Askalege dancing in the stream of sparks that poured from Spencer's smithy when the Oneida blacksmith pumped his home-made bellows or struck fire-flakes from the cherry-red iron.
I said: "Are you sure, Nick? For never have I seen an Indian maid play boy in earnest."
"She is the little witch-maid of Askalege—their prophetess," he repeated. "I saw her once at Oneida Lake, dancing on the shore amid a whirl of yellow butterflies at their strawberry feast. God send she favours our party, for the Oneidas will follow her." ”

“ The Oneidas, so far, have been friendly. For God's sake, be careful what you do."
"Best parley quick then," returned Nick, "for I trust no Iroquois. You know his lingo. Speak to him."
I called across the stream to the Indian: "Who are you, brother? What is your nation and what is your clan, and what are you doing on the Sacandaga, with your face painted in black and yellow bars, and fresh oil on your limbs and lock?"
He said, in his quiet but distinct voice: "My nation is Oneida; my clan is the Tortoise; I am Tahioni. I am a young and inexperienced warrior. No scalp yet hangs from my girdle. ”

“ 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." ”

“ And in that swampy forest, at this very moment, were hidden desperate men who designed our deaths—men I knew—neighbors at Fonda's Bush, like the Cadys, Helmers, and Dries Bowman!—men who lately served in my militia company, like Balty Weed and Gene Grinnis.
Now, as I paced the fire circle, listening and waiting for Nick and Johnny Silver, I could scarce credit what the wretch, Moucher, had told me, so horrid bloody did their enterprise appear to me.
That they should strive to kill us when facing us in proper battle, that I could comprehend. ”

“ I kissed her, and, still resting her hands on my shoulders, she looked down into my eyes.
"Are you of Sir John's people?" she asked.
"Of them, perhaps, but not now with them, Jessica."
"Oh. The other party?"
"Yes."
"You! A Boston man?"
"Nick and I, both."
"Why?"
"Because we design to live as free as God made us, and not as king-fashioned slaves."
"Oh, la!" quoth she, opening her eyes wide, "you use very mighty words to me, Mr. Drogue. There are young men in red coats and gilt lace on their hats who would call you rebel." ”

“ I was content to see her face grow vaguely; sweetly take shape from the darkness under my absent gaze;—content to evoke the silent phantom out of the stuff that ghosts are made of—those frail phantoms which haunt the secret recesses of men's minds.
I was asleep when Nick touched me. Thiohero still slept against my shoulder; the Yellow Leaf and the Oneidas still danced and vaunted their prowess, and they had set a post in the soft earth near the shore, and had painted it red ”

“ Across the breast of my tow-cloth hunting-shirt I slung a bullet-pouch, a powder-horn and a leather haversack; seized my light hatchet and hung it to my belt, hoisted the blanket pack to my shoulders and strapped it there; and, picking up rifle and hunting knife, I passed swiftly out of the house, fastening the heavy oaken door behind me and wondering whether I should ever return to open it again.
The trodden forest trail, wide enough for a team to pass, lay straight before me due west, through heavy woods, to Andrew Bowman's farm. ”