Schuyler had said to me that it was not the black-eyed Indians the people of Tryon County dreaded, but the blue-eyed savages. And I had scarcely understood at that time how the ferocity of demons could lie dormant in white breasts.

Standing there with Mount under the oak, I saw Sir George and Magdalen Brant leave the house and stroll down the path towards the stream. Sir George was still speaking in his quiet, earnest manner; her eyes were fixed on him so that she scarce heeded her steps, and twice long sprays of sweetbrier caught her gown, and Sir George freed her. But her eyes never wandered from him; and I myself thought he never looked so handsome and courtly as he did now, in his officer's uniform and black cockade.

Where their pathway entered the alders, below the lane, they vanished from our sight; and, leaving Mount to watch I went back to the house, to search it thoroughly from cellar to the dark garret beneath the eaves.

At two o'clock in the afternoon Sir George and Magdalen Brant had not returned. I called Mount into the house, and we cooked some eggs and johnny-cake to stay our stomachs. An hour later I sent Mount out to make a circle of a mile, strike the Iroquois trail and hang to it till dark, following any traveller, white or red, who might be likely to lead him towards the secret trysting-place of the False-Faces.

Left alone at the house, I continued to rummage, finding nothing of importance, however; and towards dusk I came out to see if I might discover Sir George and Magdalen Brant. They were not in sight. I waited for a while, strolling about the deserted garden, where a few poppies turned their crimson disks towards the setting sun, and a peony lay dead and smelling rank, with the ants crawling all over it. In the mellow light the stillness was absolute, save when a distant white-throat's silvery call, long drawn out, floated from the forest's darkening edge.

The melancholy of the deserted home oppressed me, as though I had wronged it; the sad little house seemed to be watching me out of its humble windows, like a patient dog awaiting another blow. Beacraft's worn coat and threadbare vest, limp and musty as the garments of a dead man, hung on a peg behind the door. I searched the pockets with repugnance and found a few papers, which smelled like the covers of ancient books, memoranda of miserable little transactions—threepence paid for soling shoes, twopence here, a penny there; nothing more. I threw the papers on the grass, dipped up a bucket of well-water, and rinsed my fingers. And always the tenantless house watched me furtively from its humble windows.

The sun's brassy edge glittered above the blue chain of hills as I walked across the pasture towards the path that led winding among the alders to the brook below. I followed it in the deepening evening light and sat down on a log, watching the water swirling through the flat stepping-stones where trout were swarming, leaping for the tiny winged creatures that drifted across the dusky water. And as I sat there I became aware of sounds like voices; and at first, seeing no one, I thought the noises came from the low bubbling monotone of the stream. Then I heard a voice murmuring: "I will do what you ask me—I will do everything you desire."

Fearful of eavesdropping, I rose, peering ahead to make myself known, but saw nothing in the deepening dusk. On the point of calling, the words died on my lips as the same voice sounded again, close to me:

"I pray you let me have my way. I will obey you. How can you doubt it? But I must obey in my own way."

And Sir George's deep, pleasant voice answered: "There is danger to you in this. I could not endure that, Magdalen."

They were on a path parallel to the trail in which I stood, separated from me by a deep fringe of willow. I could not see them, though now they were slowly passing abreast of me.

"What do you care for a maid you so easily persuade?" she asked, with a little laugh that rang pitifully false in the dusk.

"It is her own merciful heart that persuades her," he said, under his breath.

"I think my heart is merciful," she said—"more merciful than even I knew. The restless blood in me set me afire when I saw the wrong done to these patient people of the Long House.... And when they appealed to me I came here to justify them, and bid them stand for their own hearths.... And now you come, teaching me the truth concerning right and wrong, and how God views justice and injustice; and how this tempest, once loosened, can never be chained until innocent and guilty are alike ingulfed.... I am very young to know all these things without counsel.... I needed aid—and wisdom to teach me—your wisdom. Now, in my turn, I shall teach; but you must let me teach in my way. There is only one way that the Long House can be taught.... You do not believe it, but in this I am wiser than you—I know."

"Will you not tell me what you mean to do, Magdalen?"

"No, Sir George."

"When will you tell me?"

"Never. But you will know what I have done. You will see that I hold three nations back. What else can you ask? I shall obey you. What more is there?"

Her voice lingered in the air like an echo of flowing water, then died away as they moved on, until nothing sounded in the forest stillness save the low ripple of the stream. An hour later I picked my way back to the house and saw Sir George standing in the starlight, and Mount beside him, pointing towards the east.

"I've found the False-Faces' trysting-place," said Mount, eagerly, as I came up. "I circled and struck the main Iroquois trail half a mile yonder in the bottom land—a smooth, hard trail, worn a foot deep, sir. And first comes an Onondaga war-party, stripped and painted something sickening, and I dogged 'em till they turned off into the bush to shoot a doe full of arrows—though all had guns!—and left 'em eating. Then comes three painted devils, all hung about with witch-drums and rattles, and I tied to them. And, would you believe it, sir, they kept me on a fox-trot straight east, then south along a deer-path, till they struck the Kennyetto at that sulphur spring under the big cliff—you know, Sir George, where Klock's old line cuts into the Mohawk country?"

"I know," said Sir George.

Mount took off his cap and scratched his ear.

"The forest is full of little heaps of flat stones. I could see my painted friends with the drums and rattles stop as they ran by, and each pull a flat stone from the river and add it to the nearest heap. Then they disappeared in the ravine—and I guess that settles it, Captain Ormond."

Sir George looked at me, nodding.

"That settles it, Ormond," he said.

I bade Mount cook us something to eat. Sir George looked after him as he entered the house, then began a restless pacing to and fro, arms loosely clasped behind him.

"About Magdalen Brant," he said, abruptly. "She will not speak to the three nations for Butler's party. The child had no idea of this wretched conspiracy to turn the savages loose in the valley. She thought our people meant to drive the Iroquois from their own lands—a black disgrace to us if we ever do!... They implored her to speak to them in council. Did you know they believe her to be inspired? Well, they do. When she was a child they got that notion, and Guy Johnson and Walter Butler have been lying to her and telling her what to say to the Oneidas and Onondagas."

He turned impatiently, pacing the yard, scowling, and gnawing his lip.

"Where is she?" I asked.

"She has gone to bed. She would eat nothing. We must take her back with us to Albany and summon the sachems of the three nations, with belts."

"Yes," I said, slowly. "But before we leave I must see the False-Faces."

"Did Schuyler make that a point?"

"Yes, Sir George."

"They say the False-Faces' rites are terrific," he muttered. "Thank God, that child will not be lured into those hideous orgies by Walter Butler!"

We walked towards the house where Mount had prepared our food. I sat down on the door-step to eat my porridge and think of what lay before me and how best to accomplish it. And at first I was minded to send Sir George back with Magdalen Brant and take only Mount with me. But whether it was a craven dread of despatching to Dorothy the man she was pledged to wed, or whether a desire for his knowledge and experience prompted me to invite his attendance at the False-Faces' rites, I do not know clearly, even now. He came out of the house presently, and I asked him if he would go with me.

"One of us should stay here with Magdalen Brant," he said, gravely.

"Is she not safe here?" I asked.

"You cannot leave a child like that absolutely alone," he answered.

"Then take her to Varicks'," I said, sullenly. "If she remains here some of Butler's men will be after her to attend the council."

"You wish me to go up-stairs and rouse her for a journey—now?"

"Yes; it is best to get her into a safe place," I muttered. "She may change her ideas, too, betwixt now and dawn."

He re-entered the house. I heard his spurs jingling on the stairway, then his voice, and a rapping at the door above.

Jack Mount appeared, rifle in hand, wiping his mouth with his fingers; and together we paced the yard, waiting for Sir George and Magdalen Brant to set out before we struck the Iroquois trail.

Suddenly Sir George's heavy tread sounded on the stairs; he came to the door, looking about him, east and west. His features were pallid and set and seamed with stern lines; he laid an unsteady hand on my arm and drew me a pace aside.

"Magdalen Brant is gone," he said.

"Gone!" I repeated. "Where?"

"I don't know!" he said, hoarsely.

I stared at him in astonishment. Gone? Where? Into the tremendous blackness of this wilderness that menaced us on all sides like a sea? And they had thought to tame her like a land-blown gull among the poultry!

"Those drops of Mohawk blood are not in her veins for nothing," I said, bitterly. "Here is our first lesson."

He hung his head. She had lied to him with innocent, smooth face, as all such fifth-castes lie. No jewelled snake could shed her skin as deftly as this young maid had slipped from her shoulders the frail garment of civilization.

The man beside me stood as though stunned. I was obliged to speak to him thrice ere he roused to follow Jack Mount, who, at a sign from me, had started across the dark hill-side to guide us to the trysting-place of the False-Faces' clan.

"Mount," I whispered, as he lingered waiting for us at the stepping-stones in the dark, "some one has passed this trail since I stood here an hour ago." And, bending down, I pointed to a high, flat stepping-stone, which glimmered wet in the pale light of the stars.

Sir George drew his tinder-box, struck steel to flint, and lighted a short wax dip.

"Here!" whispered Mount.

On the edge of the sand the dip-light illuminated the small imprint of a woman's shoe, pointing southeast.

Magdalen Brant had heard the voices in the Long House.

"The mischief is done," said Sir George, steadily. "I take the blame and disgrace of this."

"No; I take it," said I, sternly. "Step back, Sir George. Blow out that dip! Mount, can you find your way to that sulphur spring where the flat stones are piled in little heaps?"

The big fellow laughed. As he strode forward into the depthless sea of darkness a whippoorwill called.

"That's Elerson, sir," he said, and repeated the call twice.

The rifleman appeared from the darkness, touching his cap to me. "The horses are safe, sir," he said. "The General desires you to send your report through Sir George Covert and push forward with Mount to Stanwix."

He drew a sealed paper from his pouch and handed it to me, saying that I was to read it.

Sir George lighted his dip once more. I broke the seal and read my orders under the feeble, flickering light:

"TEMPORARY HEADQUARTERS, VARICK MANOR, June 1, 1777.

To Captain Ormond, on scout:

Sir,—The General commanding this department desires you to employ all art and persuasion to induce the Oneidas, Tuscaroras, and Onondagas to remain quiet. Failing this, you are again reminded that the capture of Magdalen Brant is of the utmost importance. If possible, make Walter Butler also prisoner, and send him to Albany under charge of Timothy Murphy; but, above all, secure the person of Magdalen Brant and send her to Varick Manor under escort of Sir George Covert. If, for any reason, you find these orders impossible of execution, send your report of the False-Faces' council through Sir George Covert, and push forward with the riflemen Mount, Murphy, and Elerson until you are in touch with Gansevoort's outposts at Stanwix. Warn Colonel Gansevoort that Colonel Barry St. Leger has moved from Oswego, and order out a strong scout towards Fort Niagara. Although Congress authorizes the employment of friendly Oneidas as scouts, General Schuyler trusts that you will not avail yourself of this liberty. Noblesse oblige! The General directs you to return only when you have carried out these orders to the best of your ability. You will burn this paper before you set out for Stanwix. I am, sir,

"Your most humble and obedient servant,

"JOHN HARROW, Major and A. D. C. to the Major-General Commanding. (Signed) PHILIP SCHUYLER, Major-General Commanding the Department of the North."

Hot with mortification at the wretched muddle I had already made of my mission, I thrust the paper into my pouch and turned to Elerson.

"You know Magdalen Brant?" I asked, impatiently.

"Yes, sir."

"There is a chance," I said, "that she may return to that house on the hill behind us. If she comes back you will see that she does not leave the house until we return."

Sir George extinguished the dip once more. Mount turned and set off at a swinging pace along the invisible path; after him strode Sir George; I followed, brooding bitterly on my stupidity, and hopeless now of securing the prisoner in whose fragile hands the fate of the Northland lay.



XV

THE FALSE-FACES

For a long time we had scented green birch smoke, and now, on hands and knees, we were crawling along the edge of a cliff, the roar of the river in our ears, when Mount suddenly flattened out and I heard him breathing heavily as I lay down close beside him.

"Look!" he whispered, "the ravine is full of fire!"

A dull-red glare grew from the depths of the ravine; crimson shadows shook across the wall of earth and rock. Above the roaring of the stream I heard an immense confused murmur and the smothered thumping rhythm of distant drumming.

"Go on," I whispered.

Mount crawled forward, Sir George and I after him. The light below burned redder and redder on the cliff; sounds of voices grew more distinct; the dark stream sprang into view, crimson under the increasing furnace glow. Then, as we rounded a heavy jutting crag, a great light flared up almost in our faces, not out of the kindling ravine, but breaking forth among the huge pines on the cliffs.

"Their council-fire!" panted Mount. "See them sitting there!"

"Flatten out," I whispered. "Follow me!" And I crawled straight towards the fire, where, ink-black against the ruddy conflagration, an enormous pine lay uprooted, smashed by lightning or tempest, I know not which.

Into the dense shadows of the debris I crawled, Mount and Sir George following, and lay there in the dark, staring at the forbidden circle where the secret mysteries of the False-Faces had already begun.

Three great fires roared, set at regular intervals in a cleared space, walled in by the huge black pines. At the foot of a tree sat a white man, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. The man was Walter Butler.

On his right sat Brant, wrapped in a crimson blanket, his face painted black and scarlet. On his left knelt a ghastly figure wearing a scowling wooden mask painted yellow and black.

Six separate groups of Indians surrounded the fires. They were sachems of the Six Nations, each sachem bearing in his hands the symbol of his nation and of his clan. All were wrapped in black-and-white blankets, and their faces were painted white above the upper lip as though they wore skin-tight masks.

Three young girls, naked save for the beaded clout, and painted scarlet from brow to ankle, beat the witch-drums tump-a-tump! tump-a-tump! while a fourth stood, erect as a vermilion statue, holding a chain belt woven in black-and-white wampum.

Behind these central figures the firelight fell on a solid semicircle of savages, crowns shaved, feathers aslant on the braided lock, and all oiled and painted for war.

A chief, wrapped in a blue blanket, stepped out into the circle swinging the carcass of a white dog by the hind-legs. He tied it to a black-birch sapling and left it dangling and turning round and round.

"This for the Keepers of the Fires," he said, in Tuscarora, and flung the dog's entrails into the middle fire.

Three young men sprang into the ring; each threw a log onto one of the fires.

"The name of the Holder of the Heavens may now be spoken and heard without offence," said an old sachem, rising. "Hark! brothers. Harken, O you wise men and sachems! The False-Faces are laughing in the ravine where the water is being painted with firelight. I acquaint you that the False-Faces are coming up out of the ravine!"

The witch-drums boomed and rattled in the silence that followed his words. Far off I heard the sound of many voices laughing and talking all together; nearer, nearer, until, torch in hand, a hideously masked figure bounded into the circle, shaking out his bristling cloak of green reeds. Another followed, another, then three, then six, then a dozen, whirling their blazing torches; all horribly masked and smothered in coarse bunches of long, black hair, or cloaked with rustling river reeds.

"Ha! Ah-weh-hot-kwah! Ha! Ah-weh-hah! Ha! The crimson flower! Ha! The flower!"

they chanted, thronging around the central fire; then falling back in a half-circle, torches lifted, while the masked figures banked solidly behind, chanted monotonously:

"Red fire burns on the maple! Red fire burns in the pines. The red flower to the maple! The red death to the pines!"

At this two young girls, wearing white feathers and white weasel pelts dangling from shoulders to knees, entered the ring from opposite ends. Their arms were full of those spectral blossoms called "Ghost-corn," and they strewed the flowers around the ring in silence. Then three maidens, glistening in cloaks of green pine-needles, slipped into the fire circle, throwing showers of violets and yellow moccasin flowers over the earth, calling out, amid laughter, "Moccasins for whippoorwills! Violets for the two heads entangled!" And, their arms empty of blossoms, they danced away, laughing while the False-Faces clattered their wooden masks and swung their torches till the flames whistled.

Then six sachems rose, casting off their black-and-white blankets, and each in turn planted branches of yellow willow, green willow, red osier, samphire, witch-hazel, spice-bush, and silver birch along the edge of the silent throng of savages.

"Until the night-sun comes be these your barriers, O Iroquois!" they chanted. And all answered:

"The Cherry-maid shall lock the gates to the People of the Morning! A-e! ja-e! Wild cherry and cherry that is red!"

Then came the Cherry-maid, a slender creature, hung from head to foot with thick bunches of wild cherries which danced and swung when she walked; and the False-Faces plucked the fruit from her as she passed around, laughing and tossing her black hair, until she had been despoiled and only the garment of sewed leaves hung from shoulder to ankle.

A green blanket was spread for her and she sat down under the branch of witch-hazel.

"The barrier is closed!" she said. "Kindle your coals from Onondaga, O you Keepers of the Central Fire!"

An aged sachem arose, and, lifting his withered arm, swept it eastward.

"The hearth is cleansed," he said, feebly. "Brothers, attend! She-who-runs is coming. Listen!"

A dead silence fell over the throng, broken only by the rustle of the flames. After a moment, very far away in the forest, something sounded like the muffled gallop of an animal, paddy-pad! paddy-pad, coming nearer and ever nearer.

"It's the Toad-woman!" gasped Mount in my ear. "It's the Huron witch! Ah! My God! look there!"

Hopping, squattering, half scrambling, half bounding into the firelight came running a dumpy creature all fluttering with scarlet rags. A coarse mat of gray hair masked her visage; she pushed it aside and raised a dreadful face in the red fire-glow—a face so marred, so horrible, that I felt Mount shivering in the darkness beside me.

Through the hollow boom-boom of the witch-drums I heard a murmur swelling from the motionless crowd, like a rising wind in the pines. The hag heard it too; her mouth widened, splitting her ghastly visage. A single yellow fang caught the firelight.

"O you People of the Mountain! O you Onondagas!" she cried. "I am come to ask my Cayugas and my Senecas why they assemble here on the Kennyetto when their council-fire and yours should burn at Onondaga! O you Oneidas, People of the Standing Stone! I am come to ask my Senecas, my Mountain-snakes, why the Keepers of the Iroquois Fire have let it go out? O you of the three clans, let your ensigns rise and listen. I speak to the Wolf, the Turtle, and the Bear! And I call on the seven kindred clans of the Wolf, and the two kindred clans of the Turtle, and the four kindred clans of the Bear throughout the Six Nations of the Iroquois confederacy, throughout the clans of the Lenni-Lenape, throughout the Huron-Algonquins and their clans!

"And I call on the False-Faces of the Spirit-water and the Water of Light!"

She shook her scarlet rags and, raising her arm, hurled a hatchet into a painted post which stood behind the central fire.

"O you Cayugas, People of the Carrying-place! Strike that war-post with your hatchets or face the ghosts of your fathers in every trail!"

There was a deathly silence. Catrine Montour closed her horrible little eyes, threw back her head, and, marking time with her flat foot, began to chant.

She chanted the glory of the Long House; of the nations that drove the Eries, the Hurons, the Algonquins; of the nation that purged the earth of the Stonish Giants; of the nation that fought the dreadful battle of the Flying Heads. She sang the triumph of the confederacy, the bonds that linked the Elder Brothers and Elder Sons with the Esaurora, whose tongue was the sign of council unity.

And the circle of savages began to sway in rhythm to her chanting, answering back, calling their challenge from clan to clan; until, suddenly, the Senecas sprang to their feet and drove their hatchets into the war-post, challenging the Lenape with their own battle-cry:

"Yoagh! Yoagh! Ha-ha! Hagh! Yoagh!"

Then the Mohawks raised their war-yelp and struck the post; and the Cayugas answered with a terrible cry, striking the post, and calling out for the Next Youngest Son—meaning the Tuscaroras—to draw their hatchets.

"Have the Seminoles made women of you?" screamed Catrine Montour, menacing the sachems of the Tuscaroras with clinched fists.

"Let the Lenape tell you of women!" retorted a Tuscarora sachem, calmly.

At this opening of an old wound the Oneidas called on the Lenape to answer; but the Lenape sat sullen and silent, with flashing eyes fixed on the Mohawks.

Then Catrine Montour, lashing herself into a fury, screamed for vengeance on the people who had broken the chain-belt with the Long House. Raving and frothing, she burst into a torrent of prophecy, which silenced every tongue and held every Indian fascinated.

"Look!" whispered Mount. "The Oneidas are drawing their hatchets! The Tuscaroras will follow! The Iroquois will declare for war!"

Suddenly the False-Faces raised a ringing shout:

"Kree! Ha-ha! Kre-e!"

And a hideous creature in yellow advanced, rattling his yellow mask.

Catrine Montour, slavering and gasping, leaned against the painted war-post. Into the fire-ring came dancing a dozen girls, all strung with brilliant wampum, their bodies and limbs painted vermilion, sleeveless robes of wild iris hanging to their knees. With a shout they chanted:

"O False-Faces, prepare to do honor to the truth! She who Dreams has come from her three sisters—the Woman of the Thunder-cloud, the Woman of the Sounding Footsteps, the Woman of the Murmuring Skies!"

And, joining hands, they cried, sweetly: "Come, O Little Rosebud Woman!—Ke-neance-e-qua! O-gin-e-o-qua!—Woman of the Rose!"

And all together the False-Faces cried: "Welcome to Ta-lu-la, the leaping waters! Here is I-e-nia, the wanderer's rest! Welcome, O Woman of the Rose!"

Then the grotesque throng of the False-Faces parted right and left; a lynx, its green eyes glowing, paced out into the firelight; and behind the tawny tree-cat came slowly a single figure—a young girl, bare of breast and arm; belted at the hips with silver, from which hung a straight breadth of doeskin to the instep of her bare feet. Her dark hair, parted, fell in two heavy braids to her knees; her lips were tinted with scarlet; her small ear-lobes and finger-tips were stained a faint rose-color.

In the breathless silence she raised her head. Sir George's crushing grip clutched my arm, and he fell a-shuddering like a man with ague.

The figure before us was Magdalen Brant.

The lynx lay down at her feet and looked her steadily in the face.

Slowly she raised her rounded arm, opened her empty palm; then from space she seemed to pluck a rose, and I saw it there between her forefinger and her thumb.

A startled murmur broke from the throng. "Magic! She plucks blossoms from the empty air!"

"O you Oneidas," came the sweet, serene voice, "at the tryst of the False-Faces I have kept my tryst.

"You wise men of the Six Nations, listen now attentively; and you, ensigns and attestants, attend, honoring the truth which from my twin lips shall flow, sweetly as new honey and as sap from April maples."

She stooped and picked from the ground a withered leaf, holding it out in her small, pink palm.

"Like this withered leaf is your understanding. It is for a maid to quicken you to life, ... as I restore this last year's leaf to life," she said, deliberately.

In her open palm the dry, gray leaf quivered, moved, straightened, slowly turned moist and fresh and green. Through the intense silence the heavy, gasping breath of hundreds of savages told of the tension they struggled under.

She dropped the leaf to her feet; gradually it lost its green and curled up again, a brittle, ashy flake.

"O you Oneidas!" she cried, in that clear voice which seemed to leave a floating melody in the air, "I have talked with my Sisters of the Murmuring Skies, and none but the lynx at my feet heard us."

She bent her lovely head and looked into the creature's blazing orbs; after a moment the cat rose, took three stealthy steps, and lay down at her feet, closing its emerald eyes.

The girl raised her head: "Ask me concerning the truth, you sachems of the Oneida, and speak for the five war-chiefs who stand in their paint behind you!"

An old sachem rose, peering out at her from dim, aged eyes.

"Is it war, O Woman of the Rose?" he quavered.

"Neah!" she said, sweetly.

An intense silence followed, shattered by a scream from the hag, Catrine.

"A lie! It is war! You have struck the post, Cayugas! Senecas! Mohawks! It is a lie! Let this young sorceress speak to the Oneidas; they are hers; the Tuscaroras are hers, and the Onondagas and the Lenape! Let them heed her and her dreams and her witchcraft! It concerns not you, O Mountain-snakes! It concerns only these and False-Faces! She is their prophetess; let her dream for them. I have dreamed for you, O Elder Brothers! And I have dreamed of war!!"

"And I of peace!" came the clear, floating voice, soothing the harsh echoes of the hag's shrieking appeal. "Take heed, you Mohawks, and you Cayuga war-chiefs and sachems, that you do no violence to this council-fire!"

"The Oneidas are women!" yelled the hag.

Magdalen Brant made a curiously graceful gesture, as though throwing something to the ground from her empty hand. And, as all looked, something did strike the ground—something that coiled and hissed and rattled—a snake, crouched in the form of a letter S; and the lynx turned its head, snarling, every hair erect.

"Mohawks and Cayugas!" she cried; "are you to judge the Oneidas?—you who dare not take this rattlesnake in your hands?"

There was no reply. She smiled and lifted the snake. It coiled up in her palm, rattling and lifting its terrible head to the level of her eyes. The lynx growled.

"Quiet!" she said, soothingly. "The snake has gone, O Tahagoos, my friend. Behold, my hand is empty; Sa-kwe-en-ta, the Fanged One has gone."

It was true. There was nothing where, an instant before, I myself had seen the dread thing, crest swaying on a level with her eyes.

"Will you be swept away by this young witch's magic?" shrieked Catrine Montour.

"Oneidas!" cried Magdalen Brant, "the way is cleared! Hiro [I have spoken]!"

Then the sachems of the Oneida stood up, wrapping themselves in their blankets, and moved silently away, filing into the forest, followed by the war-chiefs and those who had accompanied the Oneida delegation as attestants.

"Tuscaroras!" said Magdalen Brant, quietly.

The Tuscarora sachems rose and passed out into the darkness, followed by their suite of war-chiefs and attestants.

"Onondagas!"

All but two of the Onondaga delegation left the council-fire. Amid a profound silence the Lenape followed, and in their wake stalked three tall Mohicans.

Walter Butler sprang up from the base of the tree where he had been sitting and pointed a shaking finger at Magdalen Brant:

"Damn you!" he shouted; "if you call on my Mohawks, I'll cut your throat, you witch!"

Brant bounded to his feet and caught Butler's rigid, outstretched arm.

"Are you mad, to violate a council-fire?" he said, furiously. Magdalen Brant looked calmly at Butler, then deliberately faced the sachems.

"Mohawks!" she called, steadily.

There was a silence; Butler's black eyes were almost starting from his bloodless visage; the hag, Montour, clawed the air in helpless fury.

"Mohawks!" repeated the girl, quietly.

Slowly a single war-chief rose, and, casting aside his blanket, drew his hatchet and struck the war-post. The girl eyed him contemptuously, then turned again and called:

"Senecas!"

A Seneca chief, painted like death, strode to the post and struck it with his hatchet.

"Cayuga!" called the girl, steadily.

A Cayuga chief sprang at the post and struck it twice.

Roars of applause shook the silence; then a masked figure leaped towards the central fire, shouting: "The False-Faces' feast! Ho! Hoh! Ho-ooh!"

In a moment the circle was a scene of terrific excesses. Masked figures pelted each other with live coals from the fires; dancing, shrieking, yelping demons leaped about whirling their blazing torches; witch-drums boomed; chant after chant was raised as new dancers plunged into the delirious throng, whirling the carcasses of white dogs, painted with blue and yellow stripes. The nauseating stench of burned roast meat filled the air, as the False-Faces brought quarters of venison and baskets of fish into the circle and dumped them on the coals.

Faster and more furious grew the dance of the False-Faces. The flying coals flew in every direction, streaming like shooting-stars across the fringing darkness. A grotesque masker, wearing the head-dress of a bull, hurled his torch into the air; the flaming brand lodged in the feathery top of a pine, the foliage caught fire, and with a crackling rush a vast whirlwind of flame and smoke streamed skyward from the forest giant.

"To-wen-yon-go [It touches the sky]!" howled the crazed dancers, leaping about, while faster and faster came the volleys of live coals, until a young girl's hair caught fire.

"Kah-none-ye-tah-we!" they cried, falling back and forming a chain-around her as she wrung the sparks from her long hair, laughing and leaping about between the flying coals.

Then the nine sachems of the Mohawks rose, all covering their breasts with their blankets, save the chief sachem, who is called "The Two Voices." The serried circle fell back, Senecas, Cayugas, and Mohawks shouting their battle-cries; scores of hatchets glittered, knives flashed.

All alone in the circle stood Magdalen Brant, slim, straight, motionless as a tinted statue, her hands on her hips. Reflections of the fires played over her, in amber and pearl and rose; violet lights lay under her eyes and where the hair shadowed her brow. Then, through the silence, a loud voice cried: "Little Rosebud Woman, the False-Faces thank you! Koon-wah-yah-tun-was [They are burning the white dog]!"

She raised her head and laid a hand on each cheek.

"Neah-wen-ha [I thank you]," she said, softly.

At the word the lynx rose and looked up into her face, then turned and paced slowly across the circle, green eyes glowing.

The young girl loosened the braids of her hair; a thick, dark cloud fell over her bare shoulders and breasts.

"She veils her face!" chanted the False-Faces. "Respect the veil! Adieu, O Woman of the Rose!"

Her hands fell, and, with bent head, moving slowly, pensively, she passed out of the infernal circle, the splendid lynx stalking at her heels.

No sooner was she gone than hell itself broke loose among the False-Faces; the dance grew madder and madder, the terrible rite of sacrifice was enacted with frightful symbols. Through the awful din the three war-cries pealed, the drums advanced, thundering; the iris-maids lighted the six little fires of black-birch, spice-wood, and sassafras, and crouched to inhale the aromatic smoke until, stupefied and quivering in every limb with the inspiration of delirium, they stood erect, writhing, twisting, tossing their hair, chanting the splendors of the future!

Then into the crazed orgie leaped the Toad-woman like a gigantic scarlet spider, screaming prophecy and performing the inconceivable and nameless rites of Ak-e, Ne-ke, and Ge-zis, until, in her frenzy, she went stark mad, and the devil worship began with the awful sacrifice of Leshee in Biskoonah.

Horror-stricken, nauseated, I caught Mount's arm, whispering: "Enough, in God's name! Come away!"

My ears rang with the distracted yelping of the Toad-woman, who was strangling a dog. Faint, almost reeling, I saw an iris-girl fall in convulsions; the stupefying smoke blew into my face, choking me. I staggered back into the darkness, feeling my way among the unseen trees, gasping for fresh air. Behind me, Mount and Sir George came creeping, groping like blind men along the cliffs.

"This way," whispered Mount.



XVI

ON SCOUT

Like a pursued man hunted through a dream, I labored on, leaden-limbed, trembling; and it seemed hours and hours ere the blue starlight broke overhead and Beacraft's dark house loomed stark and empty on the stony hill.

Suddenly the ghostly call of a whippoorwill broke out from the willows. Mount answered; Elerson appeared in the path, making a sign for silence.

"Magdalen Brant entered the house an hour since," he whispered. "She sits yonder on the door-step. I think she has fallen asleep."

We stole forward through the dusk towards the silent figure on the door-step. She sat there, her head fallen back against the closed door, her small hands lying half open in her lap. Under her closed eyes the dark circles of fatigue lay; a faint trace of rose paint still clung to her lips; and from the ragged skirt of her thorn-rent gown one small foot was thrust, showing a silken shoe and ankle stained with mud.

There she lay, sleeping, this maid who, with her frail strength, had split forever the most powerful and ancient confederacy the world had ever known.

Her superb sacrifice of self, her proud indifference to delicacy and shame, her splendid acceptance of the degradation, her instant and fearless execution of the only plan which could save the land from war with a united confederacy, had left us stunned with admiration and helpless gratitude.

Had she gone to them as a white woman, using the arts of civilized persuasion, she could have roused them to war, but she could not have soothed them to peace. She knew it—even I knew that among the Iroquois the Ruler of the Heavens can never speak to an Indian through the mouth of a white woman.

As an Oneida, and a seeress of the False-Faces, she had answered their appeal. Using every symbol, every ceremony, every art taught her as a child, she had swayed them, vanquishing with mystery, conquering, triumphing, as an Oneida, where a single false step, a single slip, a moment's faltering in her sweet and serene authority might have brought out the appalling cry of accusation:

"Her heart is white!"

And not one hand would have been raised to prevent the sacrificial test which must follow and end inevitably in a dreadful death.

* * * * *

Mount and Elerson, moved by a rare delicacy, turned and walked noiselessly away towards the hill-top.

"Wake her," I said to Sir George.

He knelt beside her, looking long into her face; then touched her lightly on the hand. She opened her eyes, looked up at him gravely, then rose to her feet, steadying herself on his bent arm.

"Where have you been?" she asked, glancing anxiously from him to me. There was the faintest ring of alarm in her voice, a tint of color on cheek and temple. And Sir George, lying like a gentleman, answered: "We have searched the trails in vain for you. Where have you lain hidden, child?"

Her lips parted in an imperceptible sigh of relief; the pallor of weariness returned.

"I have been upon your business, Sir George," she said, looking down at her mud-stained garments. Her arms fell to her side; she made a little gesture with one limp hand. "You see," she said, "I promised you." Then she turned, mounting the steps, pensively; and, in the doorway, paused an instant, looking back at him over her shoulder.

* * * * *

And all that night, lying close to the verge of slumber, I heard Sir George pacing the stony yard under the great stars; while the riflemen, stretched beside the hearth, snored heavily, and the death-watch ticked in the wall.

At dawn we three were afield, nosing the Sacandaga trail to count the tracks leading to the north—the dread footprints of light, swift feet which must return one day bringing to the Mohawk Valley an awful reckoning.

At noon we returned. I wrote out my report and gave it to Sir George. We spoke little together. I did not see Magdalen Brant again until they bade me adieu.

And now it was two o'clock in the afternoon; Sir George had already set out with Magdalen Brant to Varicks' by way of Stoner's; Elerson and Mount stood by the door, waiting to pilot me towards Gansevoort's distant outposts; the noon sunshine filled the deserted house and fell across the table where I sat, reading over my instructions from Schuyler ere I committed the paper to the flames.

So far, no thanks to myself, I had carried out my orders in all save the apprehension of Walter Butler. And now I was uncertain whether to remain and hang around the council-fire waiting for an opportunity to seize Butler, or whether to push on at once, warn Gansevoort at Stanwix that St. Leger's motley army had set out from Oswego, and then return to trap Butler at my leisure.

I crumpled the despatch into a ball and tossed it onto the live coals in the fireplace; the paper smoked, caught fire, and in a moment more the black flakes sank into the ashes.

"Shall we burn the house, sir?" asked Mount, as I came to the doorway and looked out.

I shook my head, picked up rifle, pouch, and sack, and descended the steps. At the same instant a man appeared at the foot of the hill, and Elerson waved his hand, saying: "Here's that mad Irishman, Tim Murphy, back already."

Murphy came jauntily up the hill, saluted me with easy respect, and drew from his pouch a small packet of papers which he handed me, nodding carelessly at Elerson and staring hard at Mount as though he did not recognize him.

"Phwat's this?" he inquired of Elerson—"a Frinch cooroor, or maybe a Sac shquaw in a buck's shirrt?"

"Don't introduce him to me," said Mount to Elerson; "he'll try to kiss my hand, and I hate ceremony."

"Quit foolin'," said Elerson, as the two big, over-grown boys seized each other and began a rough-and-tumble frolic. "You're just cuttin' capers, Tim, becuz you've heard that we're takin' the war-path—quit pullin' me, you big Irish elephant! Is it true we're takin' the war-path?"

"How do I know?" cried Murphy; but the twinkle in his blue eyes betrayed him; "bedad, 'tis home to the purty lasses we go this blessed day, f'r the crool war is over, an' the King's got the pip, an—"

"Murphy!" I said.

"Sorr," he replied, letting go of Mount and standing at a respectful slouch.

"Did you get Beacraft there in safety?"

"I did, sorr."

"Any trouble?"

"None, sorr—f'r me."

I opened the first despatch, looking at him keenly.

"Do we take the war-path?" I asked.

"We do, sorr," he said, blandly. "McDonald's in the hills wid the McCraw an'ten score renegades. Wan o' their scouts struck old man Schell's farm an' he put buckshot into sivinteen o' them, or I'm a liar where I shtand!"

"I knew it," muttered Elerson to Mount. "Where you see smoke, there's fire; where you see Murphy, there's trouble. Look at the grin on him—and his hatchet shined up like a Cayuga's war-axe!"

I opened the despatch; it was from Schuyler, countermanding his instructions for me to go to Stanwix, and directing me to warn every settlement in the Kingsland district that McDonald and some three hundred Indians and renegades were loose on the Schoharie, and that their outlying scouts had struck Broadalbin.

I broke the wax of the second despatch; it was from Harrow, briefly thanking me for the capture of Beacraft, adding that the man had been sent to Albany to await court-martial.

That meant that Beacraft must hang; a most disagreeable feeling came over me, and I tore open the third and last paper, a bulky document, and read it:

"VARICK MANOR, "June the 2d. "An hour to dawn.

"In my bedroom I am writing to you the adieu I should have said the night you left. Murphy, a rifleman, goes to you with despatches in an hour: he will take this to you, ... wherever you are.

"I saw the man you sent in. Father says he must surely hang. He was so pale and silent, he looked so dreadfully tired—and I have been crying a little—I don't know why, because all say he is a great villain.

"I wonder whether you are well and whether you remember me." ("me" was crossed out and "us" written very carefully.) "The house is so strange without you. I go into your room sometimes. Cato has pressed all your fine clothes. I go into your room to read. The light is very good there. I am reading the Poems of Pansard. You left a fern between the pages to mark the poem called 'Our Deaths'; did you know it? Do you admire that verse? It seems sad to me. And it is not true, either. Lovers seldom die together." (This was crossed out, and the letter went on.) "Two people who love—" ("love" was crossed out heavily and the line continued)—"two friends seldom die at the same instant. Otherwise there would be no terror in death.

"I forgot to say that Isene, your mare, is very well. Papa and the children are well, and Ruyven a-pestering General Schuyler to make him a cornet in the legion of horse, and Cecile, all airs, goes about with six officers to carry her shawl and fan.

"For me—I sit with Lady Schuyler when I have the opportunity. I love her; she is so quiet and gentle and lets me sit by her for hours, perfectly silent. Yesterday she came into your room, where I was sitting, and she looked at me for a long time—so strangely—and I asked her why, and she shook her head. And after she had gone I arranged your linen and sprinkled lavender among it.

"You see there is so little to tell you, except that in the afternoon some Senecas and Tories shot at one of our distant tenants, a poor man, one Christian Schell; and he beat them off and killed eleven, which was very brave, and one of the soldiers made a rude song about it, and they have been singing it all night in their quarters. I heard them from your room—where I sometimes sleep—the air being good there; and this is what they sang:

"'A story, a story Unto you I will tell, Concerning a brave hero, One Christian Schell.

"'Who was attacked by the savages. And Tories, it is said; But for this attack Most freely they bled.

"'He fled unto his house For to save his life. Where he had left his arms In care of his wife.

"'They advanced upon him And began to fire, But Christian with his blunderbuss Soon made them retire.

"'He wounded Donald McDonald And drew him in the door, Who gave an account Their strength was sixty-four.

"'Six there was wounded And eleven there was killed Of this said party, Before they quit the field.'

"And I think there are a hundred other verses, which I will spare you; not that I forget them, for the soldiers sang them over and over, and I had nothing better to do than to lie awake and listen.

"So that is all. I hear my messenger moving about below; I am to drop this letter down to him, as all are asleep, and to open the big door might wake them.

"Good-bye.

* * * * *

"It was not my rifleman, only the sentry. They keep double watch since the news came about Schell. "Good-bye. I am thinking of you.

"DOROTHY.

"Postscript.—Please make my compliments and adieux to Sir George Covert.

"Postscript.—The rifleman is here; he is whistling like a whippoorwill. I must say good-bye. I am mad to go with him. Do not forget me!

"My memories are so keen, so pitilessly real, I can scarce endure them, yet cling to them the more desperately.

"I did not mean to write this—truly I did not! But here, in the dusk, I can see your face just as it looked when you said good-bye!—so close that I could take it in my arms despite my vows and yours!

"Help me to reason; for even God cannot, or will not, help me; knowing, perhaps, the dreadful after-life He has doomed me to for all eternity. If it is true that marriages are made in heaven, where was mine made? Can you answer? I cannot. (The whimper of the whippoorwill again!) Dearest, good-bye. Where my body lies matters nothing so that you hold my soul a little while. Yet, even of that they must rob you one day. Oh, if even in dying there is no happiness, where, where does it abide? Three places only have I heard of: the world, heaven, and hell. God forgive me, but I think the last could cover all.

"Say that you love me! Say it to the forest, to the wind. Perhaps my soul, which follows you, may hear if you only say it. (Once more the ghost-call of the whippoorwill!) Dear lad, good-bye!"



XVII

THE FLAG

Day after day our little scout of four traversed the roads and forests of the Kingsland district, warning the people at the outlying settlements and farms that the county militia-call was out, and that safety lay only in conveying their families to the forts and responding to the summons of authority without delay.

Many obeyed; some rash or stubborn settlers prepared to defend their homes. A few made no response, doubtless sympathizing with their Tory friends who had fled to join McDonald or Sir John Johnson in the North.

Rumors were flying thick, every settlement had its full covey; every cross-road tavern buzzed with gossip. As we travelled from settlement to settlement, we, too, heard something of what had happened in distant districts: how the Schoharie militia had been called out; how one Huetson had been captured as he was gathering a band of Tories to join the Butlers; how a certain Captain Ball had raised a company of sixty-three royalists at Beaverdam and was fled to join Sir John; how Captain George Mann, of the militia, refused service, declaring himself a royalist, and disbanding his company; how Adam Crysler had thrown his important influence in favor of the King, and that the inhabitants of Tryon County were gloomy and depressed, seeing so many respectable gentlemen siding with the Tories.

We learned that the Schoharie and Schenectady militia had refused to march unless some provision was made to protect their families in their absence; that Congress had therefore established a corps of invalids, consisting of eight companies, each to have one captain, two lieutenants, two ensigns, five sergeants, six corporals, two drums, two fifes, and one hundred men; one company to be stationed in Schoharie, and to be called the "Associate Exempts"; that three forts for the protection of the Schoharie Valley were nearly finished, called the Upper, Lower, and Middle forts.

More sinister still were the rumors from the British armies: Burgoyne was marching on Albany from the north with the finest train of artillery ever seen in America; St. Leger was moving from the west; McDonald had started already, flinging out his Indian scouts as far as Perth and Broadalbin, and Sir Henry Clinton had gathered a great army at New York and was preparing to sweep the Hudson Valley from Fishkill to Albany. And the focus of these three armies and of Butler's, Johnson's, and McDonald's renegades and Indians was this unhappy county of Tryon, torn already with internal dissensions; unarmed, unprovisioned, unorganized, almost ungarrisoned.

I remember, one rainy day towards sunset, coming into a small hamlet where, in front of the church, some score of farmers and yokels were gathered, marshalled into a single line. Some were armed with rifles, some with blunderbusses, some with spears and hay-forks. None wore uniform. As we halted to watch the pathetic array, their fifer and drummer wheeled out and marched down the line, playing Yankee Doodle. Then the minister laid down his blunderbuss and, facing the company, raised his arms in prayer, invoking the "God of Armies" as though he addressed his supplication before a vast armed host.

Murphy strove to laugh, but failed; Mount muttered vaguely under his breath; Elerson gnawed his lips and bent his bared head while the old man finished his prayer to "The God of Armies!" then picked up his blunderbuss and limped to his place in the scanty file.

And again I remember one fresh, sweet morning late in June, standing with my riflemen at a toll-gate to see some four hundred Tryon County militia marching past on their way to Unadilla on the Susquehanna, where Brant, with half a thousand savages, had consented to a last parley. Stout, wholesome lads they were, these Tryon County men; wearing brown and yellow uniforms cut smartly, and their officers in the Continental buff and blue, riding like regulars; curved swords shining and their epaulets striking fire in the sunshine.

"Palatines!" said Mount, standing to salute as an officer rode by. "That's General Herkimer—old Honikol Herkimer—with his hard, weather-tanned jaws and the devil lurking under his eyebrows; and that young fellow in his smart uniform is Colonel Cox, old George Klock's son-in-law; and yonder rides Colonel Harper! Oh, I know 'em, sir; I was not in these parts for nothing in '74 and '75!"

The drums and fifes were playing "Unadilla" as the regiment marched past; and my riflemen, lounging along the roadside, exchanged pleasantries with the hardy Palatines, or greeted acquaintances in their impudent, bantering manner:

"Hello! What's this Low Dutch regiment? Say, Han Yost, the pigs has eat off your queue-band! Bedad, they marrch like Albany ducks in fly-time! Musha, thin, luk at the fat dhrummer laad! Has he apples in thim two cheeks, Jack? I dunnoa! Hey, there goes Wagner! Hello, Wagner! Wisha, laad, ye're cross-eyed an' shquint-lipped a-playin' yere fife hind-end furrst!"

And the replies from the dusty, brown ranks, steadily passing:

"Py Gott! dere's Jack Mount! Look alretty, Jacob! Hello, Elerson! Ish dot true you patch your breeches mit second-hand scalps you puy in Montreal? Vat you vas doing down here, Tim Murphy? Oh, joost look at dem devils of Morgan! Sure, Emelius, dey joost come so soon as ve go. Ya! Dey come to kiss our girls, py cricky! Uf I catch you round my girl alretty, Dave Elerson—"

"Silence! Silence in the ranks!" sang out an officer, riding up. The brown column passed on, the golden dust hanging along its flanks. Far ahead we could still hear the drums and fifes playing "Unadilla."

"They ought to have a flag; a flag's a good thing to fight for," said Mount, looking after them. "I fought for the damned British rag when I was fifteen. Lord! it makes me boil to think that they've forgot what we did for 'em!"

"We Virginians carried a flag at the siege o' Boston," observed Elerson. "It was a rattlesnake on a white ground, with the motto, 'Don't tread on me!'"

I told them of the new flag that our Congress had chosen, describing it in detail. They listened attentively, but made no comment.

It was on these expeditions that I learned something of these rough riflemen which I had not suspected—their passionate devotion to the forest. What the sea is to mariners, the endless, uncharted wilderness was to these forest runners; they loved and hated it, they suspected and trusted it. A forest voyage finished, they steered for the nearest port with all the eager impatience of sea-cloyed sailors. Yet, scarcely were they anchored in some frontier haven than they fell to dreaming of the wilderness, of the far silences in the trackless sea of trees, of the winds ruffling the forest's crests till ten thousand trees toss their leaves, silver side up, as white-caps flash, rolling in long patches on a heaving waste of waters.

Yet, in all those weeks I never heard one word or hint of that devotion expressed or implied, not one trace of appreciation, not one shadow of sentiment. If I ventured to speak of the vast beauty of the woods, there was no response from my shy companions; one appeared to vie with another in concealing all feeling under a careless mask and a bantering manner.

Once only can I recall a voluntary expression of pleasure in beauty; it came from Jack Mount, one blue night in July, when the heavens flashed under summer stars till the vaulted skies seemed plated solidly with crusted gems.

"Them stars look kind of nice," he said, then colored with embarrassment and spat a quid of spruce-gum into the camp-fire.

Yet humanity demands some outlet for accumulated sentiment, and these men found it in the dirge-like songs and laments and rude ballads of the wilderness, which I think bear a close resemblance to the sailor-men's songs, in words as well as in the dolorous melodies, fit only for the scraping whine of a two-string fiddle in a sugar-camp.

The magic of June faded from the forests, smothered under the magnificent and deeper glory of July's golden green; the early summer ripened into August, finding us still afoot in the Kingsland district gathering in the loyal, warning the rash, comforting the down-cast, threatening the suspected. Twice, by expresses bound for Saratoga, I sent full reports to Schuyler, but received no further orders. I wondered whether he was displeased at my failure to arrest Walter Butler; and we redoubled our efforts to gain news of him. Three times we heard of his presence in or near the Kingsland district: once at Tribes Hill, once at Fort Plain, and once it was said he was living quietly in a farm-house near Johnstown, which he had the effrontery to enter in broad daylight. But we failed to come up with him, and to this day I do not know whether any of this information we received was indeed correct. It was the first day of August when we heard of Butler's presence near Johnstown; we had been lying at a tavern called "The Brick House," a two-story inn standing where the Albany and Schenectady roads fork near Fox Creek, and there had been great fear of McDonald's renegades that week, and I had advised the despatch of an express to Albany asking for troops to protect the valley when I chanced to overhear a woman say that firing had been heard in the direction of Stanwix.

The woman, a slattern, who was known by the unpleasant name of Rya's Pup, declared that Walter Butler had gone to Johnstown to join St. Leger before Stanwix, and that the Tories would give the rebels such a drubbing that we would all be crawling on our bellies yelling for quarter this day week. As the wench was drunk, I made little of her babble; but the next day Murphy and Elerson, having been in touch with Gansevoort's outposts, returned to me with a note from Colonel Willett:

"FORT SCHUYLER (STANWIX), "August 2d,

"DEAR SIR,—I transmit to you the contents of a letter from Colonel Gansevoort, dated July 28th:

"'Yesterday, at three o'clock in the afternoon, our garrison was alarmed with the firing of four guns. A party of men was instantly despatched to the place where the guns were fired, which was in the edge of the woods, about five hundred yards from the fort; but they were too late. The villains were fled, after having shot three young girls who were out picking raspberries, two of whom were lying scalped and tomahawked; one dead and the other expiring, who died in about half an hour after she was brought home. The third had a bullet through her face, and crawled away, lying hid until we arrived. It was pitiful. The child may live, but has lost her mind.

"'This was accomplished by a scout of sixteen Tories of Colonel John Butler's command and two savages, Mohawks, all under direction of Captain Walter Butler.'

"This, sir, is a revised copy of Colonel Gansevoort's letter to Colonel Van Schaick. Permit me to add, with the full approval of Colonel Gansevoort, that the scout under your command warns the militia at Whitestown of the instant approach of Colonel Barry St. Leger's regular troops, reinforced by Sir John Johnson's regiment of Royal Greens, Colonel Butler's Rangers, McCraw's outlaws, and seven hundred Mohawk, Seneca, and Cayuga warriors under Brant and Walter Butler. I will add, sir, that we shall hold this fort to the end. Respectfully,

"MARINUS WlLLETT, Lieutenant-Colonel."

Standing knee-deep in the thick undergrowth, I read this letter aloud to my riflemen, amid a shocked silence; then folded it for transmission to General Schuyler when opportunity might offer, and signed Murphy to lead forward.

So Rya's Pup was right. Walter Butler had made his first mark on the red Oswego trail!

We marched in absolute silence, Murphy leading, every nerve on edge, straining eye and ear for a sign of the enemy's scouts, now doubtless swarming forward and to cover the British advance.

But the wilderness is vast, and two armies might pass each other scarcely out of hail and never know.

Towards sundown I caught my first glimpse of a hostile Iroquois war-party. We had halted behind some rocks on a heavily timbered slope, and Mount was scrutinizing the trail below, where a little brook crossed it, flowing between mossy stones; when, without warning, a naked Mohawk stalked into the trail, sprang from rock to rock, traversing the bed of the brook like a panther, then leaped lightly into the trail again and moved on. After him, in file, followed some thirty warriors, naked save for the clout, all oiled and painted, and armed with rifles. One or two glanced up along our slope while passing, but a gesture from the leader hastened their steps, and more quickly than I can write it they had disappeared among the darkening shadows of the towering timber.

"Bad luck!" breathed Murphy; "'tis a rocky road to Dublin, but a shorter wan to hell! Did you want f'r to shoot, Jack? Look at Dave Elerson an' th' thrigger finger av him twitchin' all a-thremble! Wisha, lad! lave the red omadhouns go. Arre you tired o' the hair ye wear, Jack Mount? Come on out o' this, ye crazy divil!"

Circling the crossing-place, we swung east, then south, coming presently to a fringe of trees through which the red sunset glittered, illuminating a great stretch of swamp, river, and cleared land beyond. "Yonder's the foort," whispered Murphy—"ould Stanwix—or Schuyler, as they call it now. Step this way, sorr; ye can see it plain across the Mohawk shwamps."

The red sunshine struck the three-cornered bastions of the rectangular fort; a distant bayonet caught the light and twinkled above the stockaded ditch like a slender point of flame. Outside the works squads of troops moved, relieving the nearer posts; working details, marching to and from the sawmill, were evidently busy with the unfinished abattis; a long, low earth-work, surmounted by a stockade and a block-house, which. Murphy said, guarded the covered way to the creek, swarmed with workmen plying pick and shovel and crowbar, while the sentries walked their beats above, watching the new road which crossed the creek and ran through the swamp to the sawmill.

"It is strange," said Mount, "that they have not yet finished the fort."

"It is stranger yet," said Elerson, "that they should work so close to the forest yonder. Look at that fatigue-party drawing logs within pistol-shot of the woods—"

Before the rifleman could finish, a sentinel on the northwest parapet fired his musket; the entire scene changed in a twinkling; the fatigue-party scattered, dropping chains and logs; the workmen sprang out of ditch and pit, running for the stockade; a man, driving a team of horses along the new road, jumped up in his wagon and lashed his horses to a gallop across the rough meadow; and I saw the wagon swaying and bumping up the slope, followed by a squad of troops on the double. Behind these ran a dozen men driving some frightened cattle; soldiers swarmed out on the bastions, soldiers flung open the water gates, soldiers hung over parapets, gesticulating and pointing westward.

Suddenly from the bastion on the west angle of the fort a shaft of flame leaped; a majestic cloud buried the parapet, and the deep cannon-thunder shook the evening air. Above the writhing smoke, now stained pink in the sunset light, a flag crept jerkily up the halyards of a tall flag-staff, higher, higher, until it caught the evening wind aloft and floated lazily out.

"It's the new flag," whispered Elerson, in an awed voice.

We stared at it, fascinated. Never before had the world seen that flag displayed. Blood-red and silver-white the stripes rippled; the stars on the blue field glimmered peacefully. There it floated, serene above the drifting cannon—smoke, the first American flag ever hoisted on earth. A freshening wind caught it, blowing strong out of the flaming west; the cannon-smoke eddied, settled, and curled, floating across its folds. Far away we heard a faint sound from the bastions. They were cheering.

Cap in hand I stood, eyes never leaving the flag; Mount uncovered, Elerson and Murphy drew their deer-skin caps from their heads in silence.

After a little while we caught the glimmer of steel along the forest's edge; a patch of scarlet glowed in the fading rays of sunset. Then, out into the open walked a red-coated officer bearing a white flag and attended by a drummer in green and scarlet.

Far across the clearing we heard drums beating the parley; and we knew the British were at the gates of Stanwix, and that St. Leger had summoned the garrison to surrender.

We waited; the white flag entered the stockade gate, only to reappear again, quickly, as though the fort's answer to the summons had been brief and final. Scarcely had the ensign reached the forest than bang! bang! bang! bang! echoed the muskets, and the rifles spat flame into the deepening dusk and the dark woods rang with the war-yell of half a thousand Indians stripped for the last battles that the Long House should ever fight.

About ten o'clock that night we met a regiment of militia on the Johnstown road, marching noisily north towards Whitestown, and learned that General Herkimer's brigade was concentrating at an Oneida hamlet called Oriska, only eight miles by the river highway from Stanwix, and a little to the east of Oriskany creek. An officer named Van Slyck also informed me that an Oneida interpreter had just come in, reporting St. Leger's arrival before Stanwix, and warning Herkimer that an ambuscade had been prepared for him should he advance to raise the siege of the beleaguered fort.

Learning that we also had seen the enemy at Stanwix, this officer begged us to accompany him to Oriska, where our information might prove valuable to General Herkimer. So I and my three riflemen fell in as the troops tramped past; and I, for one, was astonished to hear their drums beating so loudly in the enemy's country, and to observe the careless indiscipline in the ranks, where men talked loudly and their reckless laughter often sounded above the steady rolling of the drums.

"Are there no officers here to cuff their ears!" muttered Mount, in disgust.

"Bah!" sneered Elerson; "officers can't teach militia—only a thrashing does 'em any good. After all, our people are like the British, full o' contempt for untried enemies. Do you recall how the red-coats went swaggering about that matter o' Bunker Hill? They make no more frontal attacks now, but lay ambuscades, and thank their stars for the opportunity."

A soldier, driving an ox-team behind us, began to sing that melancholy ballad called "St. Clair's Defeat." The entire company joined in the chorus, bewailing the late disaster at Ticonderoga, till Jack Mount, nigh frantic with disgust, leaped up into the cart and bawled out:

"If you must sing, damn you, I'll give something that rings!"

And he lifted his deep, full-throated voice, sounding the marching song of "Morgan's Men."

"The Lord He is our rampart and our buckler and our shield! We must aid Him cleanse His temple; we must follow Him afield. To His wrath we leave the guilty, for their punishment is sure; To His justice the downtrodden, for His mercy shall endure!"

And out of the darkness the ringing chorus rose, sweeping the column from end to end, and the echoing drums crashed amen!

Yet there is a time for all things—even for praising God.



XVIII

ORISKANY

It is due, no doubt, to my limited knowledge of military matters and to my lack of practical experience that I did not see the battle of Oriskany as our historians have recorded it; nor did I, before or during the affair, notice any intelligent effort towards assuming the offensive as described by those whose reports portray an engagement in which, after the first onset, some semblance of military order reigned.

So, as I do not feel at liberty to picture Oriskany from the pens of abler men, I must be content to describe only what I myself witnessed of that sad and unnecessary tragedy.

For three days we had been camped near the clearing called Oriska, which is on the south bank of the Mohawk. Here the volunteers and militia of Tryon County were concentrating from Fort Dayton in the utmost disorder, their camps so foolishly pitched, so slovenly in those matters pertaining to cleanliness and health, so inadequately guarded, that I saw no reason why our twin enemies, St. Leger and disease, should not make an end of us ere we sighted the ramparts of Stanwix.

All night long the volunteer soldiery had been in-subordinate and riotous in the hamlet of Oriska, thronging the roads, shouting, singing, disputing, clamoring to be led against the enemy. Popular officers were cheered, unpopular officers jeered at, angry voices raised outside headquarters, demanding to know why old Honikol Herkimer delayed the advance. Even officers shouted, "Forward! forward! Wake up Honikol!" And spoke of the old General derisively, even injuriously, to their own lasting disgrace.

Towards dawn, when I lay down on the floor of a barn to sleep, the uproar had died out in a measure; but lights still flickered in the camp where soldiers were smoking their pipes and playing cards by the flare of splinter-wood torches. As for the pickets, they paid not the slightest attention to their duties, continually leaving their posts to hobnob with neighbors; and the indiscipline alarmed me, for what could one expect to find in men who roamed about where it pleased them, howling their dissatisfaction with their commander, and addressing their officers by their first names?

At eight o'clock on that oppressive August morning, while writing a letter to my cousin Dorothy, which an Oneida had promised to deliver, he being about to start with a message to Governor Clinton, I was interrupted by Jack Mount, who came into the barn, saying that a company of officers were quarrelling in front of the sugar-shack occupied as headquarters.

I folded my letter, sealed it with a bit of blue balsam gum, and bade Mount deliver it to the Oneida runner, while I stepped up the road.

Of all unseemly sights that I have ever had the misfortune to witness, what I now saw was the most shameful. I pushed and shouldered my way through a riotous mob of soldiers and teamsters which choked the highway; loud, angry voices raised in reproach or dispute assailed my ears. A group of militia officers were shouting, shoving, and gesticulating in front of the tent where, rigid in his arm-chair, the General sat, grim, narrow-eyed, silent, smoking a short clay pipe. Bolt upright, behind him, stood his chief scout and interpreter, a superb Oneida, in all the splendor of full war-paint, blazing with scarlet.

Colonel Cox, a swaggering, intrusive, loud-voiced, and smartly uniformed officer, made a sign for silence and began haranguing the old man, evidently as spokesman for the party of impudent malcontents grouped about him. I heard him demand that his men be led against the British without further delay. I heard him condemn delay as unreasonable and unwarrantable, and the terms of speech he used were unbecoming to an officer.

"We call on you, sir, in the name of Tryon County, to order us forward!" he said, loudly. "We are ready. For God's sake give the order, sir! There is no time to waste, I tell you!"

The old General removed the pipe from his teeth and leaned a little forward in his chair.

"Colonel Cox," he said, "I haff Adam Helmer to Stanvix sent, mit der opject of inviting Colonel Gansevoort to addack py de rear ven ve addack py dot left flank.

"So soon as Helmer comes dot fort py, Gansevoort he fire cannon; und so soon I hear cannon, I march! Not pefore, sir; not pefore!"

"How do we know that Helmer and his men will ever reach Stanwix?" shouted Colonel Paris, impatiently.

"Ve vait, und py un' py ve know," replied Herkimer, undisturbed.

"He may be dead and scalped by now," sneered Colonel Visscher.

"Look you, Visscher," said the old General; "it iss I who am here to answer for your safety. Now comes Spencer, my Oneida, mit a pelt, who svears to me dot Brant und Butler an ambuscade haff made for me. Vat I do? Eh? I vait for dot sortie? Gewiss!"

He waved his short pipe.

"For vy am I an ass to march me py dot ambuscade? Such a foolishness iss dot talk! I stay me py Oriskany till I dem cannon hear."

A storm of insolent protest from the mob of soldiers greeted his decision; the officers gesticulated and shouted insultingly, shoving forward to the edge of the porch. Fists were shaken at him, cries of impatience and contempt rose everywhere. Colonel Paris flung his sword on the ground. Colonel Cox, crimson with anger, roared: "If you delay another moment the blood of Gansevoort's men be on your head!"

Then, in the tumult, a voice called out: "He's a Tory! We are betrayed!" And Colonel Cox shouted: "He dares not march! He is a coward!"

White to the lips, the old man sprang from his chair, narrow eyes ablaze, hands trembling. Colonel Bellinger and Major Frey caught him by the arm, begging him to remain firm in his decision.

"Py Gott, no!" he thundered, drawing his sword. "If you vill haff it so, your blood be on your heads! Vorwaerts!"

It is not for me to blame him in his wrath, when, beside himself with righteous fury, he gave the bellowing yokels their heads and swept on with them to destruction. The mutinous fools who had called him coward and traitor fell back as their outraged commander strode silently through the disordered ranks, noticing neither the proffered apologies of Colonel Paris nor the stammered excuses of Colonel Cox. Behind him stalked the tall Oneida, silent, stern, small eyes flashing. And now began the immense uproar of departure; confused officers ran about cursing and shouting; the smashing roll of the drums broke out, beating the assembly; teamsters rushed to harness horses; dismayed soldiers pushed and struggled through the mass, searching for their regiments and companies.

Mounted on a gaunt, gray horse, the General rode through the disorder, quietly directing the incompetent militia officers in their tasks of collecting their men; and behind him, splendidly horsed and caparisoned, cantered the tall Oneida, known as Thomas Spencer the Interpreter, calm, composed, inscrutable eyes fixed on his beloved leader and friend.

The drums of the Canajoharie regiment were beating as the drummers swung past me, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, sweat pouring down their sunburned faces; then came Herkimer, all alone, sitting his saddle like a rock, the flush of anger still staining his weather-ravaged visage, his small, wrathful eyes fixed on the north.

Behind him rode Colonels Cox and Paris, long, heavy swords drawn, heading the Canajoharie regiment, which pressed forward excitedly. The remaining regiments of Tryon County militia followed, led by Colonel Seeber, Colonel Bellenger, Majors Frey, Eisenlord, and Van Slyck. Then came the baggage-wagons, some drawn by oxen, some by four horses; and in the rear of these rode Colonel Visscher, leading the Caughnawaga regiment, closing the dusty column.

"Damn them!" growled Elerson to Murphy, "they're advancing without flanking-parties or scouts. I wish Dan'l Morgan was here."

"'Tis th' Gineral's jooty to luk out f'r his throops, not Danny Morgan's or mine," replied the big rifleman in disgust.

The column halted. I signalled my men to follow me and hastened along the flanks under a fire of chaff: "Look at young buckskins! There go Morgan's macaronis! God help the red-coats this day! How's the scalp trade, son?"

Herkimer was sitting his horse in the middle of the road as I came up; and he scowled down at me when I gave him the officer's salute and stood at attention beside his stirrup.

"Veil, you can shpeak," he said, bluntly; "efery-body shpeaks but me!"

I said that I and my riflemen were at his disposal if he desired leaders for flanking-parties or scouts; and his face softened as he listened, looking down at me in silence.

"Sir," he said, "it iss to my shame I say dot my sodgers command me, not I my sodgers."

Then, looking back at Colonel Cox, he added, bitterly:

"I haff ordered flanking-parties and scouts, but my officers, who know much more than I, haff protested against dot useless vaste of time. I thank you, sir; I can your offer not accept."

The drums began again; the impatient Palatine regiment moved forward, yelling their approval, and we fell back to the roadside, while the boisterous troops tramped past, cheering, singing, laughing in their excitement. Mechanically we fell in behind the Caughnawagas, who formed the rear-guard, and followed on through the dust; meaning to go with them only a mile or so before we started back across country with the news which I was now at liberty to take in person to General Schuyler.

For I considered my mission at an end. In one thing only had I failed: Walter Butler was still free; but now that he commanded a company of outlaws and savages in St. Leger's army, I, of course, had no further hope of arresting him or of dealing with him in any manner save on the battle-field.

So at last I felt forced to return to Varick Manor; but the fear of the dread future was in me, and all the hopeless misery of a hopeless passion made of me a coward, so that I shrank from the pain I must surely inflict and endure. Kinder for her, kinder for me, that we should never meet again.

Not that I desired to die. I was too young in life and love to wish for death as a balm. Besides, I knew it could not bring us peace. Still, it was one solution of a problem otherwise so utterly hopeless that I, heartsick, had long since wearied of the solving and carried my hurt buried deep, fearful lest my prying senses should stir me to disinter the dead hope lying there.

Absence renders passion endurable. But at sight of her I loved I knew I could not endure it; and, uncertain of myself, having twice nigh failed under the overwhelming provocations of a love returned, I shrank from the coming duel 'twixt love and duty which must once more be fought within my breast.

Nor could my duty, fighting blindly, expect encouragement from her I loved, save at the last gasp and under the heel of love. Then, only, at the very last would she save me; for there was that within her which revolted at a final wrong, and I knew that not even our twin passion could prevail to stamp out the last spark of conscience and slay our souls forever.

Brooding, as I trudged forward through the dust, I became aware that the drums had ceased their beating, and that the men were marching quietly with little laughter or noise of song.

The heat was intense, although a black cloud had pushed up above the west, veiling the sun. Flies swarmed about the column; sweat poured from men and horses; the soldiers rolled back their sleeves and plodded on, muskets a-trail and coats hanging over their shoulders. Once, very far away, the looming horizon was veined with lightning; and, after a long time, thunder sounded.

We had marched northward on a rutty road some two miles or more from our camp at Oriska, and I was asking Mount how near we were to the old Algonquin-Iroquois trail which runs from the lakes across the wilderness to the healing springs at Saratoga, when the column halted and I heard an increasing confusion of voices from the van.

"There's a ravine ahead," said Elerson. "I'm thinking they'll have trouble with these wagons, for there's a swamp at the bottom and only a log-road across."

"Tis the proper shpot f'r to ambuscade us," observed Murphy, craning his neck and standing on tiptoe to see ahead.

We walked forward and sat down on the bank close to the brow of the hill. Directly ahead a ravine, shaped like a half-moon, cut the road, and the noisy Canajoharie regiment was marching into it. The bottom of the ravine appeared to be a swamp, thinly timbered with tamarack and blue-beech saplings, where the reeds and cattails grew thick, and little, dark pools of water spread, all starred with water-lilies, shining intensely white in the gloom of the coming storm.

"There do be wild ducks in thim rushes," said Murphy, musingly. "Sure I count it sthrange, Jack Mount, that thim burrds sit quiet-like an' a screechin' rigiment marchin' acrost that log-road."

"You mean that somebody has been down there before and scared the ducks away?" I asked.

"Maybe, sorr," he replied, grimly.

Instinctively we leaned forward to scan the rising ground on the opposite side of the ravine. Nothing moved in the dense thickets. After a moment Mount said quietly: "I'm a liar or there's a barked twig showing raw wood alongside of that ledge."

He glanced at the pan of his rifle, then again fixed his keen, blue eyes on the tiny glimmer of white which even I could distinguish now, though Heaven only knows how his eyes had found it in all that tangle.

"That's raw wood," he repeated.

"A deer might bark a twig," said I.

"Maybe, sorr," muttered Murphy; "but there's divil a deer w'ud nibble sheep-laurel."

The men of the Canajoharie regiment were climbing the hill on the other side of the ravine now. Colonel Cox came galloping back, shouting: "Bring up those wagons! The road is clear! Move your men forward there!"

Whips cracked; the vehicles rattled off down hill, drivers yelling, soldiers pushing the heavy wheels forward over the log-road below which spurted water as the bumping wagons struck the causeway.

I remember that Colonel Cox had just drawn bridle, half-way up the opposite incline, and was leaning forward in his saddle to watch the progress of an ox-team, when a rifle-shot rang out and he tumbled clean out of his saddle, striking the shallow water with a splash.

Then hell itself broke loose in that black ravine; volley on volley poured into the Canajoharie regiment; officers fell from their horses; drivers reeled and pitched forward under the heels of their plunging teams; wagons collided and broke down, choking the log-road. Louder and louder the terrific yells of the outlaws and savages rang out on our flanks; I saw our soldiers in the ravine running frantically in all directions, falling on the log-road, floundering waist-deep in the water and mud, slipping, stumbling, staggering; while faster and faster cracked the hidden rifles, and the pitiless bullets pelted them from the heights above.

"Stand! Stand! you fools!" bawled Elerson. "Take to the timber! Every man to a tree! For God's sake remember Braddock!"

"Look out!" shouted Mount, dragging me with him to a rock. "Close up, Elerson! Close up, Murphy!"

Straight into the stupefied ranks of the Caughnawaga company came leaping the savages, shooting, stabbing, clubbing the dazed men, dragging them from the ranks with shrieks of triumph. I saw one half-naked creature, awful in his paint, run up and strike a soldier full in the face with his fist, then dash out his brains with a death-maul and tear his scalp off.

Murphy and Mount were loading and firing steadily; Elerson and I kept our rifles ready for a rush. I was perfectly stunned; the spectacle did not seem real to me.

The Caughnawaga men, apparently roused from their momentary stupor, fell back into small squads, shooting in every direction; and the savages, unable to withstand a direct fire, sheered off and came bounding past us to cover, yelping like timber-wolves. Three darted directly at us; a young warrior, painted in bars of bright yellow, raised his hatchet to hurl it; but Murphy's bullet spun him round like a top till he crashed against a tree and fell in a heap, quivering all over.

The two others had leaped on Mount. Swearing, threatening, roaring with rage, the desperate giant shook them off into our midst, and cut the throat of one as he lay sprawling—a sickening spectacle, for the poor wretch floundered and thrashed about among the leaves and sticks, squirting thick blood all over us.

The remaining savage, a chief, by his lock and eagle-quill, had fastened to Elerson's legs with the fury of a tree-cat, clawing and squalling, while Murphy dealt him blow on blow with clubbed stock, and finally was forced to shoot him so close that the rifle-flame set his greased scalp-lock afire.

"Take to the timber, you Tryon County men! Remember Braddock!" shouted Colonel Paris, plunging about on his wounded horse; while from every tree and bush rang out the reports of the rifles; and the steady stream of bullets poured into the Caughnawaga regiment, knocking the men down the hill-side into the struggling mass below. Some dropped dead where they had been shot; some rolled to the log-road; some fell into the marsh, splashing and limping about like crippled wild fowl.

"Advance der Palatine regiment!" thundered Herkimer. "Clear avay dot oxen-team!"

A drummer-boy of the Palatines beat the charge. I can see him yet, a curly-haired youngster, knee-deep in the mud, his white, frightened face fixed on his commander. They shot his drum to pieces; he beat steadily on the flapping parchment.

Across the swamp the Palatines were doggedly climbing the slope in the face of a terrible discharge. Herkimer led them. As they reached the crest of the plateau, and struggled up and over, a rush of men in green uniforms seemed to swallow the entire Palatine regiment. I saw them bayonet Major Eisenlord and finish him with their rifle-stocks; they stabbed Major Van Slyck, and hurled themselves at the mounted Oneida. Hatchet flashing, the interpreter swung his horse straight into the yelling onset and went down, smothered under a mass of enemies.

"Vorwaerts!" thundered Herkimer, standing straight up in his stirrups; but they shot him out of his saddle and closed with the Palatines, hilt to hilt.

Major Frey and Colonel Bellenger fell under their horses, Colonel Seeber dropped dead into the ravine, Captain Graves was dragged from the ranks and butchered by bayonets; but those stubborn Palatines calmly divided into squads, and their steady fusillade stopped the rush of the Royal Greens and sent the flanking savages howling to cover.

Mount, Murphy, Elerson, and I lay behind a fallen hemlock, awaiting the flank attack which we now understood must surely come. For our regiments were at last completely surrounded, facing outward in an irregular circle, the front held by the Palatines, the rear by the Caughnawagas, the west by part of the Canajoharie regiment, and the east by a fraction of unbrigaded militia, teamsters, batt-men, bateaux-men, and half a dozen volunteer rangers reinforced by my three riflemen.

The scene was real enough to me now. Jack Mount, kneeling beside me, was attempting to clean the blood from himself and Elerson with handfuls of dried leaves. Murphy lay on his belly, watching the forest in front of us, and his blue eyes seemed suffused with a light of their own in the deepening gloom of the gathering thunder-storm. My nerves were all a-quiver; the awful screaming from the ravine had never ceased for an instant, and in that darkening, slimy pit I could still see a swaying mass of men on the causeway, locked in a death-struggle. To and fro they reeled; hatchet and knife and gun-stock glittered, rising and falling in the twilight of the storm-cloud; the flames from the rifles flashed crimson.

"Kape ye're eyes to the front, sorr; they do be comin'!" cried Murphy, springing briskly to his feet.

I looked ahead into the darkening woods; the Caughnawaga men were falling back, taking station behind trees; Mount stepped to the shelter of a big oak; Elerson leaped to cover under a pine; a Caughnawaga bateaux-man darted past me, stationing himself on my right behind the trunk of a dapple beech. Suddenly an Indian showed himself close in front; the Caughnawaga man fired and missed; and, quicker than I can write it, the savage was on him before he could reload and had brained him with a single castete-stroke. I fired, but the Mohawk was too quick for me, and a moment later he bounded back into the brush while the forest rang with his triumphant scalp-yell.

"That's what they're doing in front!" shouted Elerson. "When a soldier fires they're on him before he can reload!"

"Two men to a tree!" roared Jack Mount. "Double up there, you Caughnawaga men!"

Elerson glided cautiously to the oak which sheltered Mount; Murphy crept forward to my tree.

"Bedad!" he muttered, "let the ondacent divils dhraw ye're fire an' welcome. I've a pill to purge 'em now. Luk at that, sorr! Shteady! Shteady an' cool does it!"

A savage, with his face painted half white and half red, stepped out from the thicket and dropped just as I fired. The next instant he came leaping straight for our tree, castete poised.

Murphy fired. The effect of the shot was amazing; the savage stopped short in mid-career as though he had come into collision with a stone wall; then Elerson fired, knocking him flat, head doubled under his naked shoulders, feet trailing across a rotting log.

"Save ye're powther, Dave!" sang out Murphy. "Sure he was clean kilt as he shtood there. Lave a dead man take his own time to fall!"

I had reloaded, and Murphy was coolly priming, when on our right the rifles began speaking faster and faster, and I heard the sound of men running hard over the dry leaves, and the thudding gallop of horses.

"A charge!" said Murphy. "There do be horses comin', too. Have they dhragoons?—I dunnoa. Ha! There they go! 'Tis McCraw's outlaws or I'm a Dootchman!"

A shrill cock-crow rang out in the forest.

"'Tis the chanticleer scalp-yell of that damned loon, Francy McCraw!" he cried, fiercely. "Give it to 'em, b'ys! Shoot hell into the dommed Tories!"

The Caughnawaga rifles rang out from every tree; a white man came running through the wood, and I instinctively held my fire.

"Shoot the dhirrty son of a shlut!" yelled Murphy; and Elerson shot him and knocked him down, but the man staggered to his feet again, clutching at his wounded throat, and reeled towards us. He fell again, got on his knees, crawled across the dead leaves until he was scarce fifteen yards away, then fell over and lay there, coughing.

"A dead wan,"' said Murphy, calmly; "lave him."

McCraw's onset passed along our extreme left; the volleys grew furious; the ghastly cock-crow rang out shrill and piercing, and we fired at long range where the horses were passing through the rifle-smoke.

Then, in the roar of the fusillade, a bright flash lighted up the forest; a thundering crash followed, and the storm burst, deluging the woods with rain. Trees rocked and groaned, dashing their tops together; the wind rose to a hurricane; the rain poured down, beating the leaves from the trees, driving friend and foe to shelter. The reports of the rifles ceased; the war-yelp died away. Peal on peal of thunder shook the earth; the roar of the tempest rose to a steady shriek through which the terrific smashing of falling trees echoed above the clash of branches.

Soaked, stunned, blinded by the awful glare of the lightning, I crouched under the great oak, which rocked and groaned, convulsed to its bedded roots, so that the ground heaved under me as I lay.

I could not see ten feet ahead of me, so thick was the gloom with rain and flying leaves and twigs. The thunder culminated in a series of fearful crashes; bolt after bolt fell, illuminating the flying chaos of the tempest; then came a stunning silence, slowly filled with the steady roar of the rain.

A gray pallor grew in the woods. I looked down into the ravine and saw a muddy lake there full of dead men and horses.

The wounded Tory near us was still choking and coughing, dying hard out there in the rain. Mount and Elerson crept over to where we lay, and, after a moment's conference, Murphy led us in a long circle, swinging gradually northward until we stumbled into the drenched Palatine regiment, which was still holding its ground. There was no firing on either side; the guns were too wet.

On a wooded knoll to the left a group of dripping men had gathered. Somebody said that the old General lay there, smoking and directing the defence, his left leg shattered by a ball. I saw the blue smoke of his pipe curling up under the tree, but I did not see him.

The wind had died out; the thunder rolled off to the northward, muttering among the hills; rain fell less heavily; and I saw wounded men tearing strips from their soaking shirts to bind their hurts. Details from the Canajoharie regiment passed us searching the underbrush for their dead.

I also noticed with a shudder that Elerson and Murphy carried two fresh scalps apiece, tied to the belts of their hunting-shirts; but I said nothing, having been warned by Jack Mount that they considered it their prerogative to take the scalps of those who had failed to take theirs.

How they could do it I cannot understand, for I had once seen the body of a scalped man, with the skin, released from the muscles of the forehead, hanging all loose and wrinkled over the face.

With the ceasing of the rain came the renewed crack of the rifles and the whiz of bullets. We took post on the extreme left, firing deliberately at McCraw's renegades; and I do not know whether I hit any or not, but five men did I see fall under the murderous aim of Murphy; and I know that Elerson shot two savages, for he went down into the ravine after them and returned with the wet, red trophies.

The sun was now shining again with a heat so fierce and intense that the earth smoked vapor all around us. It was at this time that I, personally, experienced the only close fighting of the day, which brought a sudden end to this most amazing and bloody skirmish.

I had been lying full length behind a bush in the lines of the Palatine regiment, eating a crust of bread; for that strange battle-hunger had been gnawing at my vitals for an hour. Some of the men were eating, some firing; the steaming heat almost suffocated me as I lay there, yet I munched on, ravenous as a December wolf.

I heard somebody shout: "Here they come!" and, filling my mouth with bread, I rose to my knees to see.

A body of troops in green uniforms came marching steadily towards us, led by a red-coated officer on horseback; and all around me the Palatines were springing to their feet, uttering cries of rage, cursing the oncoming troops, and calling out to them by name.

For the detachment of Royal Greens which now advanced to the assault was, it appeared, composed of old acquaintances and neighbors of the Palatines, who had fled to join the Tories and Indians and now returned to devastate their own county.

Lashed to ungovernable fury by the sight of these hated renegades, the entire regiment leaped forward with a roar and rushed on the advancing detachment, stabbing, shooting, clubbing, throttling. Mutual hatred made the contest terrible beyond words; no quarter was given on either side. I saw men strangle each other with naked hands; kick each other to death, fighting like dogs, tooth and nail, rolling over the wet ground.

The tide had not yet struck us; we fired at their mounted officer, whom Elerson declared he recognized as Major Watts, brother-in-law to Sir John Johnson; and presently, as usual, Murphy hit him, so that the young fellow dropped forward on his saddle and his horse ran away, flinging him against a tree with a crash, doubtless breaking every bone in his body.

Then, above the tumult, out of the north came booming three cannon-shots, the signal from the fort that Herkimer had desired to wait for.

A detachment from the Canajoharie regiment surged out of the woods with a ringing cheer, pointing northward, where, across a clearing, a body of troops were rapidly advancing from the direction of the fort.

"The sortie! The sortie!" shouted the soldiers, frantic with joy. Murphy and I ran towards them; Elerson yelled: "Be careful! Look at their uniforms! Don't go too close to them!"

"They're coming from the north!" bawled Mount. "They're our own people, Dave! Come on!"

Captain Jacob Gardinier, with a dozen Caughnawaga men, had already reached the advancing troops, when Murphy seized my arm and halted me, crying out, "Those men are wearing their coats turned inside out! They're Johnson's Greens!"

At the same instant I recognized Colonel John Butler as the officer leading them; and he knew me and, without a word, fired his pistol at me. We were so near them now that a Tory caught hold of Murphy and tried to stab him, but the big Irishman kicked him headlong and rushed into the mob, swinging his long hatchet, followed by Gardinier and his Caughnawaga men, whom the treachery had transformed into demons.