The Little Red Foot Part 49

"Thomas is dead, Thompson and Irving taken, Arnold and Wayne wounded, the army a skeleton, what with losses by death, wounds, disease, and in prisoners.

"Had not Arnold broke into the Montreal shops and taken food and woolen clothing, I think we had been naked now."

"Good heavens!" said I, burning with mortification, "I had not heard of such a rout!"

"Oh, it was no rout, John," said he carelessly. "Sullivan marched us out of that h.e.l.l-hole in good order--whatever John Adams chooses to say about our army."

"What does John Adams say?"

"Why, he says we are disgraced, defeated, dispirited, discontented, undisciplined, diseased, eaten up with vermin."

"My G.o.d!" exclaimed Nick.

"It's true enough," said Dave, coolly. "And when John Adams also adds that we have no clothing, no beds, no blankets, no medicines, and only salt pork and flour to eat and little o' these, why, he's right, too.

Why not admit truth? Does it help to conceal it? Nenni, lads! It is best always to face it and endeavour to turn into a falsehood tomorrow what is disgracefully true today.

"So when I tell you that in three months our Northern Army has lost five thousand men by smallpox, camp fever, bullets, and privation--that out of five thousand who remain, two thousand are sick, why, it's the plain and d.a.m.nable truth.

"But any soldier who loses sleep or appet.i.te over such cursed news should be run through with a bayonet, for he's a rabbit and no man!"

After a silence: "Who commands them now?" I asked.

"Gates is to take them over at Crown Point, I hear."

This news chilled me, for Schuyler should have commanded. But the d.a.m.ned Yankees, plotting their petty New England plots to discredit our dear General, had plainly hoodwinked Congress; and now our generous and n.o.ble Schuyler had again fallen a victim to nutmeg jealousy and cunning.

"Well," said I, "G.o.d help us all in Tryon, now; for a vain a.s.s is in the saddle, and the counsel of the brave and wise remains unheeded. Will Guy Carleton drive us south of Crown Point?"

"I think so," said Ellerson, carelessly.

"Then the war will come among us here in Tryon!"

"Straight as a storm from the North, John."

"When?"

"Oh, that? G.o.d knows. We shall hold the lakes as long as we can. But unless we are reinforced by Continentals--unless every Colony sends us a regiment of their Lines--we can not hope to hold Crown Point, and that's sure as shooting and plain as preaching."

"Very well," said I between clenched teeth, "then we here in Tryon had best go about the purging of that same county, and physic this district against a dose o' red-coats."

Ellerson laughed and rose with the lithe ease of a panther.

"I should be on my way to Albany," says he. "You tell me there are horses at the Summer House, John?"

"Certainly."

We shook hands.

"You find Morgan's agreeable?" inquired Nick.

"A grand corps, lad! Tim Murphy is my mate. And I think there's not a rifleman among us who can not shoot the whiskers off a porcupine at a hundred yards." And to me, with a nod toward my Oneidas: "They are painting. Do you march tonight, John?"

"A matter of cleaning out a Tory nest yonder," said I.

"A filthy business and not war," quoth he. "Well, G.o.d be with all friends to liberty, for all h.e.l.l is rising up against us. A thousand Indians are stripped for battle on this frontier--and the tall ships never cease arriving crammed with red-coats and Germans.

"So we should all do our duty now, whether that same duty lie in emptying barrack slops, or in cleaning out a Tory nest, or in marching to drum and fife, or guarding the still places of the wilderness--it's all one business, John."

Again we shook hands all around, then, waving aside Joe de Golyer and his proffered lantern, the celebrated rifleman pa.s.sed lightly into the shadows.

"Yonder goes the best shot in the North," said Nick.

"Saving only yourself and Jack Mount and Tim Murphy," remarked G.o.dfrey Shew.

"As for the whiskers of a porcupine," quoth Nick, with the wild flare a-glimmering in his eyes, "why, I have never tried such a target. But I should pick any b.u.t.ton on a red coat at a hundred yards--that is, if I cast and pare my own bullet, and load in my own fashion."

Silver swore that any rifle among us white men should shave an otter of his whiskers, as a barber trims a Hessian.

"Sacre garce!" cried he, "why should we miss--we coureurs-du-bois, who have learn to shoot by ze hardes' of all drill-masters--a empty belly!"

"We must not miss at Howell's house," said I, counting my people at a glance.

The Saguenay, ghastly in scarlet and white, came and placed himself behind me.

All the Oneidas were naked, painted from lock to ankle in terrific symbols.

Thiohero was still oiling her supple, boyish body when I started a brief description of the part each one of us was to act, speaking in the Oneida dialect and in English.

"Take these b.l.o.o.d.y men alive," I added, "if it can be done. But if it can not, then slay them. For every one of these that escapes tonight shall return one day with a swarm of hornets to sting us all to death in County Tryon!... Are you ready for the command?"

"Ready, John," says Nick.

"March!"

At midnight we had surrounded Howell's house, save only the east approach, which we still left open for tardy skulkers.

A shadowy form or two slinking out from the tamaracks, their guns trailing, pa.s.sed along the hard ridge, bent nearly double to avoid observation.

We could not recognize them, for they were very shadows, vague as frost-driven woodc.o.c.k speeding at dusk to a sheltered swamp.

But, as they arrived, singly and in little groups, such a silent rage possessed me that I could scarce control my rifle, which quivered to take toll of these old neighbors who were returning by stealth at night to murder us in our beds.

The Saguenay lay in the wild gra.s.ses on my left; the little maid of Askalege, in her naked paint, lay on my right hand. Her forefinger caressed the trigger of her new rifle; the stock lay close to her cheek.

And I could hear her singing her _Karenna_ in a mouse's whisper to herself:

"Listen, John Drogue,[16]

Though we all die, You shall survive!