The Little Red Foot Part 85

The negro pulled in his horses and sat staring at me, astounded.

I walked leisurely past the horses to the window of the coach. And there, seated, I saw Polly Johnson and Claudia Swift.

There ensued a terrible silence and they gazed upon me as though they were looking upon a dead man.

"Jack Drogue!" whispered Claudia, "how--how come you here?"

I bowed, my cap in my hand, but could not utter a word.

"Jack! Jack, are--are you alone?" faltered Lady Johnson. "Good heavens, what does this mean, I beg of you?----"

"Where are your people, Polly?" I asked in a dead voice.

"My--my people? Do you mean my husband?"

"I mean him.... And his troops. Where are they at this moment?"

"Do you not know that the army is before Stanwix?"

"I know it now," said I gravely.

"Mercy on us, Jack!" cried Claudia, finding her voice shrilly; "will you not tell us how it is that we meet you here on the Oneida road and close to our own army?"

I shook my head: "No, Claudia, I shall not tell you. But I must ask you how you came here and whither you now are bound. And you must answer."

They gazed at my sombre face with an intentness and anxiety that made me sadder than ever I was in all my life.

Then, without a word, Lady Johnson laid aside the silken flap of her red foot-mantle. And there my shocked eyes beheld a new born baby nursing at her breast.

"We accompanied my husband from Buck Island to Oswego," she said tremulously. "And, as the way was deemed so utterly secure, we took boat at Oneida Lake and brought our horses.... And now are returning--never dreaming of danger from--from your people--Jack."

I stared at the child; I stared at her.

"In G.o.d's name," I said, "get forward then, and hail your hors.e.m.e.n escort. Say to them that the road is dangerous! Take to your batteau and get you to Oswego as soon as may be. And I strictly enjoin you, come not this way again, for there is now no safety in Tryon for man or woman or child, nor like to be while red-coat or green remains within this new-born nation!

"And you, Claudia, say to Sir Frederick Haldimand that he has lighted in Tryon a flame that shall utterly consume him though he hide behind the ramparts of Quebec itself! Say that to him!"

Then I stepped back and bade Colas drive on as fast as he dare. And when he cracked his long whip, I stood uncovered and looked upon the woman I once had loved, and upon the other woman who had been my childhood playmate; and saw her child at her breast, and her pale face bowed above it.

And so out of my life pa.s.sed these two women forever, without any word or sign save for the white faces of them and the deadly fear in their eyes.

I stood there in the Oneida Road, watching their coach rolling and swaying until it was out of view, and even the noise of it had utterly died away.

Then I walked slowly back to the wood's edge; in silence my Oneidas rose from the weeds and stood around me where I halted, the sleeve of my buckskin shirt across my eyes.

Then, when I was ready, I turned and went forward, swiftly, in a southeasterly direction; and heard their padded footsteps falling lightly at my heels as I Hastened toward the Mohawk, a miserable, sad, yet angry man.

All that long, hot day we travelled; and in the afternoon black clouds hid the sun, and presently a most furious thunder storm burst on us in the woods, so that we were obliged to shelter us under the hemlocks and lie there while rain roared and lightning blinded, and deafening thunder shook the ground we lay on.

It was over in an hour. The forest dripped and steamed as we unwrapped our rifles and started on.

Twice, it seemed to me, far to the east I heard a duller, vaguer noise of thunder; and my Indians also noticed it.

Later, with the sky all blue above, it came again--dull, distant shocks with no rolling echo trailing after.

Tahioni came to me, and I saw in his uneasy eyes what I also now divined. For to the bravest Indian the sound of cannon is a terror and an abomination. And I now had become very sure that it was cannon we heard; for Stanwix lay far across the wilderness in that direction, and the heavy, lifeless, and superheated air might carry the solemn sound from a great distance.

But I said nothing, not choosing to share my conclusions with these young warriors who, though they had taken scalps at Big Eddy, were yet scarcely tried in war.

That night we lay near an old trail which I knew ran to Otsego and pa.s.sed by Colonel Croghan's new house.

And on this trail, early the following morning, we encountered two men whom my Indians, instead of taking as they should have done, instantly shot down. Which betrayed their inexperience in war; and I rated them roundly.

The two dead men were _blue-eyed_ Indians in all the horror of their shameful paint and forest dress.

I knew one of them, for when Tahioni washed their lifeless visages and laid them on their backs, there, to my hot indignation, I beheld young Thomas Hare, brother to Lieutenant Henry Hare and to Captain James Hare, of the Indian Service.

Horror-stricken, bitterly mortified, I gazed down at the dead features of these two renegades who had betrayed their own race and colour; and my Indians, watching me, understood when I turned and spat upon the ground; and so they scalped both--which otherwise they had not dared in my presence.

We found on them every evidence that they were serving as a scout for McDonald. Probably when we encountered them they had been on their way to Sir John at Stanwix with verbal intelligence. But now it was idle to surmise what they might have been able to tell us.

We found upon their bodies no papers to shew where McDonald might be lurking; and so, as I would not trouble to bury the carrion, my Oneidas despoiled them, hid their weapons, pouched their money and ammunition, and left them lying on the trail for their more respectable relatives, the wolves, to devour.

Now, on the Otsego trail, which was but a vile one and nigh impa.s.sable with undergrowth, we beat toward the Mohawk like circling hounds cast out and at fault to find a scent.

And at evening of that day, the seventh of August, I saw a man in the woods, and, watching, ordered my Indians to surround him and bring him in alive.

Judge, then, of my chagrin when presently comes walking up, and arm in arm with my Oneidas, one Daniel Wemple in his militia regimentals, a Torloch farmer whom I knew.

"Great G.o.d, John!" says he, "what are you doing here with your tame panthers and a pair o' raw scalps that smell white in my nostrils?"

I told him, and asked in turn for news.

"You know nothing?" he demanded.

"Nothing, Dan, only that we heard cannon to the eastward yesterday."

"Well," says he, "there has been a b.l.o.o.d.y fight at Oriska, John; and Tryon must mourn her sons.

"For our fine regiments marched into an ambuscade on our way to drive Sir John from Stanwix, which he had invested. Colonel c.o.x is dead, and Majors Eisinlord and Klepsattle and Van Slyck. Colonel Paris is taken, and our brigade surgeon, Younglove, and Captain Martin of the batteaux service. John Frey, Major of brigade, is missing, and so is Colonel Bellinger. Scarce an inferior officer but is slain or taken; our dead soldiers are carted off by waggon-loads; our wounded lie in their alder-litters. And among them our general,--old Honikol Herkimer!--and I myself saw that brave Oneida die--our interpreter, Spencer----"

A cry escaped me, instantly checked as I looked at Thiohero. The girl came and rested her arm on my left shoulder and gazed steadily at the militia man.