With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga Part 10

"Hold your fire!" commanded Enoch. "You may have blood on your hands yet, if you be not careful."

"But he fired at you."

"And a poor job he made of it. We will not fire unless we are forced to."

His mother said never a word. She went into her chamber again and with the girls and little Harry crouched upon the bed. But she glanced frequently from the loophole to observe the movements of the Yorker upon that side of the clearing.

By and by Halpen raised his voice and addressed the besieged. "Open the door and come out, or we will batter it down. And it will go hard with you then, I warrant! If you give up the place peaceably you may cart away your household stuff and the cattle and hogs. I'll not be too hard on you."

"If you come near this door I will send a bullet through your black heart!" was Enoch's reply, poking the muzzle of his rifle through the loophole beside which he stood.

The widow came running from the chamber. "Enoch! Enoch!" she cried, in horror. "Would you kill him?"

"He killed my father!" cried the boy, before he thought what explanation of his secret suspicions that remark might necessitate.

"The child is mad!" she murmured, after staring at him a full minute.

"You do not know what you say, Enoch. Master Halpen had naught to do with your poor father's death."

But Enoch had not to reply. A cry came from Bryce in the loft. "Look at that! Look at that!" he shouted, with excitement. "I just will shoot him!"

And then his old musket spoke. There was a yell from without. Enoch thought Simon Halpen himself had been shot, but the Yorker only ran around the end of the cabin to where one of his men stood howling like a wolf, and holding on to his swinging arm.

"I've broke his arm!" declared Bryce, proudly, coming to the head of the ladder. "He was flinging blazing clods on the roof."

"What shall we do?" gasped the mother. "My boys will be murderers."

"I'll kill them all before they'll harm you, mother," declared young Bryce, very proud indeed that he had hit the mark, but secretly delighted as well that he had done the villainous Yorker no serious damage.

But the moment after, he shrieked aloud and came again to the top of the ladder. His face was blanched. "Oh, oh! they've done it--they've done it!" he cried. "The roof is afire. Don't you smell it?"

Enoch could not believe that this horror was true until he had run up to the loft. The red flames were already showing at the edge of the house wall, and the crackling without told him that the bark and binders of the roof were burning fiercely. "Tear it off!" he shouted, and dropping his rifle he seized a length of sawed scantling which his father had brought from the mill, and began to break up the burning roof and cast it off. But as it fell to the ground against the house, soon the logs outside were afire. The dwelling was indeed imperiled.

"Come out! come out!" shouted Simon Halpen's voice. "The hut will burn to the ground an' ye'll burn with it. Ye'll go to Albany jail for this, every last one of ye!"

"Let me shoot him, mother!" cried Bryce, doubly excited now. "He'll never take you to jail."

"Come down from the loft, Bryce," the widow commanded, calmly. "Nothing can save the cabin now."

The children were crying with fear. The red flames began to lick the edges of the shutters and the door frame was afire. If they escaped they must pa.s.s through a wall of flame. The men outside, frightened by the result of their awful act, were shouting orders and berating each other madly. Yet none dared come too near, for they feared the guns of the defenders of the homestead. Enoch for the moment completely lost his head and stood as one daft.

But his mother was not so. Swiftly did she sweep aside the ashes on the hearth. Then of her own exertions she lifted on its edge the flat stone which covered the underground apartment. There was the ladder the boys had made leading down into the cool depths. "Down with you--all!" she commanded, seizing little Harry first and thrusting his feet upon the ladder.

"Oh, we'll smother down there, mother!" cried Kate.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed the widow, yet with shaking voice. "Do you think mother would tell you to do anything that would hurt you?"

But though she encouraged them to descend, in her own mind she was simply choosing the lesser of two terrible evils. The girls and Harry descended quickly; but she had to fairly force Bryce down. He wanted to stay and fight, and he clung to the old musket desperately. Although the tears were running down his face, he was made of the stuff which holds the soldier, though frightened, to his post.

"Go down yourself, mother," Enoch said, recovering his presence of mind and speaking calmly now. "I will follow you and drop the stone into place. But first I want to look out----"

He ran to the loophole, through which the smoke was now pouring. But after a moment there was a break in the cloud and he saw the group of frightened Yorkers plainly. They stood not many rods away and poking his rifle through the hole, he aimed at the villainous Halpen and, pulling the trigger, ran back to the hearth before the echo of the shot died away. Down the ladder he darted, dropping the heavy hearthstone into place, and leaving the cabin which for so many years had been their home, to be consumed above their heads. But his heart sank when he found how closely the six packed the tiny room and realized how little air reached them down here in the earth.

CHAPTER XII

BACKWOODS JUSTICE

At daybreak on this very morning when the Yorkers attacked the Harding place, 'Siah Bolderwood returning from the direction of Old Ti, suddenly came upon a little glade on the bank of the Walloomscoik Creek. With the instinct long gained by his life as hunter and woodsman, he never crossed an open s.p.a.ce in the forest without examining it well. In this glade he saw, at first glance, the signs of recent occupancy. The smouldering ashes of a campfire and the marks on the creek bank told him that a canoe party had camped there during the night and that they had been under way but shortly. Making sure that they were now out of sight he more closely examined the spot. The party numbered at least half a dozen, and there had been two canoes. He had come up the creek bank himself; therefore, not having seen the strangers, they had gone on ahead of him. Five miles or so up the stream lay the ox-bow at which his old friend Jonas Harding settled when he came into the Disputed Grounds, and where the widow and her brood now lived. After examining the camp he quickened his step toward the Harding place.

A mile further on, however, he heard the stroke of paddles and the sound of men's voices. He would have gone to the fringed river bank and peered out upon the stream had not a figure suddenly risen before him as though from the ground itself and barred his way. "How d'ye, Crow Wing!" he exclaimed, yet showing no surprise at the Indian youth's appearance. The latter bore a brace of rabbits on his gun and Bolderwood guessed that he belonged to the canoe party and had left them to get this game for their dinner.

"Umph!" returned the Indian and looked at him stolidly.

"Your people?" asked the ranger, with a gesture toward the river.

"Umph!" was the reply. It might have meant yes or no. Crow Wing seemed undecided. "Why you no at Hardings?" he demanded finally.

"I'm bound that a-way now," said the white man.

"Hunting?" grunted Crow Wing.

"Been up to Old Ti. Bought some land up there."

Crow Wing seemed about to pa.s.s on. But over his shoulder he said: "You go to Hardings' farm. They want you--mebbe."

"What for?"

The Indian shrugged his shoulders and walked on. But Bolderwood strode after him. "What's going on?" he asked, anxiously. "Who's that out yonder?" nodding again toward the creek.

"Umph! Men hire Crow Wing to paddle canoe. They go to Hardings'."

"Yorkers!" exclaimed Bolderwood.

But the Indian youth said no more and quickly disappeared in the bushes which overhung the creek. The ranger hesitated a moment, appeared to think of following him, and then turned abruptly and plunged into the forest on a course diagonal from the river. Therefore, when Nuck and Bryce were fighting the bears in the swamp he did not hear their guns, being by that time some miles away and striding rapidly toward Arlington. He had suspected the truth and instead of wasting time observing the party of which Crow Wing was a member, he had it in his mind to rouse the neighbors to go to the aid of the widow and her children. After the affair at Otter Creek, which he was sorry indeed to have missed, Bolderwood had expected something like the present raid.

He, like the Hardings, believed that Simon Halpen would find the time ripe for the carrying out of his nefarious designs.

It was the season of the year when the farm work having been completed, the pioneers felt free to go about more, and hunting was popular. Many men were off with their rifles; but Bolderwood picked up some half dozen determined fellows and hastened back to the Harding place. While yet some distance away they heard a rifle shot and so disturbed was the ranger by this, that he started on the run for the ox-bow farm, and was far ahead of his friends when he broke cover at the edge of the forest and beheld the cabin.

His horror and despair when he saw the house wrapped in flames and the Yorkers running across the fields toward the river, knew no bounds. Yet even then he did not suppose that the widow and her family were within the burning dwelling. He presumed they must be hiding in the outbuildings and he ran on after the fleeing Yorkers, thinking only to take vengeance upon them for their wanton cruelty in burning down the poor woman's house at the beginning of winter.

One man kept turning back to look at the blazing structure which was now more than half consumed; and this fellow the ranger quickly overtook. It was the surveyor and he was wringing his hands and weeping as he ran.

Bolderwood dashed past him without a word, seeing plainly that he was not armed and was sore frightened. "I'll attend to your case later," the ranger muttered, and spurred on after the rest of the party. But they were too quick for him, and having reached the bank of the creek leaped into their canoes and the Indians pushed off. The fear of what they had done pressed them hard and they had run like madmen from their single pursuer. Now at an order from Halpen the Indians stolidly paddled down the river again and were quickly out of sight around the nearest bend in the stream.

Bolderwood went back and found the surveyor p.r.o.ne upon the ground and weeping like a woman. "Get up, you great ca'f!" cried the ranger.

"n.o.body'll kill you for your part in this matter though you desarve little mercy.... Was that Simon Halpen?"