With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga Part 20

He started to descend the bank and the old farmer arose and hobbled after him. The instant he reached the brink where he could again see his little dock, he gave voice to an exclamation of disgust and anger.

"There it be! That Pomp is the most no 'count critter that ever eat smoked hog. He was a usin' that canoe this mornin', an' now look at it!"

Seemingly the big canoe had slipped her moorings and was floating rapidly around the wooded point near the dock. 'Siah might have been astonished a little himself had he not had sharper eyes than the Tory.

He saw that several articles of apparel lay in the canoe and he recognized Enoch Harding's old otter-skin cap. "Hold on, sir!" he cried.

"No matter about calling your hands from the field to git it. I'll have that canoe in a jiffy."

He ran down the steep bank, unfastened the bateau, and with a powerful shove sent it out into the lake. There were two long sweeps aboard and with one of these 'Siah quickly propelled the heavy craft in the same direction as the canoe--down the lake. The latter craft was scarcely out of sight of the old man when the bateau came along side. There was nothing showing of the swimmer but his head and one hand which clutched the painter.

"Come aboard here, ye young rascal!" exclaimed the woodsman, with a chuckle. "You'll have that whole spatter of Tories arter us. Couldn't you hide your clothes better 'n that? Might have left 'em ash.o.r.e. If the old gentleman hadn't been blinder'n a bat at midday, he'd seen 'em."

"I didn't think of that," Enoch admitted, rather ruefully, climbing over the bow of the canoe and then pa.s.sing the thong to 'Siah, who fastened it to the stern of the bateau. "I heard him say you couldn't have both, and I thought it too bad. This canoe will hold a dozen men."

"Wall, grab that sweep. Never mind your clothes just now. I warrant ye'll keep warm enough till we git to the camp."

The newly made captain of scouts and his young companion were by no means the first to reach the rendezvous on the sh.o.r.e opposite Ticonderoga. Nor is it to be supposed that the boats being there collected were brought boldly up in daylight. They were hidden in little coves near by, which could be reached by the scouts without attracting attention from the fort, to be brought after dark to the landing from which Ethan Allen expected to embark his troops. There were but two craft moored opposite the camp which Bolderwood and his companions had occupied for more than a week. Bolderwood held the t.i.tle of a long strip of land along the lake sh.o.r.e, but he had never built a cabin. A shack, or hut, of branches was all the shelter the trio enjoyed.

Here the ranger and Enoch found several of their friends beside Smith and Brown in waiting. The sh.o.r.e of the lake on this side had been fairly scoured for bateaus. They dared not cross to the New York side to obtain boats, for by so doing they would be sure to excite suspicion. With those already obtained and some which their companions were now gone for, the expedition must be content. The one mistake of their bold leader might bring about failure to the enterprise; yet so confident were they in Ethan Allen's ability that they firmly believed he would find some way to overcome the lack of transportation. The forced march of the scouts the day before, and for a good share of the night as well, had brought them to the lake long before the expedition itself could possibly reach the landing. Besides, the leaders would hold back until after dark. The attack upon the fortress must be accomplished under the cover of night. Bolderwood hoped, when he saw the meagre provision he was able to make for transportation, that the army would arrive early enough to allow of two, and even three, voyages to be made from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, that the entire force might take part in the attack.

To Enoch, however, there was another matter of grave interest to be attended to when he and his tall friend arrived at the temporary camp.

He wished to see the spy whom Bolderwood had mentioned to Ethan Allen.

The ranger, too, looked sharply about the camp for the man. "Where's that slippery critter we captured the other night?" he asked. "If he gits away before Colonel Allen comes there'll be trouble for some of us."

"We'd better have hung him up and so saved his food," grunted Brown, who, because the Yorkers had burned his house and driven his wife and children into the forest, had no love for anybody from the west side of the lake.

"You haven't let him go?" demanded Bolderwood.

"Nay, 'Siah. He's safe enough," returned Smith. "He's yonder behind the camp. He'd be an eel or a sarpint to wriggle out of them thongs."

"A sarpint he is," declared Bolderwood, and strode away to look at the prisoner. Enoch followed him. There, sitting with his back against a tree, his ankles fastened together and a strong deer thong wrapped about his body and about the tree itself, was Simon Halpen. When he saw the ranger he scowled. When he observed the boy, however, his eyes flashed and the blood rushed to his face. "I reckon he knows ye, Nuck," said the ranger.

"What are you going to do with me?" demanded the Yorker, with bravado.

"You'll all suffer for this outrage, I promise ye! Wait until I get to Albany----"

"And you ever see Albany again you're a lucky man," said Bolderwood, satisfying himself that the bonds were tight. "The Colonel will see to ye, my fine bird."

Enoch still remained before his enemy when the ranger went back to the camp. The villain returned his glance boldly. "You are satisfied now, I suppose?" he muttered.

"Not yet," replied young Harding.

"I shall be avenged!" declared Halpen, with a burst of wrath. "If I am injured I have powerful friends who will punish you. I care nothing for Ethan Allen----"

"A power higher than Colonel Allen will punish you," Enoch said, gravely.

"Pooh! I care nothing for your Whig courts. You had best do what you can for me, Master Harding."

"I will leave you to the punishment you deserve. And you will receive it."

"What have I done, I'd like to know?" exclaimed the prisoner. "It was not my fault that your house was burned and your mother and you placed in danger of your lives. It was a mistake."

"Was it a mistake when you crept to my camp the other night and fired at me as I lay sleeping beside the fire?" demanded the boy, sternly.

The red flush left the prisoner's cheek then. "What--what do you mean?"

he gasped.

"You know well what I mean. See here!" Enoch showed him the hole in the breast of his coat. "That was made by your bullet."

"The boy's life is charmed!" muttered Halpen.

"You had much better have used your gun-stock, Master Halpen. You would have been surer to kill me then."

At this an expression of positive terror came into the prisoner's features. "I am not a murderer," he exclaimed. "You are mistaken if you think that I fired at you."

"It is true I cannot prove it," Enoch replied. "But something else I can prove." He advanced a step nearer to the man. "Do you remember where you hid the moose hoofs, Simon Halpen?"

The prisoner shrank back against the tree and his eyes fairly glared up at the youth. "You--you----" he gasped.

"Yes. They are found. We now know how my poor father was killed. And you were seen running from the place with his blood upon your clothes and upon your gun. Even your Albany courts would punish you for that!" Then the boy, unable to trust himself longer in the presence of the man who had so injured him, hastily left the spot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PUNISHMENT WAS NEAR AT HAND]

And the prisoner--how did he feel while tied to that tree, waiting for the judgment which was to fall upon him for his crimes? No human being but the criminal himself can ever appreciate half the agony of the condemned. It was long since discovered that the gift of speech was given man to conceal his thoughts. To the man of strong will the face is a mask to conceal his feelings. And Simon Halpen was not a weakling. He may have betrayed some emotion when accused by Enoch; it was a small part only of what he felt.

He saw now, as plainly as he saw the lengthening shadows about him, that punishment for his crimes was near. These stern woodsmen, whose plan for attacking Ticonderoga he had discovered, were in no mood to trifle with him. And what Enoch had told him was an a.s.surance that though he might live to be brought before a court of justice, he must stand trial for his crimes. Neither political influence nor his wealth could save him from the result of his offenses against the laws of man and G.o.d. He was made desperate by these thoughts.

He could see from his uncomfortable position the company of scouts busy with their supper. The ordinary observer would not have imagined that these men were the pioneers of two hundred and thirty Green Mountain Boys and the Ma.s.sachusetts and Connecticut troops. But Halpen knew the army of Americans was coming, and the object of their approach.

Unwarned, Captain De la Place and his garrison might be surprised and overwhelmed by these backwoodsmen. Halpen had no particular love for the King, nor for the royal government; but he hated these men who had defended their farms for so many years from the aggressions of his own party. Fear of punishment was reinforced by a desire to worst the Green Mountain Boys. He began to struggle against his bonds.

He had done that early in the day when he was first fastened to the tree; and the thongs had cut into his arms and breast. But now he felt these abrasions not at all. He was mad to be free, and free he would be!

The scouts paid him no attention. The sun was set and the forest grew dark. Would he escape he must accomplish the matter soon, or likely Bolderwood or young Harding would come to examine him again, and then the chance would be past.

At last, his flesh cut so deeply that blood ran from arms and body, he stretched the hide rope until he was able to wriggle out of it. There were then his ankles to untie. This he did in a very few moments. He was free! Rising to his knees, his limbs were so paralyzed by inaction that he could not yet stand upright, he crept into the brush and, like the serpent that Bolderwood declared to be his prototype, glided away from the camp and down toward the brush-bordered sh.o.r.e of the lake.

CHAPTER XXII

THE END OF SIMON HALPEN

As they are to-day, the surroundings of Fort Ticonderoga were most picturesque. Nor is the country about the fortifications, and across the lake where the camp of Bolderwood's scouts was established at the time of our story, and later where the Grenadier Battery was raised, much more thickly settled to-day than it was then. Mt. Defiance, south of the Lake George outlet on the west side of Champlain was a heavily wooded eminence. Behind the scouts' camp a rugged shoulder of ground, later called Mount Independence, raised its bulk out of the surrounding forest. The formidable promontory on which the French had built Ticonderoga twenty years before, commanded a great sweep of the lake.

For mere foot-soldiers, without artillery or explosives, to attack these fortifications seemed utterly preposterous.

Where Bolderwood and his companions were waiting they had an excellent view of the fort. At sunset the garrison was paraded and one gun boomed resonantly across the calm lake. Just before it became too dark to see the other sh.o.r.e, the Americans observed a man come out of the covered way by which the fortifications were entered and approach the sh.o.r.e.

There was a light canoe moored there and into this he stepped and paddled out into the lake, evidently aiming his craft for a cove near the scouts' position. Bolderwood and his comrades were so deeply interested in the maneuvres of this man that Simon Halpen was for the time forgotten.

"We'll have to take that feller in and hold him for the Colonel to talk to," suggested one of the scouts when it became apparent that the stranger from the fort was coming ash.o.r.e near at hand. "He'll see them boats an' suspicion something."