The Hidden Children Part 49

"I do! You are going!... To your death, perhaps--for all I know----"

"Hus.h.!.+ And good-night----"

She held to my offered hand tightly:

"Don't go--don't go----"

"I will return and tell you if----"

"'If!' That means you will not return! I shall never see you again!"

I had flung one arm around her, and she stood with one hand clenched against her lips, looking blankly into my face.

"Good-bye," I said, and kissed her clenched hand so violently that it slipped sideways on her cheek, bruising her lips.

She gave a faint gasp and swayed where she stood, very white in the face.

"I have hurt you," I stammered; but my words were lost in a frightful uproar bursting from the fort; and:

"G.o.d!" she whispered, cowering against me, as the horrid howling swelled on the affrighted air.

"It is only the Oneidas' scalp-yell," said I. "They know the news.

Their death-halloo means that the corps of guides is ordered out.

Good-bye! You have means to support you now till I return. Wait for me; love me if it is in you to love such a man. Whatever the event, my devotion will not alter. I leave you in G.o.d's keeping, dear. Good-bye."

Her hand was still at her bruised lips; I bent forward; she moved it aside. But I kissed only her hand.

Then I turned and ran toward the fort; and in the torch-light at the gate encountered Boyd, who said to me gleefully:

"It's you and your corps of guides! The express is from Clinton.

Hanierri remains; the Sagamore goes with you; but the regiment is not marching yet awhile. Lord help us! Listen to those beastly Oneidas in their paint! Did you ever hear such a wolf-pack howling! Well, Loskiel, a safe and pleasant scout to you." He offered his hand. "I'll be strolling back to Croghan's. Fare you safely!"

"And you," I said, not thinking, however, of him. But I thought of Lana, and wished to G.o.d that Boyd were with us on this midnight march, and Lana safe in Albany once more.

As I entered the fort, through the smoky flare of torches, I saw Dolly Glenn waiting there; and as I pa.s.sed she gave a frightened exclamation.

"Did you wish to speak to me?" I asked.

"Is--is Lieutenant Boyd going with you?" she stammered.

"No, child."

She thanked me with a pitiful sort of smile, and shrank back into the darkness.

I remained but a few moments with Major Parr and Captain Simpson; a rifleman of my own company, Harry Kent, brought me my pack and rifle--merely sufficient ammunition and a few necessaries--for we were to travel lightly. Then Captain Simpson went away to inspect the Oneida scouts.

"I wish you well," said the Major quietly. "Guard the Mohican as you would the apple of your eye, and--G.o.d go with you, Euan Loskiel."

I saluted, turned squarely, and walked out across the parade to the postern. Here I saw Captain Simpson inspecting the four guides, one of whom, to me, seemed unnecessarily burdened with hunting s.h.i.+rt and blanket.

Running my eye along their file, where they stood in the uncertain torchlight, I saw at once that the guides selected by Major Parr were not all Oneidas. Two of them seemed to be; a third was a Stockbridge Indian; but the fourth--he with the hunting-s.h.i.+rt and double blanket, wore unfamiliar paint.

"What are you?" said I in the Oneida dialect, trying to gain a square look at him in the s.h.i.+fty light.

"Wyandotte," he said quietly.

"h.e.l.l!" said I, turning to Captain Simpson. "Who sends me a Wyandotte?"

"General Clinton," replied Simpson in surprise. "The Wyandotte came from Fortress Pitt. Colonel Broadhead, commanding our left wing, sent him, most highly recommending him for his knowledge of the Susquehanna and Tioga."

I took another hard look at the Wyandotte.

"You should travel lighter," said I. "Split that Niagara blanket and roll your hunting-s.h.i.+rt."

The savage looked at me a moment, then his sinewy arms flew up and he s.n.a.t.c.hed the deerskin s.h.i.+rt from his naked body. The next instant his knife fairly leaped from its beaded sheath; there was a flash of steel, a ripping sound, and his blue and scarlet blanket lay divided. Half of it he flung to a rifleman, and the other half, with his s.h.i.+rt, he rolled and tied to his pack.

Such zeal and obedience pleased me, and I smiled and nodded to him. He showed his teeth at me, which I fancied was his mode of smiling. But it was somewhat hideous, as his nose had been broken, and the unpleasant dent in it made horridly conspicuous by a gash of blood-red paint.

I buckled my belt and pack and picked up my rifle. Captain Simpson shook hands with me. At the same moment, the rifleman sent to our bush-hut to summon the Mohican returned with him. And a finer sight I never saw; for the tall and magnificently formed Siwanois was in scarlet war-paint from crown to toe, oiled, shaven save for the lock, and crested with a single scarlet plume--and heaven knows where he got it, for it was not dyed, but natural.

His scarlet and white beaded sporran swung to his knees; his ankle moccasins were quilled and feathered in red and white; the Erie scalps hung from his girdle, hooped in red, and he bore only a light pack-slung, besides his rifle and short red blanket.

"Salute, O Sagamore! Roya-neh!" I said in a low voice, pa.s.sing him.

He smiled, then his features became utterly blank, as one by one the eyes of the other Indians flashed on his for a moment, then s.h.i.+fted warily elsewhere.

I made a quick gesture, turned, and started, heading the file out into the darkness.

And as we advanced noiselessly and swung west into the Otsego road, I was aware of a shadow on my right--soft hands outstretched--a faint whisper as I kissed her tightening fingers. Then I ran on to head that painted file once more, and for a time continued to lead at hazard, blinded with tears.

And it was some minutes before I was conscious of the Mohican's hand upon my arm, guiding my uncertain feet through the star-shot dark.

CHAPTER XI

A SCOUT OF SIX

We were now penetrating that sad and devastated region laid waste so recently by Brant, Butler, and McDonald, from Cobus-Kill on the pleasant river Askalege, to Minnisink on the silvery Delaware--a vast and mournful territory which had been populous and prosperous a twelvemonth since, and was now the very abomination of desolation.

Cherry Valley lay a sunken ma.s.s of blood-wet cinders; Wyoming had gone up in a whirlwind of smoke, and the wretched Connecticut inhabitants were dead or fled; Andrustown was now no more, Springfield, Handsome Brook, Bowmans, Newtown-Martin--all these pretty English villages were vanished; the forest seedlings already sprouted in the blackened cellars, and the spotted tree-cats squalled from the girdled orchards under the July moon.

Where horses, cows, sheep, men, women, and children had lain dead all over the trampled fields, the tall English gra.s.s now waved, yellowing to fragrant hay; horses, barns, sheds--nay, even fences, wagons, ploughs, and hayc.o.c.ks had been laid in cinders. There remained not one thing that could burn which had not been burned. Only breeze-stirred ashes marked these silent places, with here and there a bit of iron from wagon or plough, rusting in the dew, or a steel b.u.t.ton from some dead man's coat, or a bone gone chalky white--dumb witnesses that the wrath of England had pa.s.sed wrapped in the lightning of Divine Right.

But Great Britain's flaming glory had swept still farther westward, for German Flatts was gone except for its church and one house, which were too near the forts for the destructives to burn. But they had laid in ashes more than a hundred humble homes, barns, and mills, and driven off more than a thousand cattle, horses, sheep, and oxen, leaving the barnyard creatures dead or dying, and ten thousand skipples of grain afire.

So it was no wonder that the provisioning of our forces at Otsego had been slow, and that we now had five hundred wagons flying steadily between Canajoharie and the lake, to move our stores as they arrived by batteaux from below. And there were some foolish and impatient folk in Congress, so I heard, who cried out at our delay; and one more sinister jacka.s.s, who had said that our army would never move until a few generals had been court-martialed and shot. And our Major Parr said that he wished to G.o.d we had the Congress with us so that for once they might have their bellyful of stratagem and parched corn.