← catalogue

French and English: A Story of the Struggle in America

by Evelyn Everett-Green · English · Gutenberg #15958 · 732,665 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of French and English: A Story of the Struggle in America
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: French and English: A Story of the Struggle in America

Author: Evelyn Everett-Green


        
Release date: May 31, 2005 [eBook #15958]
                Most recently updated: December 14, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15958

Credits: Produced by Martin Robb


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRENCH AND ENGLISH: A STORY OF THE STRUGGLE IN AMERICA ***




Produced by Martin Robb





French and English:
A Story of the Struggle in America
by Evelyn Everett-Green.



       CONTENTS

   BOOK 1: BORDER WARFARE.
Chapter 1: A Western Settler.
Chapter 2: Friends In Need.
Chapter 3: Philadelphia.
Chapter 4: An Exciting Struggle.

   BOOK 2: ROGER'S RANGERS.
Chapter 1: A Day Of Vengeance.
Chapter 2: Robert Rogers.
Chapter 3: The Life Of Adventure.
Chapter 4: Vengeance And Disaster.

   BOOK 3: DISASTER.
Chapter 1: A Tale Of Woe.
Chapter 2: Escape.
Chapter 3: Albany.
Chapter 4: Ticonderoga.

   BOOK 4: WOLFE.
Chapter 1: A Soldier At Home.
Chapter 2: Louisbourg.
Chapter 3: Victory.
Chapter 4: The Fruits Of Victory.

   BOOK 5: WITHIN QUEBEC.
Chapter 1: The Impregnable City.
Chapter 2: The Defences Of Quebec.
Chapter 3: Mariners Of The Deep.
Chapter 4: Hostilities.

   BOOK 6: WITHOUT QUEBEC.
Chapter 1: In Sight Of His Goal.
Chapter 2: Days Of Waiting.
Chapter 3: A Daring Design.
Chapter 4: In The Hour Of Victory.

   BOOK 7: ENGLISH VICTORS.
Chapter 1: A Panic-Stricken City.
Chapter 2: Surrender.
Chapter 3: Friendly Foes.
Chapter 4: The Last.



Book 1: Border Warfare

Chapter 1: A Western Settler.


Humphrey Angell came swinging along through the silent aisles of
the vast primeval forest, his gun in the hollow of his arm, a heavy
bag of venison meat hanging from his shoulders.

A strange, wild figure, in the midst of a strange, wild scene: his
clothes, originally of some homespun cloth, now patched so freely
with dressed deerskin as to leave little of the original material;
moccasins on his feet, a beaver cap upon his head, his leather belt
stuck round with hunting knives, and the pistol to be used at close
quarters should any emergency arise.

He was a stalwart fellow, as these sons of the forest had need to
be--standing over six feet, and with a muscular development to
match his stately height. His tawny hair had been darkened by
exposure to hot suns, and his handsome face was deeply imbrowned
from the influences of weather in all seasons. His blue eyes had
that direct yet far-away look which comes to men who live face to
face with nature, and learn to know her in all her moods, and to
study her caprices in the earning of their daily bread.

Humphrey Angell was not more than twenty years of age, and he had
lived ten years in the forest. He had come there as a child with
his father, who had emigrated in his young life from England to the
settlement of Pennsylvania, and had afterwards become one of the
scattered settlers on the debatable ground between the French and
English borders, establishing himself in the heart of the boundless
forest, and setting to work with the utmost zeal and industry to
gather round himself a little farmstead where he could pass his own
later years in peace, and leave it for an inheritance to his two
sons.

Humphrey could remember Pennsylvania a little, although the life in
the small democratic township seemed now like a dream to him. All
his interests centred in the free forest, where he had grown to
manhood. Now and again a longing would come upon him to see
something of the great, tumultuous, seething world of whose
existence he was dimly aware. There were times in the long winter
evenings when he and his brother, the old father, and the brother's
wife would sit round the stove after the children had been put to
bed, talking of the past and the future. Then old Angell would tell
his sons of the life he had once led in far-away England, before
the spirit of adventure drove him forth to seek his fortune in the
New World; and at such times Humphrey would listen with eager
attention, feeling the stirrings of a like spirit within him, and
wondering whether the vast walls of the giant forest would for ever
shut him in, or whether it would be his lot some day to cross the
heaving, mysterious, ever-moving ocean of which his father often
spoke, and visit the country of which he was still proud to call
himself a son.

Yet he loved his forest home and the free, wild life he led. Nor
was the element of peril lacking to the daily lot--peril which had
not found them yet, but which might spring upon them unawares at
any moment. For after years of peace and apparent goodwill on the
part of the Indians of the Five Nations, as this tract of debatable
land had come to be called, a spirit of ill will and ferocity was
arising again; and settlers who had for years lived in peace and
quietness in their lonely homes had been swooped down upon, scalped,
their houses burnt, their wives and children tomahawked--the raid
being so swift and sudden that defence and resistance had alike
been futile.

What gave an added horror to this sudden change of policy on the
part of the Indians was the growing conviction throughout the
settlement that it was due to the agency of white men.

France, not content with the undisputed possession of Canada, and
of vast tracts of territory in the west and south which she had no
means of populating, was bitterly jealous of the English colony in
the east, and, above all; of any attempts which it might make to
extend its western border.

Fighting there had been already. Humphrey had heard rumours of
disasters to the English arms farther away to the south. He had
heard of Braddock's army having been cut to pieces in its attempt
to reach and capture the French Fort Duquesne, and a vague
uneasiness was penetrating to these scattered settlers, who had
hitherto lived in quietness and peace.

Perhaps had they known more of the spirit of parties beyond their
limited horizon, they would have been more uneasy still. But habit
is an enormous power in a man's life. Humphrey had gone forth into
the forest to kill meat for the family larder three or four days in
the week, in all seasons when the farm work was not specially
pressing. He came back day by day to the low-browed log house, with
its patches of Indian corn and other crops, its pleasant sounds of
life, the welcome from the children, the approval of father and
brother if the day had been successful, and the smiles of the
housewife when he displayed the contents of his bag. It was almost
impossible to remember from day to day that peril from the silent,
mysterious forest threatened them. They had lived there for ten
years unmolested and at peace; who would care to molest them now?

And yet Humphrey, who knew the forest so well--its mysterious,
interminable depths, its trackless, boundless extent, rolling over
hill and valley in endless billows--he knew well how silently, how
suddenly an ambushed foe might approach, spring out from the thick,
tangled shelter to do some murderous deed, and in the maze of giant
timber be at once swallowed up beyond all danger of pursuit.

In the open plains the Indian raids were terrible enough, but the
horrors of uncertainty and ignorance which enveloped the settlers
in the forests might well cause the stoutest heart to quail when
once it became known that the Indians had become their enemies, and
that there was another enemy stirring up the strife, and bribing
the fierce and greedy savages to carry desolation and death into
the settlements of the English colonists.

Whispers--rumours--had just begun to penetrate into these leafy
solitudes; but communication with the outside world was so rare
that the Angell family, who had long been self-supporting, and able
to live without the products of the mother colony away to the east,
had scarcely realized the change that was creeping over the
country. The old man had never seen anything of Indian warfare, and
his sons had had little more experience. They had been peaceful
denizens of the woods, and bore arms for purposes of the chase
rather than for self-preservation from human foes, as did the bulk
of those dwellers in the woods that fringed the western border of
the English-speaking colony.

"We have no enemies; why should we fear?" asked Charles, the elder
brother, a man of placable temperament, a fine worker with the axe
or plough, a man of indomitable industry, endurance, and patience,
but one who had never shown any desire after adventure or the
chances of warfare. He was ten years older than Humphrey; and the
brothers had two sisters now married and settled in the colony. The
younger brother sometimes talked of visiting the sisters, and
bringing back news of them to the father at home; but Charles never
desired to leave the homestead. He was a singularly affectionate
husband and father, and had been an excellent son to the fine old
man, who now had his time of ease by the hearth in the winter
weather, though during a great part of the year he toiled in the
fields with a right good will, and with much of his old fire and
energy.

Humphrey was nearing home now, and started whistling a favourite
air which generally heralded his approach, and brought the children
tumbling out to meet him in a rush of merry welcome. But there was
no answering hubbub to be heard from the direction of the house, no
patter of little feet, no lowing of kine.

Humphrey stopped suddenly short in his whistling, and bent his ear
forward as though to listen. A faint, muffled, strangled cry seemed
to be borne to his ears. Under his bronze his face suddenly grew
white. He flung the heavy bag from off his back, and grasping his
gun more firmly in his hands, he rushed through the narrow pathway;
and came out upon the clearing around the little farmstead.

In the morning he had left it, smiling in the autumn sunshine, a
peaceful, prosperous-looking place, homely, quaint, and bright. Now
his eyes rested upon a heap of smoking ruins, trampled crops, empty
sheds; and upon a still more horrible sight--the remains of mangled
corpses tied to the group of trees which sheltered the porch. It
was enough to curdle the blood of the stoutest hearted, and freeze
with horror the bravest warrior.

Humphrey was no warrior, but a strong-limbed, tender-hearted youth;
and as he looked at the awful scene before him, a blood-red mist
seemed to swim before his eyes. He gasped, and clutched at the
nearest tree trunk for support. Surely, surely it was some fever
dream which had come upon him. It could not, it should not be a
terrible reality.

"Humphrey, Humphrey! help, help!"

It was the strangled, muffled cry again. The sound woke the young
man from his trance of horror and amazement. He uttered a hoarse
cry, which he scarcely knew for his own, and dashed blindly
onwards.

"Here, here! This way. By the barn! Quick!"

No need to hasten Humphrey's flying feet. He rushed through the
trampled fields. He gained the clearing about the house and its
buildings. He reached the spot indicated, and saw a sight he would
never forget.

His brother Charles was tightly, cruelly bound to the stump of a
tree which had been often used for tethering animals at milking
time just outside the barn. His clothes were half torn from off his
back, and several gaping, bleeding wounds told of the fight which
had ended in his capture. Most significant of all was the long
semicircular red line round the brow, where the scalping knife had
plainly passed.

Humphrey's stout knife was cutting through the cruel cords, even
while his horrified eyes were taking in these details.

When his brother was released, he seemed to collapse for a moment,
and fell face downwards upon the ground, a quiver running through
all his limbs, such as Humphrey had seen many a time in some wild
creature stricken with its death wound.

He uttered a sharp cry of terror and anguish, and averting his eyes
from the awful sights with which the place abounded, he dashed to
the well, and bringing back a supply of pure cold water, flung it
over his brother's prostrate form, laving his face and hands, and
holding a small vessel to his parched and swollen lips so that the
draught could trickle into his mouth.

There was an effort to swallow, a quiver and a struggle, and the
wounded man opened his eyes and sat up.

"Where am I--what is it?" he gasped, draining the cup again and
again, like one who has been near to perish with thirst. "O
Humphrey, I have had such an awful dream!"

Humphrey had so placed his brother that he should not see on
opening his eyes that ghastly sight which turned the younger man
sick with horror each time his eyes wandered that way.

Charles saw the familiar outline of the forest, and his brother's
face bending over him. He had for a moment a vague impression of
something unspeakably awful and horrible, but at that moment he
believed that some mischance had befallen himself alone, and that
he had imagined some black, nameless horror in a fevered dream.

A shiver ran through Humphrey's frame. His blue eyes were dazed and
dilated. What answer could he make? He busied himself with dressing
the wounds upon his brother's chest and shoulders, from which the
blood still oozed slowly.

"What is it?" asked Charles once again; "how did I come to be
hurt?"

Humphrey made no reply, but a groan burst unawares from his lips.
The sound seemed to startle Charles from his momentary calm. He
suddenly put up his hand to his brow, felt the smart of the
significant red line left by the scalping knife, and the next
moment he had sprung to his feet with a sharp, low cry of
unspeakable anguish.

He faced round then--and looked!

Humphrey stood beside him shoulder to shoulder, with his arm about
his brother, lest physical weakness should again overpower him. But
Charles seemed like one turned to stone.

For perhaps three long minutes he stood thus--speechless,
motionless; then a wild cry burst from his lips, accompanied by a
torrent of the wildest, fiercest invective--appeals to Heaven for
vengeance, threats of undying hatred, undying hostility to those
savage murderers whose raid had made this fair spot into a
desolation so awful.

Humphrey stood still and silent the while, like one spellbound. He
scarcely knew his brother in this moment of passionate despair and
fury. Charles had been a silent, placable man all his life through.
Born and bred in the Quaker settlement, till he had taken to the
life of the forest he had been a man of quiet industry and toil
rather than a fighter or a talker. A peaceful creed had been his,
and he had perhaps never before raised a hand in anger against a
fellow creature.

This made the sudden wild and passionate outburst the more strange
and awful to Humphrey. It was almost as though Charles was no
longer the brother he had known all these years, but had been
transformed into a different being by the swift and fearful
calamity which had swept down upon them during these past few
hours.

"I will avenge--I swear it! As they have done, so shall it be done
unto them. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life--is not that
written in the Scriptures? The avenger of blood shall follow and
overtake. His hand shall not spare, neither his eye pity. The
evildoer shall be rooted out of the land. His place shall be no
more found. Even as they have done, so shall it be done unto them."

He stopped, and suddenly raised his clasped hands to heaven. A
torrent of words broke from his lips.

"O God, Thou hast seen, Thine eyes have beheld. If it had been an
open enemy that had done this thing, then could I perchance have
borne it. If it had been the untutored savage, in his ignorant
ferocity, then would I have left Thee, O Lord, to deal with him--to
avenge! But the white brother has risen up against his own flesh
and blood. The white man has stood by to see. He has hounded on the
savages! He has disgraced his humanity! O Lord God, give him into
my hands! let me avenge me of mine adversary. Let the ignorant
Indian escape if Thou wilt, but grant unto me to slay and slay and
slay amid the ranks of the white man, who has sold his soul for
gain, and has become more treacherous and cruel than the Indian
ally whose aid he has invoked. Judge Thou betwixt us, O Lord; look
upon this scene! Strengthen Thou mine arm to the battle, for here I
vow that I will henceforth give my life to this work. I will till
the fields no more. I will beat my pruning hook into a sword. I
will slay, and spare not, and Thou, O God of battles, shalt be with
me. Thou shalt strengthen mine arm; Thou shalt give unto me the
victory. Thou shalt deliver mine enemy into mine hand. I know it, I
see it! For Thou art God, and I am Thy servant, and I will avenge
upon him who has defied Thee this hideous crime upon which Thine
eyes have looked!"

Humphrey stood by silent and awed. An answering thrill was in his
own heart. He had averted his eyes from the ghastly spectacle of
those charred and mangled corpses; but they turned upon them once
more at this moment, and he could not marvel at his brother's
words. He, too, had been trained to peaceable thoughts and ways. He
had hoped that there would soon be an end of these rumours of wars.
His immediate forefathers had been men of peace, and he had never
known the craving after the excitement of battle.

Yet as his brother spoke there came upon him a new feeling. He felt
his arm tingling; he felt the hot blood surging through his veins.
He was conscious that were an enemy to show face at that moment
between the trees of the forest, he would be ready to spring upon
him like a wild beast, and rend him limb from limb without pity and
without remorse.

But the Indians had made off as silently and as swiftly as they
appeared. Not a vestige of the band remained behind. And there was
work for the brothers at that moment of a different sort, and work
which left its lasting mark upon the memory and even upon the
nature of Humphrey Angell.

Together the brothers dug a deep grave. Reverently they deposited
in it all that was left of the mortal remains of those whom they
had loved so tenderly and well: the kindly house mother, to whose
industry and thrift so much of their comfort had been due; the
little, innocent, prattling children and brave little lads, who
were already learning to be useful to father and mother. None of
them spared--no pity shown to sex or age. All ruthlessly murdered;
husband and father forced to watch the horrid spectacle, himself a
helpless prisoner, waiting for his doom.

Humphrey had not hitherto dared to ask the question which had been
exercising him all the while--how it was that his brother's life
had been spared. He also wanted to know where the old man their
father was; for the corpses they had laid in the grave were those
of Charles's wife and children.

Charles noted his questioning glance around when the grave had
received its victims, and he pointed to the smoking ruins of the
house.

"He lies there. They bound him in his chair. They tied the babe
down in his cradle. They set fire to the house. Heaven send that
the reek choked them before the fire touched them! They lie yonder
beneath the funeral pyre--our venerable sire and my bonny, laughing
babe!"

He stopped short, choked by a sudden rush of tears; and Humphrey,
flinging down his spade, threw himself along the ground in a
paroxysm of unspeakable anguish, choking sobs breaking from him,
the unaccustomed tears raining down his cheeks.

The brothers wept together. Perhaps those tears saved Charles from
some severe fever of the brain. He wept till he was perfectly
exhausted, and at last his condition of prostration so far aroused
Humphrey that he was forced into action.

He half lifted, half dragged his brother into one of the empty
barns, where he laid him down upon some straw. He rolled up his own
coat for a pillow, and after hastily finishing the filling in of
the grave, he went back into the forest for his game bag, and
having kindled a fire, cooked some of the meat, and forced his
brother to eat and drink. It was growing dark by that time, and the
blackness of the forest seemed to be swallowing them up.

A faint red glow still came from the direction of the burning
homestead, where the fire still smouldered amid the smoking ruins.
Humphrey closed the door of the barn, to shut out the sight and
also the chill freshness of the autumn night.

He lay down upon the straw beside his brother, worn out in body and
mind. But there could be no thought of sleep for either man that
night; the horror was too pressing and ever present, and anguish
lay like a physical load upon their hearts.

The silence was full of horror for both; in self defence Humphrey
began to speak.

"When was it, Charles? I was in the forest all day, and I saw and
heard nothing. The silence was never broken save by the accustomed
sounds of the wild creatures of the wood. No war party came my way.
When was it?"

"At the noontide meal. We had all gathered within doors. There was
none to give warning of danger. Suddenly and silently as ghosts
they must have filed from out the forest. We were already
surrounded and helpless before the first wild war whoop broke upon
our ears!"

Charles put up his hands as though to shut out that awful yell, the
echoes of which rang so long in the ears of those who had heard it.
Humphrey shivered, and his hands clinched themselves nervously
together.

"Why was I not here to fight and to die?"

"Better to live--and to avenge their blood!" answered Charles, with
a gleam lighting his sunken eyes. He was silent awhile, and then
went on with his narrative.

"It was not a fight; it was only a slaughter! The children rushed
screaming from the house, escaping the first rush of the painted
savages when they burst in upon us. But there were others outside,
who hacked and slashed them as they passed. I had only my hunting
knife in my belt. I stood before Ellen, and I fought like ten
demons! God is witness that I did all that one man could. But what
avail against scores of such foes? Three corpses were heaped at my
threshold. I saw them carrying away many others dead or wounded,
Our father fought too; and Ellen backed into the corner where the
gun stood, and with her own hands she shot down two of the savages.

"Would to heaven she had shot at the white one, who was tenfold
more of a fiend! But he shall not escape--he shall not escape! I
shall know his face when I see it next. And I will not go down to
the grave till he and I have stood face to face once more, when I
am not bound and helpless, but a free man with weapons in my hand.
That day will come; I read it in the book of fate. The Lord God,
unto whom vengeance belongeth, He will cause it to come to pass!"

Humphrey was afraid of these wild outbursts, as likely to bring on
fever; and yet he could not but desire to know more.

"A white man? Nay, brother; that is scarce to be believed. A white
man to league himself to such deeds as these!"

"A white man--a Frenchman. For I called upon him in our tongue, and
he answered me in the same, but with that halting accent which I
know belongs to the sons of France. Moreover, he made no secret of
it. He called us dogs of English, who were robbers of the soil
where none had right to penetrate save the subjects of his royal
master. He swore that they would make an end of us, root and
branch; and he laughed when he saw the Indians cutting down the
little ones, and covering their tender bodies with cruel wounds;
nor had he any pity upon the one white woman; and when I raved upon
him and cursed him, he laughed back, and said he had no power to
allay the fury of the savages. Those who would preserve themselves
safe should retire within the bounds of the colony to which they
belong. France would have an end of encroachment, and the Indians
were her friends, and would help her to drive out the common foe!"

Humphrey set his teeth and clinched his hands. The old instinctive
hatred of centuries between French and English, never really dead,
now leaped into life in his breast. He had heard plenty of talk
during his boyhood of France's boundless pretensions with regard to
the great New World of the West, and how she sought, by the simple
process of declaring territory to be hers, to extend her power over
millions of miles of the untrodden plains and forests, which she
could never hope to populate. He had laughed with others at these
claims, and had thought little enough of them when with father and
brother he set out for the western frontier.

There was then peace between the nations. Nor had it entered into
the calculations of the settlers that their white brethren would
stir up the friendly Indians against them, and bring havoc and
destruction to their scattered dwellings. That was a method of
warfare undreamed of a few years back; but it was now becoming a
terrible reality.

"But your life was spared?" said Humphrey at last; "and yet the
scalping-knife came very close to doing its horrid work."

"Yes: they spared me--he spared me--when he had made me suffer what
was tenfold worse than death; yet I wot well he only thought to
leave me to a lingering death of anguish, more terrible than that
of the scalping knife! They knew not that I had any to come to my
succour. When he drew off the howling Indians and left me bound to
the stump, he thought he left me to perish of starvation and
burning thirst. It was no mercy that he showed me--rather a
refinement of cruelty. I begged him to make an end of my wretched
life; but he smiled, and bid me a mocking farewell.

"Great God of heaven and earth, look down and avenge me of mine
adversary! I trust there are not many such fiends in human shape
even in the ranks of the jealous and all-grasping French. But if
there be, may it be mine to carry death and desolation into their
ranks! May they be driven forth from this fair land which they have
helped to desolate! May death and destruction come swiftly upon
them; and when they fall, let them rise up no more!"

"Amen!" said Humphrey solemnly; and the brothers sat in silence for
a great while, the gloom hiding them the one from the other, though
they knew that their hearts were beating in sympathy.

"The war has broken out," said Humphrey at last. "We can perchance
find our place in the ranks of those who go to drive out the
oppressive race, whose claims are such as English subjects will not
tolerate."

"Ay, there will be fighting, fighting, fighting now till they are
driven forth, and till England's flag waves proudly over this great
land!" cried Charles, with a strange confidence and exultation in
his tones. "England will fight, and I will fight with her. I will
slay and slay, and spare not; and I will tell this tale to all
wherever I go. I will hunt out mine enemy until I compass his
death. They have despoiled me of home, of wife, of children. They
have taken away all the joy of life. The light of my eyes is gone.
Henceforth I have but one thing to live for. I bare my sword
against France. Against her will I fight until the Lord gives us
the victory. The world shall know, and all ears shall tingle at the
tale which I will tell. There shall be no quarter, no pity for
those who use such means as those which have left me what I am
tonight!"

Humphrey could not marvel at the intensity of the ferocity in
Charles's tones. It sounded strange in one of so gentle and
placable a nature; but he had cause--he had cause!

"Think you that the man was other than one of those wild fellows
who run from all law and order in the townships and become denizens
of the wood, and little better than the wild Indians themselves?
We. have heard of these coureurs de bois, as they are called. There
are laws passed against them, severe and restrictive, by their own
people. Perchance it were scarce just to the French to credit them
with all that this man has done."

"Peace, Humphrey," was the stern reply. "We know that the French
are inciting the Indians against our peaceful settlers, and that
what has happened here today is happening in other places along our
scattered frontier. The work is the work of France, and against
France will I fight till she is overthrown. I have sworn it. Seek
not to turn me from my purpose. I will fight, and fight, and fight
till I see her lying in the dust, and till I have met mine enemy
face to face and have set my foot upon his neck. God has heard my
vow; He will fight for me till it be fulfilled."



Chapter 2: Friends In Need.


It was not to be surprised at that, after that terrible day and
night, Charles should awake from the restless sleep into which he
had dropped towards dawn in a state of high fever.

He lay raving in delirium for three days, whilst Humphrey sat
beside him, putting water to his parched lips, striving to soothe
and quiet him; often shuddering with horror as he seemed to see
again with his brother's eyes those horrid scenes upon which the
fevered man's fancy ever dwelt; waking sometimes at night in a
sweat of terror, thinking he heard the Indian war whoop echoing
through the forest.

Those were terrible days for Humphrey--days of a loneliness that
was beyond anything he had experienced before. His brother was near
him in the flesh, but severed from him by a whole world of fevered
imaginings. Sometimes Humphrey found it in his heart to wish that
the Indians would come back and make a final end of them both. All
hope and zest and joy in life seemed to have been taken from him at
one blow. He could neither think of the happy past without pangs of
pain, nor yet face a future which seemed barren of hope and
promise.

He could only sit beside his brother, tend him, nurse him, pray for
him. But the words of prayer too often died away upon his lips. Had
they not all prayed together, after the godly habit of the
household, upon the very morning when this awful disaster fell upon
them? Were these vast solitudes too far away for God to hear the
prayers that went up from them?

Humphrey had never known what awful loneliness could engulf the
human spirit till he sat beside the fevered man in the vast
solitude of the primeval forest, asking in his heart whether God
Himself had not forsaken them.

It was the hour of sundown, and Humphrey had gone outside for a
breath of fresh air. He looked ten years older than he had done a
few days back, when he had come whistling through the forest track,
expecting to see the children bounding forth to meet him. His eyes
were sunken, his face was pale and haggard, his dress was unkempt
and ragged. There were no clever fingers now to patch tattered
raiment, and keep things neat and trim.

There was an unwonted sound in the forest! It was distant still. To
some ears it would have been inaudible; but Humphrey heard it, and
his heart suddenly beat faster.

The sound was that of approaching steps--the steps of men. A few
minutes more and he heard the sound of voices, too. He had been
about to dash into the shed for his gun, but the fresh sounds
arrested his movement.

He had ears as sharp as those of an ambushed Indian, and he
detected in a moment that the men who were approaching the clearing
were of his own nationality. The words he could not hear, but he
could distinguish the intonation. It was not the rapid,
thin-sounding French tongue; it was English--he was certain of it!
And a light leaped to his eyes at the bare thought of meeting a
brother countryman in this desolate place.

Probably it was some other settler, one of that hardy race that
fringed the colony on its western frontier. Miles and miles of
rolling forest lay between these scattered holdings, and since war
was but lately begun, nothing had been done for the protection of
the hapless people now becoming an easy prey of the Indians stirred
up to molest them.

Humphrey knew none of their neighbours. Forest travelling was too
difficult and dangerous to tempt the settler far away from his own
holding. If it were one of these coming now, most likely he too had
suffered from attack or fear of attack, and was seeking a friend in
the nearest locality.

He stood like one spellbound, watching and waiting. The sound of
steps drew nearer to the fringe of obscuring forest trees; the
sound of voices became plainer and more plain. In another minute
Humphrey saw them--two bronzed and stalwart men--advancing from the
wood into the clearing. They came upon it unawares, as was plain
from their sudden pause. But they were white men; they were
brothers in this wild land. There was something like a sob in
Humphrey's throat, which he hastily swallowed down, as he advanced
with great strides to meet them.

"You are welcome," he said. "I had thought the Indians had left no
living beings behind them in all this forest save my brother and
myself."

No introductions were needed in this savage place; the face of
every white man lit up at sight of a like countenance, and at the
sound of the familiar tongue. The men shook hands with a hearty
grip, and one said to Humphrey:

"You have had Indians here?"

Humphrey made an expressive gesture with his hand.

"This was a week ago as fair a holding as heart of man could wish
to see in this grim forest. You see what is left today!"

"Your house is burnt down, as we plainly see. Have you lost aught
beside? Has human blood been spilt?"

"The corpse of my venerable father, and that of a bold baby boy,
lie beneath yon heap of ruins which made their funeral pyre. In
yonder grave lie the mingled corpses of my brother's wife and four
fair children, hacked to death and half burnt by the savages. And
yet this work is not the work of savages alone. With them we have
dwelt at peace these many years. The shame, the horror, the
disgrace of it is that we owe these horrors to the white sons of
France, who hound on the savages to make these raids, and stand by
to see them do their bloody work!"

The two strangers exchanged glances--meaning glances--and one of
them laid a hand upon Humphrey's shoulder, looking earnestly into
his eyes the while.

"Is it so in very truth? So have we heard in whispers, but it was a
thing we could scarce believe. We have travelled far from the lands
of the south to join our brethren of the English race. We heard
rumours of wars cruel and bloody. Yet it seemed to us too strange a
thing to believe that here, amid the hostile, savage Indians, white
man could wage war with white man, and take the bloody heathen man
as his ally, instead of the brother who bears the name of Christ!"

Humphrey looked with some wonder and fascination into the face of
the youth who spoke. It was a refined and beautiful face,
notwithstanding the evidences of long exposure to sun and wind. The
features were finely cut, sensitive and expressive, and the eyes
were very luminous in their glance, and possessed strangely
penetrating powers. In stature the young man was almost as tall as
Humphrey, but of a much slighter build; yet he was wiry and
muscular, as could well be seen, and plainly well used to the life
of the wild woodlands. His dress was that of the backwoods, dressed
deerskin being the chief material used. Both travellers wore
moccasins on their feet, and carried the usual weapons of offence
and defence.

Yet Humphrey felt as though this man was in some sort different
from those he had met in the woods at rare times when out hunting.
His voice, his words, his phraseology seemed in some sort strange,
and he asked him wonderingly:

"From whence are you, friends?"

"From the land of the far south--from the rolling plains of the
giant Mississippi, that vast river of which perchance you have
heard?"

"Ay, verily," answered Humphrey, with a touch of bitterness in his
tone. "I have heard of that great river, which the French King
claims to have discovered, and which they say he will guard with a
chain of forts right away from Canada, and will thus command all
the New World of the West, pinning us English within the limits of
that portion of land lying betwixt the ocean and the range of the
Allegheny Mountains," and Humphrey waved his hand in that
direction, and looked questioningly at the men before him.

He had an impression that all who came from the far south, from the
colony of Louisiana, as he had heard it called, must be in some
sort French subjects. And yet these men spoke his own tongue, and
seemed to be friends and brothers.

"That was the chimera of the French Monarch more than a century
ago. Methinks it is little nearer its accomplishment now than when
our forefathers, acting as pioneers, made a small settlement in a
green valley near to the mouth of the giant river, waiting for the
King to send his priests and missionaries to convert the heathen
from their evil ways, and found a fair Christian realm in that fair
land."

"Then were your forefathers French subjects?" asked Humphrey,
rather bewildered. "If so, how come you to speak mine own tongue as
you do?"

"I come of no French stock!" cried the companion stranger, who had
remained silent until now, looking searchingly round the clearing,
and examining Humphrey himself with curiosity; "I have no drop of
French blood in my veins, whatever Julian may have. I am Fritz
Neville. I come of an English family. But you shall hear all later
on, as we sit by our fire at night. I would hear all your tale of
desolation and woe. We, for our part, have no cause to love the
French oppressors, whose ambition and greed seem to know no bounds.
Can you give us shelter by your hearth tonight? Food we have of our
own, since we find game in sufficient abundance in these forest
tracks."

As he spoke he unslung from his shoulders a fine young fawn which
they had lately shot, and Humphrey made eager answer to the request
for hospitality.

"Would that we had better to offer! But the homestead is burnt. My
brother lies sick of a fever in yon shed--a fever brought on by
loss of blood and by anguish of mind. I have been alone in this
place with him hard upon a week now, and to me it seems as though
years instead of days had passed over my head since the calamity
happened."

"I can well believe that," said the first speaker, whom his
companion had spoken of as Julian. "There be times in a man's life
when hours are as days and days as years. But let me see your
brother if he be sick. I have some skill in the treatment of
fevers, and I have brought in my wallet some simples which we find
wonderfully helpful down in the south, from where I come. I doubt
not I can bring him relief."

Humphrey's face brightened with a look of joyful relief, and Fritz
exclaimed heartily:

"Yes, yes, Julian is a notable leech. We all come to him with our
troubles both of body and mind.

"Lead on, comrade. I will cook the supper whilst you and he tend
the sick man; and afterwards we will tell all our tale; and take
counsel for the future."

It was new life to Humphrey to hear the sound of human voices, to
feel the touch of friendly hands, to know himself not alone in the
awful isolation of the vast forest. He led the way to the rough
shed, which he had contrived during the past days to convert into a
rude species of sleeping and living room. He had made a hearth and
a chimney, so that he could cook food whilst still keeping an eye
upon his sick brother. He had contrived a certain amount of rude
comfort in Charles's bed and surroundings. The place looked
pleasant to the wearied, travellers, for it was spotlessly clean,
and it afforded shelter from the keen night air.

They had been finding the nights grow cold as they journeyed
northward, and Fritz rubbed his hands at sight of the glow of the
fire, and set to work eagerly upon his culinary tasks; whilst
Julian and Humphrey bent over Charles, the former examining the
condition of his pulse and skin with the air of one who knows how
to combat the symptoms of illness.

He administered a draught, and bathed the sick man's temples with
some pungent decoction of herbs which he prepared with hot water;
and after giving him a small quantity of soup, told Humphrey that
he would probably sleep quietly all night, and might very likely
awake without any fever, though as weak as a child.

And in effect only a short time elapsed before his eyes closed, and
he sank into a peaceful slumber, such as he had not known
throughout the past days.

"Thank God you came!" said Humphrey with fervour; "I had thought to
bury my brother here beside his wife, and the loneliness and horror
had well nigh driven me mad. If he live, I shall have something
left to live for; else I could have wished that we had all perished
together!"

"Nay," cried Fritz from the fire, "we can do better than that: we
can join those who have the welfare of the country at heart. We can
punish proud France for her ambition and encroachments, and
perchance--who knows?--England's flag may ere long proudly wave
where now only the banner of France has floated from her scattered
forts."

But just at this moment Humphrey could not be roused to any
patriotic fervour. The sense of personal loss and horror was strong
upon him. His thoughts were turning vaguely towards the mother
country from which his fathers had come. For the moment the wild
West was hateful to him. He could not face the thought of taking up
the old life again. He had been uprooted too suddenly and
ruthlessly. The spell of the forest was gone. Sometimes he felt
that he never wished to look upon waving trees again.

As they partook of the well-cooked supper which Fritz had provided,
and afterwards sat smoking their pipes beside the fire, whilst the
wind moaned and sighed round the corners of the shed, and whispered
through the trees around the clearing, he told these strangers the
whole history of his life, and how it had seemed to be suddenly cut
in half a week ago, whilst the last half already began to look and
feel to him longer than the first.

There was no lack of sympathy and interest in the faces of his
hearers. When they heard how a Frenchman had been with the Indians
upon their raid, Fritz smote the ground heavily with his open hand,
exclaiming:

"That is what we heard as we journeyed onward; that is the rumour
that reached us even in the far south. It was hard to believe that
brother should turn against brother out here in these trackless
wilds, amid hordes of savage Indians. We said it must surely be
false--that Christian men could not be guilty of such wickedness!
Yet it has proved all too true. We have heard stories during our
journey which have filled our hearts with loathing and scorn.
France is playing a treacherous, a vile and unworthy game. England
is no match for her yet--unprepared and taken at a disadvantage.
But you will see, you will see! She will arise from sleep like a
giant refreshed! And then let proud France tremble for her bloody
laurels!"

His eye flashed, and Julian said thoughtfully:

"Ay, truly has she stained her laurels with blood; and she is even
now staining her annals with dark crimes, when she stirs up the
savage Indian to bring death and desolation to those peaceful
settlers with whom they have so long lived as friends. God will
require their blood at the hands of France. Let her beware! for the
hour of her destruction will not be prolonged if she sells herself
to sin."

There was a long silence then between the three men; it was at
length broken by Humphrey, who looked from one to the other, and
said:

"You have not yet told me of yourselves. Who are you, and whence do
you come? I have heard of vast plains and mighty rivers in the
south and west, but I know nothing beyond these forest tracks which
lie about our desolated home."

Fritz signed to Julian to be the speaker, and he leaned his back
against the wall, clasping his hands behind his head. The firelight
gleamed upon his earnest face and shone in his brilliant eyes.
Humphrey regarded him with a species of fascination. He had never
seen a man quite of this type before.

"Have you ever heard," asked Julian, "of that great explorer La
Salle, who first made the voyage of the great river Mississippi,
and founded the infant colony of Louisiana, albeit he himself
perished by the hand of an assassin in the wilderness, before he
had half achieved the object to which he was pledged?"

"I have heard the name," said Humphrey; "I used to hear the men of
Philadelphia talk of such things when I was a boy. But he was a
Frenchman."

"Yes, and came with a commission from the King of France hard upon
a century ago. My great-grandfather and his father were of the
company of La Salle, although they bore their part in a different
expedition from that which is known to the world."

"Are you then French?" asked Humphrey, half disappointed, though he
could not tell why.

Julian smiled, reading the thought in his heart.

"French in little beside name," he replied. "My great grandfather,
Gaspard Dautray, was half English through his mother, an
Englishwoman; and he married Mary Neville, an English maiden, from
whose family Fritz there is descended. In brief, let me tell you
the story. Long before La Salle had penetrated the fastnesses of
the west, there had grown up in a green valley a little colony of
English, outcasts from their own land by reason of their faith.
They had lived at peace for long with the Indian tribes; but when
more white men began invading their country, jealousy and fury were
awakened in the hearts of the Indians, and this little settlement
was in great danger. In their extremity this little colony sent to
La Salle, and though he himself was absent, his lieutenant sent
them a band of men to aid them in defending their lives and
property, and in routing the attacking Indian force.

"But it was no longer safe to remain in the green valley which had
sheltered them so long. They heard of the lands of the south, down
the great mysterious river, and they resolved to seek an asylum
there.

"With the company of La Salle, and yet not attached to it, was a
holy man whom all the world called Father Fritz; a priest, yet one
who followed not the Pope of Rome, but loved each Christian
brother, and recognized only one Church--the Church of the
baptized. He went with the little band, and they made themselves a
new home in the land of the south. They were beloved of the Indians
about them. Father Fritz taught them, baptized such as were truly
converted, and lived amongst them to a hoary old age, loving and
beloved; seeking always to hold them back from greed and
covetousness, and teaching them that the hope for which they must
look was the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself to reign upon
the earth."

Julian paused, looking thoughtfully into the fire. Humphrey heaved
a great sigh, and said half bitterly:

"But the Lord delayeth His coming, and men wage war against their
brethren."

"Yes, verily; yet I think that should make us long the more for the
day which will surely come. However, let me tell my tale. The great
enterprise of France in the south and west has come to but a very
small thing. No chain of forts guards the great river. The highway
from Canada to the south has never been opened up. France is
speaking of it to this day. These very hostile movements towards
England are all part and parcel of the old plan. She still desires
to hold the whole territory by this chain of forts, and shut
England in between the sea and those mountains yonder. You have
heard, I doubt not, how England is resolved not to be thus held in
check. Major George Washington and General Braddock have both made
attacks upon Fort Duquesne, and though both have suffered defeat
owing to untoward causes and bad generalship, the spirit within
them is still unquenched. Fort Duquesne, Fort Niagara, Fort
Ticonderoga--these are the three northern links of the chain, and I
think that England will never rest until she has floated her flag
over these three forts.

"We have come from far to the heart of that great struggle which
all men know must come. The day of rest for us seemed ended. We
have been travelling all through the long, hot summer months, to
find and to be with our countrymen when the hour of battle should
come."

Humphrey looked from one to the other, and said:

"There are only two of you. Where are all the rest from your
smiling valley of the south? Were you the only twain that desired
to join the fight?"

"A dozen of us started, but two turned back quickly, discouraged by
the hardness of the way, and a few died of fever in the great
swamps and jungles: Others turned aside when we neared the great
lakes, thinking to find an easier way. But Fritz and I had our own
plan of making our way to New England, and after long toil and
travel here we are at the end of our journey. For this indeed seems
like the end, when we have found a comrade who will show us the way
and lead us to the civilized world again!"

"Ay, I can do that," answered Humphrey; "I know well the road back
to the world. Nor is it a matter of more than a few days' travel to
reach the outlying townships. I have often said I would go and
visit our sisters and friends, but I have never done so. Alas that
I should go at last with such heavy tidings!"

"Heavy tidings indeed," said Fritz, with sympathy; "yet we will
avenge these treacherous murders upon those who have brought them
to pass."

"That will not restore the dead to life," said Humphrey mournfully.

"No, but it will ease the burning heart of its load of rage and
vengeance."

Humphrey's eyes turned for a moment towards his sleeping brother.
He knew how welcome would be such words to him--that is, if he
awoke from his fever dreams in the same mood as they had found him.

"And yet," said Julian thoughtfully, "we have been taught by our
fathers that brothers should live at peace together, even as we in
our valley lived long at peace with all and with one another. So
long as the memory of our venerable Father remained alive there was
all harmony and concord, and every man sought his brother's well
being as earnestly as his own."

"Can you remember the holy man?" asked Humphrey, with interest.

"No; but my father remembered him well. He was well grown towards
manhood before the venerable old man died at a great age. My
grandfather has told me story after story of him. I have been
brought up to love and revere his memory, and to hold fast the
things which he taught us. But after his death, alas! a new spirit
gradually entered into the hearts of our people. They began to grow
covetous of gain, to trade with the Indians for their own benefit,
to fall into careless and sometimes evil practices. Before my
father died he said to me that the Home of Peace was no longer the
place it once had been, and that he should like to think that I
might find a better place to live in, since I was young and had my
life before me."

"Was that long ago?"

"Just a year. My mother had died six months earlier. The
dissensions of the parent countries had begun to reach to us. We
had been French and English from the beginning, but had dwelt in
peace and brotherly goodwill for nigh upon eighty years. We had
married amongst ourselves, so that some amongst us scarce knew
whether to call themselves French or English. But for all that
disunion grew and spread. Stragglers of Louisiana found their way
to us. They brought new fashions of thought and teaching with them.
Some Romish priests found us out, and took possession of the little
chapel which Father Fritz had built with such loving care, and the
Mass was said instead of that simpler service which he had drawn up
for us. Many of us the priests dubbed as heretics, and because we
would not change our views for them, they became angry, and we were
excommunicated. It has been nothing but growing strife and disunion
for the past two years. I was glad to turn my back upon it at last,
and find my way to a freer land, and one where a man may worship
God according to his conscience; albeit I have no desire to speak
ill of the priests, who were good men, and sought to teach us what
they deemed to be the truth."

"I am a Protestant," said Humphrey; "I know little about Romish
devices. I was taught to hate and abhor them. We dwelt among the
Quaker folk of Pennsylvania. but we are not Quakers ourselves. Out
here in the wilds we must live as we can. We have the Bible--and
that is all."

"People say of the Quakers that they will not fight!" said Fritz
suddenly. "Is that so?"

"I know not," answered Humphrey; "I think I have heard my father
say something of that sort. But surely they will fight to avenge
such things as that!" and he made a gesture with his hand as though
indicating the burnt homestead and the graves of the murdered woman
and children.

"If they be men they surely will. You will go and tell them your
story, Humphrey?"

"Ay, that I will!" answered Humphrey, between his shut teeth.

Fritz sat staring into the fire for some time, and then he too
broke out with some heat.

"Yes, it is the same story all over. It was the French who came and
spoiled our happy home. If they had let us alone, perchance we
might have been there still, hunting, fishing, following the same
kind of life as our fathers--at peace with ourselves and with the
world. But they came amongst us. They sowed disunion and strife.
They were resolved to get rid of the English party, as they called
it. They were all softness and mildness to them. But those in whom
the sturdy British spirit flourished they regarded with jealousy
and dislike. They sowed the seeds of disunion. They spoiled our
valley and our life. Doubtless the germs were there before, but it
was the emissaries of France who wrought the mischief. If they
could have done it, I believe they would have taught the Indians to
distrust us English; but that was beyond their power. Even they
held in loving reverence the name of Father Fritz, and none of his
children, as they called us all alike, could do wrong in their
eyes. So then it was their policy to get rid of such as would not
own the supremacy of France in all things. I was glad at the last
to go. We became weary of the bickerings and strife. Some of the
elders remained behind, but the rest of us went forth to find
ourselves a new home and a new country."

Humphrey listened to this tale with as much interest as it was
possible for him to give to any concern other than his own.
Something of that indignant hatred which was springing into active
life all through the western continent began to inflame his breast.
It had been no effect of Charles's inflamed imagination. The French
were raising the Indians against them, and striving to overthrow
England's sons wherever they had a foothold, beyond their immediate
colonies. It was time they should arise and assert themselves.
Humphrey's eyes kindled as he sat thinking upon these things.

"I too will go forth and fight France," he said at last; and with
that resolve the sense of numb lethargy and despair fell away from
him like a worn-out garment, and his old fire and energy returned.



Chapter 3: Philadelphia.


"I will go and tell my tale in the ears of my countrymen," said
Charles, with steady voice but burning eyes, "and then I will go
forth and fight the French, and slay and slay till they be driven
from off the face of the western world!"

The fever had left Charles now. Some of his former strength had
come back to him. But his brother looked at him often with
wondering eyes, for it seemed to him that this Charles was a new
being, with whom he had but scant acquaintance. He could not
recognize in this stern faced, brooding man the quiet, homely
farmer and settler whose home he had shared for so long.

Their new comrades were glad of the rest afforded them by the
necessity of waiting till Charles should be fit to move. They had
been travelling for many months, and the shelter of a roof--even
though it was only the roof of a shed--was grateful to them.

Fritz and Charles took a strong mutual liking almost from the
first. Both were men of unwonted strength and endurance, and both
were fired by a strong personal enmity towards the French and their
aggressive policy.

Julian told Humphrey, in their private conferences, something of
the cause of this personal rancour.

"There was a fair maid in our valley--Renee we called her--and her
parents were French. But we were all friends together; and Fritz
and she loved each other, and were about to be betrothed. Then came
these troubles, and the priest forbade Renee to wed a heretic; and
though she herself would have been faithful, her parents were
afraid. It seemed to all then that the French were going to be
masters of the land. There was another youth who loved her also,
and to him they married her. That was just before we came away--a
dozen of us English youths, who could not stand the new state of
things and the strife of party. Fritz has neither forgotten nor
forgiven. The name of France us odious in his ears."

"And in yours, too?" asked Humphrey.

Julian's face was grave and thoughtful.

"I have my moments of passionate anger. I hate everything that is
vile and treacherous and aggressive. But I would seek to remember
that after all we are brothers, and that we all bear the name of
Christ. That is what Father Fritz of old sought to make us
remember. Perhaps it comes the easier to me in that I have French
blood in my veins, albeit I regard myself now as an English
subject. I have cast in my lot with the English."

Humphrey and Julian drew together, much as did Charles and Fritz.
Julian was a year or two older than Humphrey, and Charles was
several years older than Fritz; but all had led a free open-air
life, and had tastes and feelings in common. They understood
woodcraft and hunting; they were hardy, self reliant, courageous.

It was of such men as these that the best soldiers were made in the
days that were at hand; although the military leaders, especially
if they came from the Old World with its code of civilized warfare,
were slow to recognize it.

A heavy storm of wind and rain--the precursor of the coming
winter--raged round the little settlement for several days, during
which the party sat round their fire, talking of the past and the
future, and learning to know each other more and more intimately.

Charles recovered rapidly from the loss of blood and the fever
weakness. His constitution triumphed easily over his recent
illness, and he was only longing to be on the road, that he might
the sooner stand face to face with the foe.

And now the storm was abating. The sun began to shine out through
the driving wrack of clouds. The woodland tracks might be wet, but
little reeked the travellers of that.

They bound upon their backs as much provision as would suffice for
their immediate needs. They looked well to their arms and
ammunition. They had mended their clothes, and were strong and
fresh and full of courage.

The journey before them seemed as nothing to the pair who had
traversed so many thousands of miles of wood and water. And the
settlers had friends at the other end who would remember them, and
have tears of sympathy to shed at hearing their terrible tale.

The brothers stood looking their last upon the clearing which had
for so long been their home. In Humphrey's eyes there was an
unwonted moisture; but Charles's face was set and stern, and his
lips twitched with the excess of restrained emotion. His eyes were
fixed upon the mound which hid from his view the corpses of wife
and children. Suddenly he lifted his clinched hand towards heaven.

"Strengthen, O Lord, this right hand of mine, that it may be strong
against the nation whose crimes bring desolation upon Thy children.
Be with us in the hour of vengeance and victory. Help us to render
unto them even as they have rendered to us."

Julian and Fritz had withdrawn themselves a little, respecting the
inevitable emotion which must come to men at such a moment.
Humphrey turned away, and took a few uncertain steps, half blinded
by the unwonted smart of tears in his eyes. He had come almost to
hate this place of terrible associations; and yet it wrung his
heart for a moment to leave those nameless graves, and that little
lonely spot where so many peaceful and happy hours had been spent.

Julian's hand was on his arm, and his voice spoke in his ear.

"I know what it feels like; I have been through it. The smart is
keen. But it helps us to remember that we are but strangers and
pilgrims. It is perhaps those who have no abiding city here who
most readily seek that which is theirs above."

Humphrey pressed Julian's hand, feeling vaguely comforted by his
words, although he could not enter fully into their significance.

To Charles Julian said:

"'We must remember, even in our righteous wrath, that God has said
He is the avenger. We can trust our wrongs in His hands. He will
use us as His instruments if He thinks good. But let us beware of
private acts of vengeance of our own planning. We must not forget
the reverse of the picture--the mercy as well as the anger of God.
We must not take things out of His hands into our own, lest we
stumble and fall. We have a commandment to love our enemies, and to
do good to those that hate us."

Charles looked fixedly at him.

"I have not forgotten," he said, in his strange, slow way; "I was
brought up amongst those who refuse the sword, calling themselves
servants of the Prince of Peace. We shall see which the Lord will
have--peace or war. Do you think He desires to see a repetition of
such scenes as that?"

Charles pointed sternly to the ruined homestead--the grave beside
it, and his gloomy eyes looked straight into those of Julian; but
he did not even wait for an answer, but plunged along the forest
track in an easterly direction.

                     *   *   *  *   *

In a wide street in Philadelphia, not far from the Assembly Rooms
where such hot debates were constantly going on, stood an
old-fashioned house, quaintly gabled, above the door of which hung
out a sign board intimating that travellers might find rest and
refreshment within.

The whole house was spotlessly clean, and its aspect was prim and
sober, as was indeed that of the whole city. Men in wide-brimmed
hats and wide-skirted coats of sombre hue walked the streets, and
talked earnestly together at the corners; whilst the women, for the
most part, passed on their way with lowered eyes, and hoods drawn
modestly over their heads, neither speaking nor being spoken to as
they pursued their way.

To be sure there were exceptions. In some quarters there were
plenty of people of a different aspect and bearing; but in this
wide and pleasant street, overlooked by the window of the hostelry,
there were few gaily-dressed persons to be seen, but nearly all of
them wore the dress and adopted the quaint speech of the Quaker
community.

From this window a bright-faced girl was looking eagerly out into
the street. She wore a plain enough dress of grey homespun cloth,
and a little prim cap covered her pretty hair. Yet for all that
several little rebellious curls peeped forth, surrounding her face
with a tiny nimbus; and there was something dainty in the fashion
of her white frilled kerchief, arranged across her dress bodice and
tied behind. She would dearly have loved to adorn herself with some
knots of rose-coloured ribbon, but the rose tints in her cheek gave
the touch of colour which brightened her sombre raiment, and her
dancing blue eyes would have made sunshine in any place.

She had opened the window lattice and craned her head to look down
the street; but at the sound of a footstep within doors she quickly
drew it in again, for her mother reproved her when she found her
hanging out at the window.

"What is all the stir about, mother?" she asked; "there be so many
folks abroad, and they have been passing in and out of the Assembly
Rooms for above an hour. What does it all mean? Are they baiting
the Governor again? Are they having another fight about the taxes?"

"Nay, child, I know not. I have been in the kitchen, looking to the
supper. Thy father came in awhile back, and said we had guests
arrived, and that he desired the supper to be extra good. That is
all I know."

"Something has happened, I am sure of that!" cried the girl again,
"and I would father would come and tell us what it is all about. He
always hears all the news. Perhaps the travellers he is bringing
here will know. I may sit with you at the supper table, may I not,
mother?"

"Yes, child; so your father said. He came in with a smile upon his
face. But he was in a great haste, and has been gone ever since. So
what it all means I know not."

Susanna--for such was the name of the girl--became at once
interested and excited.

"O mother, what can it be? Hark at that noise in the street below!
People are crying out in a great rage. What can it be? It was so
that day a week agone, when news was brought in that some poor
settlers had been murdered by Indians, and the Assembly would do
nothing but wrangle with the Governor instead of sending out troops
to defend our people. Do you think something can have happened
again?"

The mother's face turned a little pale.

"Heaven send it be not so!" she exclaimed. "I am always in fear
when I hear of such things--in fear for my old father, and for my
brothers. You know they live away there on the border. I pray
Heaven no trouble will fall upon them."

Susanna's eyes dilated with interest, as they always did when her
mother talked to her of these unknown relations, away beyond the
region of safety and civilization.

To be correct, it should be explained that Susanna was not the real
daughter of the woman whom she called mother; for Benjamin Ashley
had been twice married, and Susanna had been five years old before
Hannah Angell had taken the mother's place. But she never thought
of this herself. She remembered no other mother, and the tie
between them was strong and tender, despite the fact that there was
not more than thirteen years' difference in age between them, and
some girls might have rebelled against the rule of one who might
almost have been a sister.

But Susanna had no desire to rebel. Hannah's rule was a mild and
gentle one, although it was exercised with a certain amount of prim
decorum. Still the girl was shrewd enough to know that her father's
leanings towards the Quaker code had been greatly modified by the
influence of his wife, and that she was kept less strictly than he
would have kept her had he remained a widower.

Hannah bustled away to the kitchen, and Susanna, after one more
longing look out of the window towards the crowd assembled in the
open space beyond, followed her, and gave active assistance in the
setting of the supper table.

A young man in Quaker garb, and with a broad-brimmed hat in his
hand, entered the outer room, engaged in hot dispute with another
youth of different aspect, whose face was deeply flushed as if in
anger.

"Your Franklin may be a clever man--I have nothing against that!"
he exclaimed hotly; "but if he backs up the stubborn Assembly, and
stands idle whilst our settlers are being massacred like sheep,
then say I that he and they alike deserve hanging in a row from the
gables of their own Assembly House; and that if the Indians break
in upon us and scalp them all, they will but meet the deserts of
their obstinacy and folly!"

"Friend," said the other of the sober raiment, "thee speaks as a
heathen man and a vain fellow. The Lord hath given us a commandment
to love one another, and to live at peace with all men. We may not
lightly set aside that commandment; we may not do evil that good
may come."

"Tush, man! get your Bible and look. I am no scholar, but I know
that the Lord calls Himself a man of war--that He rides forth,
sword in hand, conquering, and to conquer; that the armies in
heaven itself fight under the Archangel against the powers of
darkness. And are we men to let our brothers be brutally murdered,
whilst we sit with folded hands, or wrangle weeks and months away,
as you Quakers are wrangling over some petty question of taxation
which a man of sense would settle in five minutes? I am ashamed of
Philadelphia! The whole world will be pointing the finger of scorn
at us. We are acting like cowards--like fools--not like men! If
there were but a man to lead us forth, I and a hundred stout
fellows would start forth to the border country tomorrow to wage
war with those villainous Indians and their more villainous allies
the crafty sons of France."

"Have patience, friend," said the Quaker youth, with his solemn
air; "I tell thee that the Assembly is in the right. Who are the
Penns these proprietaries--that their lands should be exempt from
taxation? If the Governor will yield that point, then will the
Assembly raise the needful aid for keeping in check the enemy,
albeit it goes sorely against their righteous souls. But they will
not give everything and gain nothing; it is not right they should."

"And while they wrangle and snarl and bicker, like so many dogs
over a bone, our countrywomen and their innocent children are to be
scalped and burnt and massacred? That is Scripture law, is it? that
is your vaunted religion. You will give way--you will yield your
principles for a petty victory on a point of law, but not to save
the lives of the helpless brothers who are crying aloud on all
hands to you to come and save them!"

The Quaker youth moved his large feet uneasily; he, in common with
the seniors of his party, was beginning to find it a little
difficult to maintain a logical position in face of the pressing
urgency of the position. He had been brought up in the tenets which
largely prevailed in Pennsylvania at that day, and was primed with
numerous arguments which up till now had been urged with confidence
by the Quaker community. But the peace-loving Quakers were
beginning to feel the ground shaking beneath their feet. The day
was advancing with rapid strides when they would be forced either
to take up arms in defence of their colony, or to sit still and see
it pass bodily into the hands of the enemy.

Susanna was peeping in at the door of the next room. She knew both
the speakers well. Ebenezer Jenkyns had indeed been paying her some
attention of late, although she laughed him to scorn. Much more to
her liking was bold John Stark, her father's kinsman; and as there
was nobody in the room beside these two, she ventured to go a step
within the doorway and ask:

"What is the matter now, Jack? what are you two fighting about so
hotly?"

"Faith, 'tis ever the same old tale--more massacres and outrages
upon our borders, more women and children slaughtered! Settlers
from the western border calling aloud to us to send them help, and
these Quaker fellows of the Assembly doing nothing but wrangle,
wrangle, wrangle with the Governor, and standing idle whilst their
brothers perish. Save me from the faith of the peace makers!"

Again the other young man moved uneasily, the more so as he saw the
look of disdain and scorn flitting over the pretty face of Susanna.

"Thee does us an injustice, friend," he said. "Was it not Benjamin
Franklin who a few months back gave such notable help to General
Braddock that he called him the only man of honesty and vigour in
all the western world? But the Lord showed that He would not have
us attack our brother men, and Braddock's army was cut to pieces,
and he himself slain. When the Lord shows us His mind, it is not
for us to persist in our evil courses; we must be patient beneath
His chastenings."

"Tush, man! the whole campaign was grossly mismanaged; all the
world knows that by now. But why hark back to the past? it is the
present, the future that lie before us. Are we to let our province
become overrun and despoiled by hordes of savage Indians, or are we
to rise like men and sweep them back whence they came? There is the
case in a nutshell. And instead of facing it like men, the Assembly
talks and squabbles and wrangles like a pack of silly women!"

"Oh no, Cousin Jack," quoth Susanna saucily, "say not like women!
Women would make up their minds to action in an hour. Say rather
like men, like men such as Ebenezer loves--men with the tongues of
giants and the spirit of mice; men who speak great swelling words,
and boast of their righteousness, but who are put to shame by the
brute beasts themselves. Even a timid hen will be brave when her
brood is attacked; but a Quaker cannot be anything but a coward,
and will sit with folded hands whilst his own kinsmen perish
miserably!"

This was rather too much even for Ebenezer's phlegmatic spirit. He
seized his broad-brimmed hat and clapped it on his head.

"Thee will be sorry some day, Susanna, for making game of the
Quakers, and of the godly ones of the earth," he spluttered.

"Go thee to the poultry yard, friend Ebenezer," called Susanna
after him; "the old hen there will give thee a warm welcome. Go and
learn from her how to fight. I warrant thee will learn more from
her than thee has ever known before--more than thine own people
will ever teach thee. Go to the old hen to learn; only I fear thee
will soon flee from her with a text in thy mouth to aid thy legs to
run!"

"Susanna, Susanna!" cried a voice from within, whilst Jack doubled
himself up in a paroxysm of delight, "what are you saying so loud
and free? Come hither, child. You grow over bold, and I cannot have
you in the public room. With whom are you talking there?"

"There is only Jack here now," answered Susanna meekly, although
the sparkle still gleamed in her eyes; "Ebenezer has just gone out.
I was saying farewell to him."

"Come back now, and finish setting the table; and if John will stay
to supper, he will be welcome."

John was only too glad, for he took keen pleasure in the society of
Susanna, and was fond of the quaint old house where his kinsman
lived. He rose and went into the inner room, where Hannah received
him with a smile and a nod.

Susanna would have asked him what special news had reached the town
that day, but the sound of approaching feet outside warned her of
the return of her father with the friends he was bringing to
supper. She flew to the kitchen for the first relay of dishes, and
Hannah left her to dish them up, whilst she went to meet the
guests.

Jack and the maidservant assisted Susanna at the stove, and a few
minutes passed before they entered the supper room, where the
company had assembled. When they did so, the girl was surprised to
note that her mother was standing between two tall strangers, one
of whom had his arm about her, and that she was weeping silently
yet bitterly.

Susanna put down her dishes on the table and crept to her father's
side.

"What is the matter?" she asked timidly.

"Matter enough to bring tears to all our eyes--ay, tears of blood!"
answered Ashley sternly. "These two men are your mother's brothers,
who arrived today--just a short while back--as I hoped with
pleasant tidings. Now have we learned a different tale. Their old
father and Charles's wife and children have been brutally murdered
by Indians, and he himself escaped as by a miracle. We have been
telling the tale to the Assembly this very afternoon. Ah, it would
have moved hearts of stone to hear Charles's words! I pray Heaven
that something may soon be done. It is fearful to think of the
sufferings which our inaction is causing to our settlers in the
west!"

"It is a shame--a disgrace!" exclaimed Jack hotly, and then he
turned his glance upon the two other men who were seated at the
table, taking in the whole scene in silence.

Both wore the look of travellers; both were tanned by exposure, and
were clad in stained and curious garments, such as betokened the
life of the wilderness. Jack was instantly and keenly interested.
He himself would willingly have been a backwoodsman had he been
able to adopt that adventurous life.

Ashley saw the look he bent upon the travellers, and he made them
known to one another.

"These friends have travelled far from the lands of the south, and
have been friends in need to our kinsmen yonder. Fritz Neville and
Julian Dautray are their names.

"Susanna, set food before them. Your mother will not be able to
think of aught just now. We must let her have her cry out before we
trouble her."

The rest of the party seated themselves, whilst in the recess by
the window Hannah stood between the brothers she had parted from
ten years ago, listening to their tale, and weeping as she
listened.

Ashley turned to his two guests, who were eating with appetite from
the well-filled platters placed before them, and he began to speak
as though taking up a theme which had lately been dropped.

"It is no wonder that you are perplexed by what you hear and see in
this city. I will seek to make the point at issue as clear to you
as it may be. You have doubtless heard of the Penn family, from
whom this colony takes its name. Much we owe to our founder--his
wisdom, liberality, and enlightenment; but his sons are hated here.
They are absent in England, but they are the proprietaries of vast
tracts of land, and it is with regard to these lands that the
troubles in the Assembly arise. The proprietaries are regarded as
renegades from the faith; for the Assembly here is Quaker almost to
a man. They hate the feudalism of the tenure of the proprietaries,
and they are resolved to tax these lands, although they will not
defend them, and although no income is at present derived from
them."

"Have they the power to do so?" asked Julian.

"Not without the consent of the Governor. That is where the whole
trouble lies. And the Governor has no power to grant them leave to
tax the proprietary lands. Not only so, but he is expressly
forbidden by the terms of his commission to permit this taxation.
But the Assembly will not yield the point, nor will they consent to
furnish means for the defence of the colony until this point is
conceded. That is where the deadlock comes in. The Governor cannot
yield; his powers do not permit it. The Assembly will not yield.
They hate the thought of war, and seem glad to shelter themselves
behind this quibble. For a while many of us, their friends,
although not exactly at one with them in all things, stood by them
and upheld them; but we are fast losing patience now. When it comes
to having our peaceful settlers barbarously murdered, and our
western border desolated and encroached upon; when it becomes known
that this is the doing of jealous France, not of the Indians
themselves, then it is time to take a wider outlook. Let the
question of the proprietary lands stand over till another time; the
question may then be settled at a less price than is being paid for
it now, when every month's delay costs us the lives of helpless
women and children, and when humanity herself is crying aloud in
our streets."

Ashley, although he had long been on most friendly terms with the
Quaker population of the town, was not by faith a Quaker, and was
growing impatient with the Assembly and its stubborn policy of
resistance. He felt that his old friend Franklin should know
better, and show a wider spirit. He had acted with promptness and
patriotism earlier in the year, when Braddock's luckless expedition
had applied to him for help. But in this warfare he was sternly
resolved on the victory over the Governor, and at this moment it
seemed as though all Philadelphia was much more eager to achieve
this than to defend the borders of the colony.

Hitherto the danger had not appeared pressing to the eastern part
of the colony. They were in no danger from Indian raids, and they
had small pity for their brethren on the western frontier. Between
them and the encroaching Indians lay a population, mostly German,
that acted like a buffer state to them; and notwithstanding that
every post brought in urgent appeals for help, they passed the time
in wrangling with the Governor, in drawing up bills professing to
be framed to meet the emergency, but each one of them containing
the clause through which the Governor was forced to draw his pen.

Governor Morris had written off to England stating the exceeding
difficulty of his position. His appeals to the Assembly to defend
the colony were spirited and manly. He was anxious to join with the
other colonies for an organized and united resistance, but this was
at present extremely difficult. Others before him had tried the
same policy, but it had ended in failure. Petty jealousies did more
to hold the colonies apart than a common peril to bind them
together. Political and religious strife was always arising. There
was nothing to bind them together save a common, though rather
cold, allegiance to the English King. Now and again, in moments of
imminent peril, they had united for a common object; but they fell
apart almost at once. Each had its own pet quarrel with its
Governor, which was far more interesting to the people at the
moment than anything else.

Julian and Fritz listened in amaze as Ashley, who was a
well-informed man and a shrewd observer, put before them, as well
as he was able, the state of affairs reigning in Pennsylvania and
the sister states.

"I am often ashamed of our policy, of our bickerings, of our
tardiness," concluded the good man; "yet for all that there is
stuff of the right sort in our people. We have English blood in our
veins, and I always maintain that England is bound to be the
dominant power in these lands of the west. Let them but send us
good leaders and generals from the old country, and I will answer
for it that the rising generation of New England will fight and
will conquer, and drive the encroaching French back whence they
came!"



Chapter 4: An Exciting Struggle.


It was an exciting scene. Susanna stood at the window, and gazed
eagerly along the street, striving hard to obtain a sight of the
seething crowd in the open square.

She could see the tall, haggard form of her Uncle Charles, as she
called him. He was standing upon a little platform that his friends
had erected for him in front of the Assembly Rooms, and he was
speaking aloud to the surging crowd in accents that rang far
through the still air, and even reached the ears of the listeners
at the open window.

For once Hannah made no protest when the girl thrust out her head.
She herself seemed to be striving to catch the echoes of the clear,
trumpet-like voice. Her colour came and went in her cheeks; her
breast heaved with the emotion which often found vent in those days
in a fit of silent weeping.

"Mother dear, do not weep; they shall be avenged! Nobody can listen
to Uncle Charles and not be moved. Hark how they are shouting
now--hark! I can see them raising their arms to heaven. They are
shaking their fists in the direction of the windows of the Assembly
House. Surely those cowardly men must be roused to action; they
cannot hear unmoved a tale such as Uncle Charles has to tell!"

"Yet even so the dead will not be restored to life; and war is a
cruel, bitter thing."

"Yes, but victory is glorious. And we shall surely triumph, for our
cause is righteous. I am sure of that. And Julian Dautray says the
same. I think he is a very good man, mother; I think he is better
than the Quakers, though he does not talk as if he thought himself
a saint.

"O mother, there is Uncle Humphrey looking up at us! I pray you let
me go down to him. I long so greatly to hear what Uncle Charles is
saying. And I shall be safe in his care."

"I think I will come, too," said Hannah, whose interest and
curiosity were keenly aroused; and after signalling as much to
Humphrey, they threw on their cloaks and hoods, and were soon out
in the streets, where an excited crowd had gathered.

"The posts have come in," said Humphrey, as they made their way
slowly along, "and there is news of fresh disasters, and nearer. In
a few minutes we shall have more news. Men have gone in who promise
to come out and read us the letters. But the bearers themselves
declare that things are terrible. The Germans have been attacked. A
Moravian settlement has been burnt to the ground, and all its
inhabitants butchered. Families are flying from the border country,
naked and destitute, to get clear of the savages and their
tomahawks. Every where the people are calling aloud upon the
Assembly to come to their succour."

The crowd in the street was surging to and fro. Some were Quakers,
with pale, determined countenances, still holding to their stubborn
policy of non-resistance to the enemy, but of obstinate resistance
to the Governor and the proprietaries. The sight of these men
seemed to inflame the rest of the populace, and they were hustled
and hooted as they made their way into the Assembly; whilst the
Governor was cheered as he went by with a grave and troubled face,
and on the steps of his house he turned and addressed the people.

"My friends," he said, "I am doing what I can. I have written to
the proprietaries and to the government at home. I have told them
that the conduct of the Assembly is to me shocking beyond parallel.
I am asking for fresh powers to deal with this horrible crisis. But
I cannot look for an answer for long; and meantime are all our
helpless settlers in the west to be butchered? You men of the city,
rise you and make a solemn protest to these obstinate rulers of
yours. I have spoken all that one man may, and they will not hear.
Try you now if you cannot make your voice heard."

"We will, we will!" shouted a hundred voices; and forthwith knots
of influential men began to gather together in corners, talking
eagerly together, and gesticulating in their excitement.

And all this while Charles, wild-eyed and haggard, was keeping his
place on the little platform, and telling his story again and again
to the shifting groups who came and went. Men and women hung upon
his words in a sort of horrible fascination. Others might talk of
horrors guessed at, yet unseen; Charles had witnessed the things of
which he spoke, and his words sent thrills of horror through the
frames of those who heard. Women wept, and wrung their hands, and
the faces of men grew white and stern.

But upon the opposite side of the square another orator was
haranguing the crowd. A young Quaker woman had got up upon some
steps, moved in spirit, as she declared, to denounce the wickedness
of war, and to urge the townsmen to peaceful methods. Her shrill
voice rose high and piercing, and she invoked Heaven to bless the
work of those who would endure all things rather than spill human
blood.

But the people had heard something too much of this peaceful
gospel. For long they had upheld the policy of non-resistance. They
had their shops, their farms, their merchandise; they were
prosperous and phlegmatic, more interested in local than in
national issues. They had been content to be preached at by the
Quakers, and to give passive adhesion to their policy; but the hour
of awakening had come. The agonized cries of those who looked to
them for aid had pierced their ears too often to be ignored.
Humanity itself must rise in answer to such an appeal. They were
beginning to see that their peace policy was costing untold human
lives, amid scenes of unspeakable horror.

They let the woman speak in peace; they did not try to stop her
utterances. But when a brother Quaker took her place and began a
similar harangue, the young men round raised a howl, and a voice
cried out:

"Duck him in the horse pond! Roll him in a barrel! Let him be
tarred and feathered like an Indian, since he loves the scalping
savages so well. Who's got a tomahawk? Let's see how they use them.
Does anybody know how they scalp their prisoners? A Quaker would
never miss his scalp; he always has his hat on!"

A roar of laughter greeted this sally; and a rush was made for the
unlucky orator, who showed a bold front enough to the mob. But at
that moment public attention was turned in a different direction by
the appearing upon the steps of the Assembly Rooms of a well-known
citizen of high repute, who had until latterly been one of the
peace party, but who of late had made a resolute stand, insisting
that something must be done for the protection of the western
settlers, and for the curbing of the ambitious encroachments and
preposterous claims of France.

This grave-faced citizen came out with some papers in his hand, and
the crowd was hushed into silence.

Overhead anxious faces could be seen looking out at the window. It
was not by the wishes of the Assembly that such letters were made
public; but many of them had been addressed to James Freeman
himself, and they could not restrain him from doing as he would
with his own.

"My friends," he said, and his voice rose distinct in the clear
air, "we have heavy tidings today. You shall hear what is written
from some sufferers not far from Fort Cumberland, where forty white
men, women, and children were barbarously murdered a few days back.

"'We are in as bad circumstances as ever any poor Christians were
ever in; for the cries of the widowers, widows, fatherless and
motherless children are enough to pierce the hardest of hearts.
Likewise it is a very sorrowful spectacle to see those that escaped
with their lives with not a mouthful to eat, or bed to lie on, or
clothes to cover their nakedness or keep them warm, but all they
had consumed to ashes. These deplorable circumstances cry aloud to
your Honour's most wise consideration how steps may speedily be
taken to deliver us out of the hand of our persecutors the cruel
and murderous savages, and to bring the struggle to an end.'"

The reader paused, and a low, deep murmur passed through the crowd,
its note of rage and menace being clearly heard. The speaker took
up another paper and recommenced.

"This comes from John Harris on the east bank of the Susquehanna:

"'The Indians are cutting us off every day, and I had a certain
account of about fifteen hundred Indians, besides French, being on
their march against us and Virginia, and now close on our borders,
their scouts scalping our families on our frontier daily.'"

Another pause, another murmur like a roar, and a voice from the
crowd was raised to ask:

"And what says the Assembly to that?"

"They say that if the Indians are rising against us, who have been
friendly so long, then we must surely have done something to wrong
them; and they are about to search for the cause of such a possible
wrong, and redress it, rather than impose upon the colony the
calamities of a cruel Indian war!"

A yell and a groan went up from the crowd. For a moment it seemed
almost as though some attack would be made upon the Assembly House.
The habits of law and obedience were, however, strong in the
citizens of Philadelphia, and in the end they dispersed quietly to
their own homes; but a fire had been kindled in their hearts which
would not easily be quenched.

Days were wasted by the Quakers in an unsuccessful attempt to prove
that there had been some fraud on the part of the Governor in a
recent land purchase from the Indians. And they again laid before
the Governor one of their proposals, still containing the clause
which he was unable to entertain, and which inevitably brought
matters to a deadlock.

The Quakers drew up a declaration affirming that they had now taken
every step in their power, "consistent with the just rights of the
freemen of Pennsylvania, for the relief of the poor distressed
inhabitants," and further declared that "we have reason to believe
that they themselves would not wish us to go further. Those who
would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary
relief and safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

The Governor, in a dignified reply, once more urged upon them the
absolute necessity of waiving for the present the vexed question of
the proprietary estates, and passing a bill for the relief of the
present sufferers; but the Quakers remained deaf and mute, and
would not budge one inch from their position.

All the city was roused. In houses like that of Benjamin Ashley,
where people were coming and going the whole day long, and where
travellers from these border lands were to be found who could give
information at first hand, the discussion went on every day and all
day long. Ashley himself was keenly excited. He had quite broken
away from a number of his old friends who supported the Assembly in
its blind obstinacy. Nobody could sit by unmoved whilst Charles and
Humphrey Angell told their tale of horror and woe; and, moreover,
both Julian Dautray and Fritz Neville had much to tell of the
aggressive policy of France, and of her resolute determination to
stifle and strangle the growing colonies of England, by giving them
no room to expand, whilst she herself claimed boundless untrodden
regions which she could never hope to populate or hold.

Fresh excitements came daily to the city. Early one morning, as the
tardy daylight broke, a rumble of wheels in the street below told
of the arrival of travellers. The wheels stopped before Ashley's
door, and he hastily finished his toilet and went down.

In a few moments all the house was in a stir and commotion. A
terrible whisper was running from mouth to mouth. That cart
standing grimly silent in the street below carried, it was said, a
terrible load. Beneath its heavy cover lay the bodies of about
twenty victims of Indian ferocity; and the guardians of the load
were stern-faced men, bearing recent scars upon their own persons,
who ate and drank in stony silence, and only waited till the
Assembly had met before completing their grim mission.

The thing had got wind in the town by now, and the square space was
thronged. The members of the Assembly looked a little uneasy as
they passed through the crowd, but not a sound was made till all
had gathered in the upper room.

Then from out the yard of the inn was dragged the cart. No horses
were fastened to it. The young men of the city dragged it out and
pushed it along. The silent, grim-faced guardians walked in front.
As it reached the square the crowd sent up a groaning cry, and
opened right and left for the dreadful load to be set in position
before the windows of the great room where the Assembly had met.

Then the cover was thrown back, and yells and cries arose from all.
Shouts were raised for the Assembly to come and look at their work.

There was no resisting the mandate of the crowd. White and
trembling, the members of the Assembly were had out upon the steps,
and forced to look at the bodies of their victims. The crowd
hooted, groaned, yelled with maddened fury. The advocates of peace
shrank into themselves, appalled at the evidences of barbarities
they had sought to believe exaggerated. It was useless now to
attempt to deny the truth of what had been reported.

Back they slunk into the Assembly House, white and trembling, and
for the moment cowed. The cart was moved on, and stopped in front
of house after house where notable Quakers dwelt who were not
members of the Assembly. They were called to come to their windows
and look, and were greeted with hisses and curses.

The very next day a paper, under preparation by a number of the
leading citizens at the suggestion of the Governor, was presented
to the Assembly under the title of a "Representation." It contained
a stern appeal for the organization of measures of defence, and
ended by the dignified and significant words:

"You will forgive us, gentlemen, if we assume characters somewhat
higher than that of humble suitors praying for the defence of our
lives and properties as a matter of grace or favour on your side.
You will permit us to make a positive and immediate demand of it."

The Quakers were frightened, incensed, and perplexed. Their
preachers went about the streets urging upon the people the
doctrine of non-resistance, and picturing the horrors of warfare.
The Assembly debated and debated, but invariably came to the
conclusion that they must withstand the Governor to the last upon
the question of taxation.

All the city was in a tumult and ferment; but when the news came
that a settlement only sixty miles away, Tulpehocken by name, had
been destroyed and its inhabitants massacred, even the advocates of
peace grew white with fear, and the House began to draw up a
militia law--the most futile and foolish perhaps that had ever been
suggested even by lovers of peace--in the vain hope of appeasing
the people.

But the people would not be appeased by a mere mockery. They
clamoured for the raising of money for a systematic defence of
their colony, and the ground was cut from beneath the feet of the
Assembly by a letter received from England by the Governor--not
indeed in response to his recent urgent appeals, but still written
with some knowledge of the unsettled state of the country. In this
letter the proprietaries promised a donation of five thousand
pounds as a free gift for the defence of the provinces threatened
in so formidable a manner, provided it was regarded as a gift and
not as any part of a tax upon their estates, which were to remain
free according to the old feudal tenure.

The Assembly upon hearing this could hold out no longer. They were
forced by the clamour of public opinion to strike out the debated
and debatable clause from the long-contested bill, and immediately
it was passed into law by the Governor.

"Ay, they have come to their senses at last--when it is well nigh
too late!" spoke John Stark, with a touch of bitterness in his
tone. "They will furnish money now; but what can be done with the
winter just upon us? For six months we must lie idle, whilst the
snow and ice wrap us round. Why was not this thing done before our
settlements were destroyed, and when we could have pushed forth an
army into the field to drive back the encroaching foe, so that they
would never have dared to show their faces upon our border again?"

Charles looked up with burning eyes.

"What say you? Six months to wait? That will not do for me! My
blood is boiling in my veins; I must needs cool it! If these
laggard rulers, with their clumsy methods, cannot put an army in
the field before the spring, surely there are men enough amongst us
to go forth--a hardy band of woodsmen and huntsmen--and hunt and
harry, and slay and destroy, even as they have done!"

"That is what the Rangers do!" cried Stark, with kindling eyes; "I
have heard of them before this. The Rangers of New England have
done good work before now. Good thought, good thought! Why not form
ourselves into a band of Rangers? Are we not strong and full of
courage, seasoned to hardship, expert in our way with gun or axe?
Why should we lie idle here all the long winter through? Why not
let us forth to the forest--find out where help is needed most, and
make here a dash and there a raid, striking terror into the hearts
of the foe, and bringing help and comfort to those desolate
inhabitants of the wilderness who go in terror of their lives? Why
not be a party of bold Rangers, scouring the forests, and doing
whatever work comes to hand? Men have banded themselves together
for this work before now; why may not we do the like?"

"Why not, indeed?" cried Fritz, leaping to his feet. "I pine in the
restraint of this town; I long for the forest and the plain once
more. My blood, too, is hot within me at the thought of what has
been done and will be done again. Let us band ourselves together as
brothers in arms. There must be work and to spare for those who
desire it."

Ashley thoughtfully stroked his chin, looking round the circle
before him. He was a shrewd and thoughtful man, and there was
nothing of cowardice in his nature, although he was cautious and
careful.

"It is not a bad thought, Nephew John," he said; "and yet I had
been thinking of something different for some of you intrepid and
adventurous youths to do. I had thought of sending news of the
state of parties here to our friends and kinsmen in England. When
all is said and done, it is to England that we must look for help.
She must send us generals to command us, and she must help us with
her money. There are many families across the water who would open
their purses on our behalf right generously were our sad case made
known to them. Letters are sent continually, but it is the spoken
tale that moves the heart. I had thought to send across myself to
such of our friends and families as still regard us as belonging to
them. If they made a response such as I look for, we should soon
have means at our disposal to augment what the tardy Assembly may
do by an auxiliary force, equipped and furnished with all that can
be needed. But you cannot be in two places at once.

"What think you, my young friends? Will you serve your distressed
brethren better as Rangers of the forest, or as emissaries to
England?"

"Why not divide our forces?" asked John Stark; "there are enough of
us for that. I have often heard Humphrey speak of a wish to cross
the sea, and to visit the land from which we have all come. Why not
let him choose a comrade, and go thither with letters and messages,
and tell his tale in the ears of friends? And whilst they are thus
absent, why should not the rest of us make up a party of bold
spirits, and go forth into the wilderness, and there carry on such
work of defence and aggression as we find for us to do?"

"Ay. I have no love for the unknown ocean," said Charles; "I have
other work to do than to visit new lands. I have a vow upon me, and
I cannot rest till it be accomplished."

Humphrey and Julian looked at each other. Already they had spoken
of a visit to England. Both desired to see the lands of the Eastern
Hemisphere from whence their fathers had come. Hitherto they had
not seen how this could be accomplished; but Ashley's words opened
out an unexpected way. If the citizens of Philadelphia wanted to
send messengers to their friends across the water, they would
gladly volunteer for the service.

"If Julian will go with me, I will gladly go," said Humphrey.

"I will go, with all my heart," answered Julian at once; "and we
will seek and strive to do the pleasure of those who send us."

Ashley's face beamed upon the pair. He knew by this time that no
better messenger than Julian Dautray could be found. He had a gift
of eloquence and a singularly attractive personality. His nature was
gentle and refined--curiously so considering his upbringing--and he
had a largeness of heart and a gift of sympathy which was seldom to
be met with amongst the more rugged sons of the north.

He had made himself something of a power already in the circle into
which he had been thrown; and when it was known amongst Ashley's
friends and acquaintance that his wife's brother, together with
Julian Dautray, would go to England with their representations to
friends and to those in authority, a liberal response was made as
to their outfit and introductions, and the young men were surprised
to find themselves suddenly raised to a place of such importance
and distinction.

It was an exciting time for Susanna and for all in the house. John
Stark came to and fro, bringing news that he had found fresh
volunteers to join the band of Rangers, who were already making
preparations for departure upon their perilous life of adventure.

Some of the older citizens looked doubtful, and spoke of the
rigours of the winter; but John laughed, and Charles smiled his
strange, mirthless smile, and all declared themselves fearless and
ready to face whatever might be in store. Come what might, they
would go to the help of the settlers, be the Assembly ever so
dilatory in sending help.

"But you will not get killed?" Susanna would plead, looking from
one face to the other. She was fond of John, who had been like a
brother to her all her life; she had a great admiration for
handsome Fritz, who often spent whole evenings telling her
wonderful stories of the far south whilst she plied her needle over
the rough garments the Rangers were to take with them. It seemed to
her a splendid thing these men were about to do, but she shrank
from the thought that harm might come to them. She sometimes almost
wished they had not thought of it, and that they had been content
to remain in the city, drilling with the town militia, and thinking
of the coming spring campaign.

"We must take our chance," answered Fritz, as he bent over her with
a smile on one of those occasions. "You would not have us value our
lives above the safety of our distressed brethren or the honour of
our nation? The things which have happened here of late have
tarnished England's fair name and fame. You would not have us hold
back, if we can help to bring back the lustre of that name? I know
you better than that."

"I would have you do heroic deeds," answered Susanna, with
quickly-kindled enthusiasm, "only I would not have you lose your
lives in doing it."

"We must take our chance of that," answered Fritz, with a smile,
"as other soldiers take theirs. But we shall be a strong and wary
company; and I have passed already unscathed through many perils.
You will not forget us when we are gone, Susanna? I shall think of
you sitting beside this comfortable hearth, when we are lying out
beneath the frosty stars, with the world lying white beneath us,
wrapped in its winding sheet!"

"Ah, you will suffer such hardships! they all say that."

There was a look of distress in the girl's eyes; but Fritz laughed
aloud.

"Hardship! what is hardship? I know not the name. We can track game
in the forest, and fish the rivers for it. We can make ourselves
fires of sparkling, crackling pine logs; we can slip along over ice
and snow upon our snowshoes and skates, as I have heard them
described, albeit I myself shall have to learn the trick of
them--for we had none such methods in my country, where the cold
could never get a grip of us. Fear not for us, Susanna; we shall
fare well, and we shall do the work of men, I trow. I am weary
already of the life of the city; I would go forth once more to my
forest home."

There was a sparkle almost like that of tears in the girl's eyes,
and a little unconscious note as of reproach in her voice.

"That is always the way with men; they would ever be doing and
daring. Would that I too were a man! there is naught in the world
for a maid to do."

"Say not so," cried Fritz, taking the little hand and holding it
tenderly between his own. "Life would be but a sorry thing for us
men were it not for the gentle maidens left at home to think of us
and pray for us and welcome us back again. Say, Susanna, what sort
of a welcome will you have for me, when I come to claim it after my
duty is done?"

She raised her eyes to his, and the colour flooded her face.

"I shall welcome you back with great gladness of heart, Fritz, and
I shall pray for you every day whilst you are away."

"And not forget me, even if other fine fellows of officers, such as
we begin to see in our streets now, come speaking fine words to
you, and seeking to win smiles from your bright eyes? You will keep
a place in your heart still for the rough Ranger Fritz?"

Susanna's eyes lighted with something of mischievous amusement, and
then as she proceeded grew more grave and soft.

"My good mother will take care that I have small converse with the
gay young officers, Fritz. But in truth, even were it not so, I
should never care for them, or think of them as I do of you. You
are facing perils they would not. You are brave with the bravery of
a true hero. It is with the Rangers of the forest that my heart
will go. Be sure you break it not, Fritz, by too rashly exposing
yourself to peril."

"Sweetheart!" was his softly-spoken answer; and Susanna went to her
bed that night with a heart that beat high with a strange sweet
happiness, although the cloud of coming parting lay heavy upon her
soul.

A few days later, Humphrey and Julian, fully equipped with
instructions, introductions, money and other necessaries, left the
city, ready for their homeward voyage; and in another week the
small but hardy band of Rangers, with their plain and meagre
outfit, but with stout hearts and brave resolves, said adieu to
those they left behind, and started westward for that debatable
ground upon which a bloody warfare had to be fought to the bitter
end.



Book 2: Roger's Rangers.

Chapter 1: A Day Of Vengeance.


To the west! to the west! to the west!

Such was the watchword of the band of sturdy Rangers who set forth
from Pennsylvania to the defence of the hapless settlers.

They were but a handful of bold spirits. It was little they could
hope to accomplish in attempting to stem the tide of war; but their
presence brought comfort to many an aching heart, and nerved many a
lonely settler to intrench and defend his house and family, instead
of giving way to utter despair.

There was work for the little band to do amongst these scattered
holdings. John Stark urged upon such settlers as had the courage to
remain to build themselves block houses, to establish some sort of
communication with one another, to collect arms and ammunition, and
be ready to retire behind their defences and repel an attack. For
the moment the Indians seemed glutted with spoil and with blood,
and were more quiet, although this tranquillity was not to be
reckoned upon for a day. Still, whilst it lasted it gave a
breathing space to many harassed and desperate settlers; and Fritz
could give them many valuable hints as to the best method of
intrenching themselves in block houses. He had seen so many of
these upon his long journey, and understood their construction
well.

Everywhere they found the people in a state of either deep
despondency or intense exasperation. It seemed to them that they
had been basely deserted and betrayed by their countrymen, who
should have been prompt to send to their defence; and although the
arrival of the Rangers, and the news they brought of future help,
did something to cheer and encourage them, it was easy to see that
they were deeply hurt at the manner in which their appeals had been
met, and were ready to curse the Quakers and the Assembly who had
calmly let them be slaughtered like brute beasts, whilst they
wrangled in peaceful security over some disputed point with the
Governor.

"Are you Rogers' men?" was a question which the Rangers met again
and again as they pursued their way.

"No," they would answer; "we know of no Rogers. Who is he, and why
is his name in all men's mouths?"

This question was not always easy to get answered. Some said one
thing and some another; but as they pursued their western way, they
reached a settlement where more precise information was to be had.

"Have you not heard of Robert Rogers, the New Hampshire Ranger?
Well, you will hear his name many times before this war is closed.
He has gathered about him a band of bold and daring spirits. He has
lived in the forest from boyhood. He has been used to dealings with
both English and French settlers. He speaks the language of both.
But he is stanch to the heart's core. He is vowed to the service of
his country. He moves through the forests, over the lakes, across
the rivers. None can say where he will next appear. He seems
everywhere--he spies upon the foe. He appears beneath the walls of
their forts, snatches a sleepy sentry away from his post, and
carries him to the English camp, where information is thus gleaned
of the doings of the enemy. He and his band are here, there, and
everywhere. We had hoped to have seen them here by this. Colonel
Armstrong sent a message praying him to come and help him to attack
a pestilent nest of savages which is the curse of his life. We had
hoped you were the forerunners of his band when you appeared. But
in these troublous times who can tell whether the messenger ever
reached his destination?"

"But if we are not Rogers' men, we are Rangers of the forest,"
cried Stark, who was leader of the party. "We can fight; we are
trained to the exercise of arms. We will push on to this Colonel
Armstrong, and what aid so small a band can give him that we will
give."

"He will welcome any help from bold men willing to fight," was the
answer they got. "Pray Heaven you be successful; for we all go in
terror of our lives from the cruelty of Captain Jacobs. If he were
slain, we might have rest awhile."

"Captain Jacobs?"

"So they call him. He is a notable Indian chieftain. Most likely
the French baptized him by that name. They like to be called by
some name and title which sounds like that of a white man. He lives
at the Indian town of Kittanning, on the banks of the Allegheny,
and he is upheld by the French from Fort Duquesne and Venango. They
supply him with the munitions of war, and he makes of our lives a
terror. Colonel Armstrong has been sent by the Governor to try to
fall upon him unawares, and oust him from his vantage ground. If
the town were but destroyed and he slain, we might know a little
ease of mind."

The eyes of the Rangers lighted with anticipation. This was the
first they had heard of real warfare. If they could lend a hand to
such an expedition as this, they would feel rewarded for all their
pains and toil.

"Captain Jacobs, Captain Jacobs!" repeated Charles, with a gleam in
his sombre eyes; "tell me what manner of man this Captain Jacobs
is."

"I have seen him once--a giant in height, painted in vermilion, and
carrying always in his hand a mighty spear, which they say none but
he can wield. His eyes roll terribly, and upon his brow is a
strange scar shaped like a crescent--"

"Ay, ay, ay; and in his hair is one white tuft, which he has
braided with scarlet thread," interposed Charles, panting and
twitching in his excitement.

"That is the man--the most bloodthirsty fire eater of all the
Indian chiefs. Could the country but be rid of him, we might sleep
in our beds in peace once more, instead of lying shivering and
shaking at every breath which passes over the forest at night."

"Let us be gone!" cried Charles, shaking his knife in a meaning and
menacing fashion; "I thirst to be there when that man's record is
closed. Let me see his end; let me plunge my knife into his black
heart! There is another yet whom my vengeance must overtake; but
let me fall upon this one first."

"Was he one of the attacking party that desolated your homestead?"
asked Stark, as they moved along in the given direction, after a
brief pause for rest and refreshment.

"Ay, he was," answered Charles grimly. "I could not forget that
gigantic form, that mighty spear, that scar and the white tuft! He
stood by, and laughed at my frantic struggles, at the screams of
the children, at the agony of my gentle wife. A fiend from the pit
could not have been more cruel. But the hour is at hand when it
shall be done to him as he has done. His hand lighted the wood pile
they had set against the door of the house. Let him suffer a like
fate at our hands in the day of vengeance!"

Spurred on by the hope of striking some well-planted blow at the
heart of the enemy, the hardy band of Rangers pushed their way
through the forest tracks, scarcely pausing for rest or sleep, till
the lights of a little camp and settlement twinkled before them in
the dusk, and they were hailed by the voice of a watchful sentinel.

"Friends," cried Stark, in clear tones--"Rangers of the
forest--come to the aid of Colonel Armstrong, hoping to be in time
for the attack on Kittanning."

"Now welcome, welcome!" cried the man, running joyfully forward;
and the next minute the little band was borne into the camp by a
joyful company of raw soldiers, who seemed to feel a great sense of
support even from the arrival of a mere handful.

"Rogers' Rangers are come! the Rangers are come!" was the word
eagerly passed from mouth to mouth; and before the newcomers could
make any explanation, they found themselves pushed into a
fair-sized building, some thing in the form of a temporary
blockhouse, and confronted with the Colonel himself, who received
them with great goodwill.

"You are from Captain Rogers?" he said; "is one of you that notable
man himself?"

Stark stepped forward to act as spokesman, and was shaken warmly by
the hand.

"Rangers we are, but not of Rogers' company," he said. "Indeed,
when we started forth from Philadelphia to the succour of the
distressed districts, we had not even heard the name of Rogers,
though it is now familiar enough.

"We heard, however, that you were in need of the help of Rangers,
and we have come with all haste to your camp. We wish for nothing
better than to stand in the forefront of the battle against the
treacherous and hostile Indians. Although not of Rogers' training,
you will not find us faint of heart or feeble of limb. There are a
dozen of us, as you see, and we will fight with the best that we
have."

"And right welcome at such a moment," was the cordial answer, "for
the men I have with me are little trained to warfare; and though
they will follow when bravely led, they are somewhat like sheep,
and are easily thrown into confusion or turned aside from the way.
Tonight you shall rest and be well fed after your march, and on the
morrow we will make a rapid secret march, and seek to fall upon the
foe unawares."

The Rangers were as hungry as hunters, and glad enough to sit down
once more to a well-spread table. The rations were not luxurious as
to quality, but there was sufficient quantity, which to hungry men
is the great matter. The Colonel sat with them at table, heard all
they had to tell of the state of the country from Philadelphia
westward, and had many grim tales to tell himself of outrages and
losses in this district.

"We lost Fort Granville at harvest time, when the men were forced
to garner their crops, and we had to send out soldiers to protect
them. The French and Indians set upon the Fort, and though it was
gallantly defended by the lieutenant in charge, it fell into their
hands. Since then their aggressions have been unbearable. Captain
Jacobs has been making the lives of the settlers a terror to them.
We have sent for help from the colony, with what success you know.
We have sent to the Rangers under Rogers, and had hoped to be
reinforced by them.

"But if he cannot help us, it is much to have stout-hearted friends
come unexpectedly to our aid. Have you seen fighting, friends? or
are you like the bulk of our men--inured to toil and hardship, full
of zeal and courage, ready to wield any and every weapon in defence
of property, or against the treacherous Indian?"

"Something like that," answered Stark; "but we can all claim to be
good marksmen, and to have good weapons with us. Our rifles carry
far, and we seldom miss the quarry. I will answer for us that we
stand firm, and that we come not behind your soldiers in
steadiness, nor in the use of arms at close quarters."

"That I can well believe," answered the Colonel, with a smile; "I
have but a score of men who have been trained in the school of
arms. The rest were but raw recruits a few months ago, and many of
them have little love of fighting, though they seek to do their
duty.

"Well, well, we must not sit up all night talking. We have a hard
day's march before us tomorrow, and we must needs make all the
speed we can. Indian scouts might discover our camp at any moment,
and our only chance is to fall upon the Indian town unawares. They
do not look for attack in the winter months--that is our best
protection from spies. And so far I think we have escaped notice.
But it may not last, and we must be wary. We will sleep till dawn,
but with the first of the daylight we must be moving. The way is
long, but we have some good guides who know the best tracks. We
ought to reach the town soon after nightfall; and when all are
sleeping in fancied security, we will fall upon them."

The Rangers were glad enough of the few hours of sleep which they
were able to obtain, and it was luxury to them to sleep beneath a
roof, and to be served the next morning with breakfast which they
had not had to kill and cook themselves.

The men were in good spirits, too. The arrival of the little body
of Rangers had encouraged them; and as the company marched through
the forest, generally in single file, the newcomers scattered
themselves amongst the larger body, and talked to them of what was
going forward in the eastern districts, and how, after long delay,
reinforcements were being prepared to come to the aid of the
hapless settlers.

That was cheering news for all, and it put new heart into the band.
They marched along cheerily, although cautiously, for they knew not
what black scouts might be lurking in the thickets; and if the
Indians once got wind of their coming, there would be little hope
of successful attack.

On and on they marched all through the keen winter air, which gave
them fine appetites for their meals when they paused to rest and
refresh themselves, but made walking easier than when the sun beat
down pitilessly upon them in the summer. There had been no heavy
snow as yet, and the track was not hard to find. But the way was
longer than had been anticipated, and night had long closed in
before they caught a glimpse of any settlement, although they knew
they must be drawing near.

The guides became perplexed in the darkness of the forest. The moon
was shining, but the light was dim and deceptive within the great
glades. Still they pushed on resolutely, and the Rangers gradually
drew to the front, goaded on by their own eagerness, and less
disposed to feel fatigue than the soldiers, who were in reality
less hardy than they.

All in a moment a strange sound smote upon their ears. It was the
roll of an Indian drum. They paused suddenly, and looked each other
in the face. The rolling sound continued, and then rose a sound of
whooping and yelling such as some of their number had never heard
before.

"It is the war dance," whispered one of the guides; and a thrill
ran through the whole company. Had they been discovered, and were
the Indians coming out in a body against them?

For a brief while they were halted just below the top of the ridge,
whilst a few of the guides and Rangers crept cautiously forward to
inspect the hollow in which they knew the village lay.

Colonel Armstrong was one of this party, and he, with Stark and
Fritz, cautiously crept up over the ridge and looked down upon the
Indian town below.

The moon lighted up the whole scene. There was no appearance of
tumult or excitement. The sound of the drum and the whooping of the
warriors were not accompanied by any demonstration of activity by
those within the community. Probably some war party or hunting
party had returned with spoil, and they were celebrating the event
by a banquet and a dance.

The soldiers were bidden to move onward, but very cautiously. It
was necessary that they should make the descent of the rugged path
before the moon set, and it was abundantly evident that the Indians
had at present no idea of the presence of the enemy.

Slowly and cautiously the soldiers crept down the steep path, doing
everything possible to avoid a noise; but suddenly the sound of a
peculiar whistle sounded from somewhere below, and there were a
movement and a thrill of dismay through all the ranks; for surely
it was a signal of discovery!

Only Fritz was undismayed, and gave vent to a silent laugh.

"That is not an alarm," he whispered to the Colonel; "it is but a
young chief signalling to some squaw. But the place is not asleep
yet; if we go much nearer we shall be seen. Those bushes would give
us cover till all is quiet. We could crouch there and rest, and
when the time has come spring out upon the village unawares."

The Colonel approved the plan, and the weary men were glad enough
of the rest before the battle should begin. All were full of hope
and ardour; but in spite of that, most of them fell asleep crouched
in the cover. The surrounding hills kept off the wind, and it was
warm beneath the sheltering scrub.

But Charles sat up with his hands clasped round his knees, his eyes
intently fixed upon the Indian village. Beside him were a few of
his chosen comrades amongst the Rangers--men older than the hardy
youths who had organized the band--settlers like himself, who had
suffered losses like his own, and in whose hearts there burned a
steady fire of vengeful hate that could only be quenched in blood.

To them crept one of the guides who knew the district and the town
of Kittanning. With him were his son and another hardy lad. He
looked at Charles and made a sign. The next moment some six or
eight men were silently creeping through the sleeping soldiers,
unnoticed even by the sharp eyes of the Colonel, who was stationed
at some little distance.

Like human snakes these men wriggled themselves down the tortuous
path, keeping always under cover of the bushes; and even when the
open ground below was reached, they slipped so silently along
beneath the cover of the hedges that not an eye saw them, not even
the sharp ears of the Indians heard their insidious approach.

"Which is the house of Captain Jacobs?" asked Charles in a whisper
of the guide.

"It lies yonder," he answered, "in the centre of the village. It is
the strongest building in the place, and has loopholes from which a
hot fire can be poured out upon an approaching foe. The Indians
here have great stores of gunpowder and arms--given them by the
French to keep up the border war. Unless we can take them by
surprise, we be all dead men; for they are as ten to one, and are
armed to the teeth."

Charles's face in the moonlight was set and stern.

"Here is a stack of wood," he said. "Let every man take his fagot;
but be silent as death."

Plainly these men knew what they had come to do. In perfect
silence, yet with an exercise of considerable strength, they loaded
themselves with the dry brushwood, and split logs which the Indians
had cut and piled up ready for use either to burn or for the
building of their huts. Then, thus loaded, they crept like ghosts
or ghouls through the sleeping street of the Indian town, and piled
their burdens against the walls of the centre hut, which belonged
to the chief.

Twice and thrice was this thing repeated; but Charles remained
posted beside the door of the house, working in a strange and
mysterious fashion at the entrance. Upon his face was a strange,
set smile. Now and again he shook his clinched hand towards the
heavens, as though invoking the aid or the wrath of the Deity.

The bold little band were in imminent peril. One accidental slip or
fall, an unguarded word, an involuntary cough, and the lives of the
whole party might pay the forfeit. They were in the heart of an
Indian village, enemies and spies. But the good fortune which so
often attends upon some rash enterprise was with them tonight. They
completed their task, and drew away from the silent place as
shadow-like as they had come.

But they did not return to their comrades; they posted themselves
at a short distance from the place. They looked well to the priming
of their rifles, and to their other arms, and sat in silence to
await the commencement of the battle.

The moon set in golden radiance behind the wooded hills. In the
eastern sky the first rose red showed that dawn would shortly
break. Looking towards the hill, the little band saw that movement
had already begun there. They rose to their feet, and looked from
the moving shapes amid the brushwood towards the still sleeping,
silent town.

"The Lord of hosts is with us," spoke Charles, in a solemn voice;
"He will deliver the enemy into our hands. Let us quit ourselves
like men and be strong. Let us do unto them even as they have done.
Let not the wicked escape us. The Lord do so to me, and more also,
if I reward not unto yon cruel chieftain his wickedness and his
cruelties. If he leave this place alive, let my life pay the
forfeit!"

A murmur ran through the little group about him. Each man grasped
his weapon and stood still as a statue. This little company had
posted themselves upon a knoll which commanded the house of the
bloodthirsty chief. It was their business to see that he at least
did not escape from the day of vengeance.

The moments seemed hours to those men waiting and watching; but
they did not wait in vain.

A blaze of fire, a simultaneous crack of firearms, and a wild shout
that was like one of already earned victory, and the assailants
came charging down the hillside, and across the open fields, firing
volley after volley upon the sleeping town, from which astonished
and bewildered savages came pouring out in a dense mass, only to
fall writhing beneath the hail of bullets from the foe who had
surprised them thus unawares.

But there were in that community men trained in the arts of war,
who were not to be scared into non-resistance by a sudden
onslaught, however unexpected. These men occupied log houses around
that of their chieftain, and instead of rushing forth, they
remained behind their walls, and fired steadily back at the enemy
with a rapidity and steadiness which evoked the admiration of the
Colonel himself.

Fiercely rained the bullets from rank to rank. Indians yelled and
whooped; the squaws rushed screaming hither and thither; the fight
waxed hotter and yet more hot. But all unknown to the Indians, and
unseen by them in the confusion and terror, a file of stern,
determined men was stealing towards the very centre of their town,
creeping along the ground so as to avoid notice, and be safe from
the hail of shot, but ever drawing nearer and nearer to that
centre, where the defence was so courageously maintained.

Charles was the first to reach the log house against which the
brushwood had been piled. In the dim light of dawn his face could
be seen wearing a look of concentrated purpose. He had lately
passed an open hut from whence the inhabitants had fled, and he
carried in his hand a smouldering firebrand. Now crouching against
the place from which the hottest fire belched forth, he blew upon
this brand till a tongue of flame darted forth, and in a moment
more the brushwood around the house had begun to crackle with a
sound like that made by a hissing snake before it makes the fatal
spring.

Five minutes later and the ring of flame round the doomed house was
complete. The firing suddenly ceased, and there was a sound of
blows and cries, turning to howls of fury as the inmates found that
the door would not yield--that they were trapped.

The Rangers, rushing up, seized burning brands and commenced
setting fire to house after house, whilst their comrades stood at a
short distance shooting down the Indians as they burst forth. A
scene of the wildest terror and confusion was now illumined by the
glare of the fire, and at short intervals came the sound of short,
sharp explosions, as the flames reached the charged guns of the
Indians or the kegs of gunpowder lavishly stored in their houses.

But Charles stood like a statue in the midst of the turmoil. His
face was white and terrible; his gun was in his hands. He did not
attempt to fire it, although Indians were scuttling past him like
hunted hares; he stood stern and passive, biding his time.

The ring of flame round the centre house rose higher and higher.
Cries and screams were heard issuing from within. Some intrepid
warrior was chanting his death song, dauntless to the last. A
frightened squaw was shrieking aloud; but not even the sound of a
woman's voice moved Charles from his fell purpose.

Suddenly his, face changed; the light flashed into his eyes. He
raised his head, and he laid his gun to his shoulder.

Out upon the roof of the cabin, ringed as it was with fire, there
sprang a man of gigantic aspect, daubed and tattooed in vermilion,
his hair braided in scarlet, and one white tuft conspicuous in the
black. He stood upon the roof, glaring wildly round him as if
meditating a spring. Doubtless the smoke and fire shielded him in
some sort from observation. Had not there been one relentless foe
vowed to his destruction, he might in all probability have leaped
the ring of flame and escaped with his life.

But Charles had covered him with his gun. The chieftain saw the
gleaming barrel, and paused irresolute. Charles's voice rose clear
above the surrounding din.

"Murderer, tyrant, tormentor of helpless women and babes, the white
man's God doth war against thee. The hour of thy death has come. As
thou hast done unto others, so shall it be done unto thee."

Then the sharp report of the rifle sounded, and the chief bounded
into the air and fell back helpless. He was not dead--his yells of
rage and fear told that--but he was helpless. His thigh was
shattered. He lay upon the roof of the blazing cabin unable to move
hand or foot, and Charles stood by like a grim sentinel till the
frail building collapsed into a burning mass; then with a fierce
gesture he stirred the ashes with the butt of his rifle, saying
beneath his breath:

"That is one of them!"

Victory for the white man was complete, notwithstanding that bands
of Indians from the other side of the river came rushing to the
succour of their allies. They came too late, and were scattered and
dispersed by the resolute fire of the English. The whole village
was destroyed. Colonel Armstrong took as many arms and as much
ammunition as his men could carry, and devoted the rest to
destruction.

More satisfactory still, they released from captivity eleven
prisoners, white men with women and children, who had been carried
off at different times when others had been massacred. From these
persons they learned that the Indians of Kittanning had often
boasted that they had in the place a stock of ammunition sufficient
to keep up a ten years' war with the English along the borders. To
have taken and destroyed all these stores was no small matter, and
the Colonel and his men rejoiced not a little over the blow thus
struck at the foe almost in his own land.

But there was no chance of following up the victory. Armstrong was
not strong enough to carry the war into the enemy's country;
moreover, the winter was already upon them, although up till the
present the season had been especially mild and open. He must march
his men back to quarters, and provide for the safety of his
wounded, and for the restoration of the rescued prisoners to their
friends.

He would gladly have kept Stark and his little valiant band with
him, but the Rangers had different aims in view.

"We must be up and doing; we must find fighting somewhere. On Lake
George we shall surely find work for men to do. Rangers of wood and
forest care nothing for winter ice and snow. We will go northward
and eastward, asking news of Rogers and his Rangers. It may be that
we shall fall in with them, and that we can make common cause with
them against the common foe."

So said Stark, speaking for all his band, for all were of one heart
and one mind.

Therefore, after a few days for rest and refreshment, the little
army retreated whence it had come; whilst the bold band of Rangers
started forth for the other scene of action, away towards the
north, along the frozen lakes which formed one of the highways to
Canada.



Chapter 2: Robert Rogers.


They met for the first time, face to face, amid a world of ice and
snow, upon the frozen surface of Lake George.

Stark and his little band had been through strange experiences, and
had met with many adventures as they pursued their course towards
the spot where they heard that the French and English were lying
encamped and intrenched, awaiting the arrival of spring before
commencing the campaign afresh; and they now began to have a
clearer notion of the situation between the two nations than they
had hitherto had.

They had spent a week in the quaint Dutch town of Albany, and there
they had heard many things with regard to the state of parties and
the affairs between the two nations.

England and France were nominally at peace, or had been, even
whilst these murderous onslaughts had been going on in the west.
But it was evident to all that war must be shortly declared between
the countries, if it had not already been proclaimed. The scent of
battle seemed in the very air. Nothing was talked of but the great
struggle for supremacy in the west, which must shortly be fought
out to the bitter end.

The aim of France was to connect Canada with Louisiana by a chain
of forts, and keep the English penned up in their eastern provinces
without room to expand. The northern links of this chain were Fort
Ticonderoga, just where the waters of Lake George join those of
Champlain; Fort Niagara, which commanded the lakes; and Fort
Duquesne, at the head of the Ohio, the key to the great
Mississippi.

It was a gigantic scheme, and one full of ambition; there was one
immense drawback. The French emigrants of the western world
numbered only about one hundred and eighty thousand souls, whilst
the English colonies had their two millions of inhabitants. The
French could only accomplish their ends if the Indians would become
and remain their allies. The English, though equally anxious to
keep on good terms with the dusky denizens of the woods, who could
be such dangerous foes, had less need to use them in fight, as, if
they chose to combine and act in concert, they could throw an army
into the field which must overpower any the French could mass.

But the weakness of the provinces hitherto had been this lack of
harmony. They would not act in concert. They were forever
disputing, one province with another, and each at home with its
governor. The home ministry sent out men unfit for the work of
command. Military disasters followed one after the other.
Washington and Braddock had both been overthrown in successive
attempts upon Fort Duquesne; and now the English Fort of Oswego,
their outpost at Lake Ontario, was lost through mismanagement and
bad generalship.

Canada owned a centralized government. She could send out her men
by the various routes to the points of vantage where the struggle
lay. England had an enormous border to protect, and no one centre
of operations to work from. She was hampered at every turn by
internal jealousies, and by incompetent commanders. Braddock had
been a good soldier, but he could not understand forest fighting,
and had raged against the Virginian men, who were doing excellent
work firing at the Indians from behind trees, and meeting their
tactics by like ones. Braddock had driven them into rank by beating
them with the flat of his sword, only to see them shot down like
sheep. Blunders such as this had marked the whole course of the
war; and misfortune after misfortune had attended the English arms
upon the mainland, although in Acadia they had been more
successful.

These things Stark and his little band heard from the Dutch of
Albany; they also heard that the English were encamped at the
southern end of Lake George, at Forts Edward and William Henry,
their commander being John Winslow, whose name was becoming known
and respected as that of a brave and humane soldier, who had
carried through a difficult piece of business in Acadia with as
much consideration and kindliness as possible.

Now he was in command of the English force watching the movements
of the French at Ticonderoga; here also were Rogers and his Rangers
to be found. They had marched into Winslow's camp, it was said,
some few months earlier, proffering their services; and there they
had since remained, scouting up and down the lake upon skates or
snowshoes, snatching away prisoners from the Indian allies, or from
the very walls of the fort itself, and intercepting provisions sent
down Lake Champlain for the use of the French.

Details of these escapades on the part of the Rangers were not
known in Albany; but rumours of Rogers' intrepidity reached them
from time to time, and Stark and his band were fired anew by the
desire to join themselves to this bold leader, and to assist him in
his task of harassing the enemy, and bringing assistance of all
sorts into the English camp.

Bidding adieu to the Dutch, who had received them kindly, and now
sent them away with a sufficiency of provisions to last them
several days, they skimmed away still to the northward on their
snowshoes. They had taken directions as to what route to pursue in
order to reach Fort Edward, and thence to pass on to Fort William
Henry; but the heavy snowfall obliterated landmarks, and they
presently came to the conclusion that they had missed the way, and
had travelled too far north already.

"Then we must keep in a westerly direction," quoth Stark, as they
sat in council together over their fire at night; "we cannot fail
thus to strike the lake at last, and that, if frozen hard, can be
our highway. At the southern end is the fort William Henry; at the
northern outlet is the French fort with the name of Ticonderoga."

This deflection in direction being agreed to, the party lay down to
sleep--Charles Angell offering to act as sentry, as he frequently
did.

Since the tragedy which had wrecked his life, Charles had seldom
been able to sleep quietly at night. He was haunted by horrible
dreams, and the thought of sleep was repugnant to him. He would
often drop asleep at odd hours over the campfire whilst his
comrades were discussing and planning, and they would let him sleep
in peace at such times; but at night he was alert and wide awake,
and they were glad enough to give him his request, and let him keep
watch whilst they rested and slumbered.

The silence of the snow-girt forest was profound; yet Charles was
restless tonight, and kept pausing to listen with an odd intensity
of expression. His faculties, both of sight and hearing, had become
preternaturally acute of late. More than once this gift of his had
saved the party from falling amongst a nest of hostile Indians;
tonight it was to prove of service in another way.

In the dead of night the Rangers were awakened by a trumpet-like
call.

"To arms, friends, to arms! The Indians are abroad; they are
attacking our brothers! I hear the shouts of battle. We must to
their rescue! Let us not delay! To arms, and follow me; I will lead
you thither!"

In a second the camp was astir. The men lay down in their clothes,
wrapping a buffalo robe about them for warmth. In a few seconds all
were aroused, strapping their blankets upon their shoulders and
seizing their weapons.

"What have you heard, Charles, and where?" asked Stark and Fritz in
a breath as they ran up.

"Yonder, yonder!" cried Charles, pointing in a northwesterly
direction; "it is a fight on the ice. It is not far away. The
Indians are attacking white men--English men. I hear their cries
and their shoutings. Hark--there is shooting, too! Come, follow me,
and I will take you there. There is work for the Rangers tonight!"

Yes, it was true. They could all hear the sound of shots. What had
gone before had only reached the ears of Charles; but the report of
firearms carried far. In three minutes the bold little company had
started at a brisk run through the snow-covered forest, getting
quickly into the long swing of their snowshoes, and skimming over
the ground at an inconceivably rapid pace, considering the nature
of the ground traversed.

All at once the forest opened before them. They came out upon its
farthest fringe; and below them lay, white and bare, and sparkling
in the moonlight, the frozen, snow-laden plateau of the lake.

It was a weirdly beautiful scene which lay spread like a panorama
before them in the winter moonlight; but they had no time to think
of that now. All eyes were fixed upon the stirring scene enacted in
the middle of the lake, or at least well out upon its frozen
surface, where a band of resolute men, sheltering themselves behind
a few sledges, which made them a sort of rampart, were firing
steadily, volley after volley, at a band of leaping, yelling
Indians who had partially surrounded them, and who were slowly but
steadily advancing, despite their heavy loss, returning the fire of
the defendants, though by no means so steadily and regularly, and
whooping and yelling with a fearful ferocity.

It was easy to see, even by the moonlight alone, that the men
behind the sledges were white men. A sudden enthusiasm and
excitement possessed our little band of Rangers as this sight burst
upon them, and Stark gave the instant word:

"Steady, men, but lose not a moment. Form two lines, and rush them
from behind. Reserve your fire till I give the word. Then let them
have it hot, and close upon them from behind. When they find
themselves between two fires, they will think themselves trapped.
They will scatter like hunted hares. See, they have no notion of
any foe save the one in front. Keep beneath the shadow of the
forest till the last moment, and then rush them and fire!"

The men nodded, and unslung their guns. They made no noise gliding
down the steep snow bank upon their long shoes, and then out upon
the ice of the lake.

"Fire!" exclaimed Stark at the right moment; and as one man the
Rangers halted, and each picked his man.

Crack-crack-crack!

Literally each bullet told. Twelve dusky savages bounded into the
air, and fell dead upon the blood-stained snow.

Crack-crack-crack!

The affrighted Indians had faced round only to meet another volley
from the intrepid little band behind.

That was enough. The prowess of the Rangers was well known from one
end of the lake to the other. To be hemmed in between two companies
was more than Indian bravery or Indian stoicism could stand. With
yells of terror they dropped their arms and fled to the forest,
followed by a fierce firing from both parties, which made great
havoc in their ranks. The rout was complete and instantaneous. Had
it not been for panic, they might have paused to note how few were
those new foes in number, and how small even the united body was as
compared with their own numbers; but they fled, as Stark had
foretold, like hunted hares, and the white men were left upon the
lake face to face, with dead and dying Indians around them.

An enormously tall man leaped up from behind the rampart of
sledges, and came forward with outstretched hand. He was a man of
magnificent physique, with a mass of wild, tangled hair and beard,
and black eyes which seemed to burn like live coals. His features
were rugged and rather handsome, and his nose was of very large
proportions.

Stark took a step forward and shook the outstretched hand. He knew
this man, from descriptions received of him during their months of
wandering.

"You are Captain Rogers?"

"Robert Rogers, of the Rangers, at your service," replied the
other, in a deep, sonorous voice, which seemed to match his size;
"and this is my brother Richard," as another fine-looking man
approached and held out his hand to their deliverers. "And right
glad are we to welcome such bold spirits amongst us, though who you
are and whence you come we know not. You have saved us from peril
of death tonight, and Rogers never forgets a service like that."

"We have come from far to seek you," answered Stark; "we ourselves
are Rangers of the forest. We fear neither heat nor cold, peril,
hardship, nor foe. We long to fight our country's battle against
the Indian savages and against the encroaching French. It has been
told us again and again that Rogers is the captain for us, and to
Rogers we have come."

"And right welcome are all such bold spirits in Rogers' camp!" was
the quick reply. "That is the spirit of the true Ranger. Nor shall
you be disappointed in your desire after peril and adventure. You
can see by tonight's experience the sort of adventure into which we
are constantly running. We scouts of the lake have to watch
ourselves against whole hordes of wily, savage Indian scouts and
spies. Some of our number are killed and cut off with each
encounter; and yet we live and thrive and prosper. And if you ask
honest John Winslow who are those who help him most during this
season of weary waiting, I trow he will tell you it is Rogers and
his bold Rangers."

By this time the whole band of Rangers had gathered round Stark's
little company, and the men were all talking together. In those
wild lands ceremony is unknown; friendships are quickly made, if
quickly sundered by the chances and changes of a life of adventure
and change; and soon the band felt as if one common spirit inspired
them.

There were three wounded men in Rogers' company; they were put upon
a sledge and well covered up. Then the party moved along to a
position at some distance from that where they had met the attack.

"The Indians will come back to find and remove their dead,"
explained Rogers. "It is better to be gone. We will encamp and
bivouac a little farther away. Then we will hold a council as to
our next move. They will not be in haste to molest us again."

The plan was carried out. The hardy Rangers hollowed out a
sheltered nook in the snow, threw up a wall of protection against
the wind, lighted a fire, and sat round it discussing the events of
the night, and exchanging amenities with their new comrades.

The two Rogerses, together with Stark, Fritz, and the silent,
watchful Charles, gathered in a knot a little apart, and Rogers
laid before them, in a few brief speeches, the situation of affairs
upon the lake.

Lake Champlain, the more northern and the larger of the twin lakes,
was altogether guarded by the French. St. John stood at its head,
and Crown Point guarded it lower down--being a great fortified
promontory, where the lake narrowed to a very small passage,
widening out again below, till it reached the other strong fort and
colony of Ticonderoga, where Lake George formed a junction with it,
though the lake itself still ran an independent course to the
south, parallel with Lake George, being fed by the waters of Wood
Creek, a narrow, river-like inlet, which was a second waterway into
the larger lake.

The position of Ticonderoga was, therefore, very important, as it
commanded both these waterways; and even if the English could
succeed in avoiding the guns of that fort, there was still Crown
Point, further to the north, to keep them from advancing.

In addition to these advantages, the French had won the local
Indians to their side; and though they did much towards
embarrassing their white allies, and were a perfect nuisance both
to officers and men, they were too useful to risk offending or to
be dispensed with, as they were always ready for a dash upon any
English scouting parties, and formed a sort of balance to the
tactics of the English Rangers.

"They are villainous foes!" said Rogers, with a dark scowl. "It is
their great joy to take prisoners; and when the French have
extracted from them all the information they can as to the strength
and prospects of the English, the Indians will claim them again, to
scalp and burn, and the French scarcely raise a protest. It is said
that they speak with disgust of the barbarities of these savage
allies, but they do little or nothing to check them. That is why my
wrath often rises higher against the French than against the
Indians themselves. They know no better; but for white man to
deliver white man into their hands--that is what makes my blood
boil!"

The fire leaped up in Charles's eyes, and he had his tale to tell,
at hearing of which the Rogerses set their teeth and muttered
curses not loud but deep.

"Now will I tell you what we started forth to do," said the leader
of the band. "We have been busy all winter. Last month we skated
down the lake when it was clear of snow, passed Ticonderoga all
unseen, intercepted some sledges of provisions, and carried them
and their drivers to our fort. Now we are bent upon a longer
journey. We want to reach Crown Point, and make a plan of the works
for our brave Commander Winslow. We were a part of the way on our
route, when we fell in with Indians conveying provisions to the
French on these sledges. We took them from them and dispersed the
crew; but they must have scattered and got help, and they set upon
us, as you have seen. Now that we have three wounded and two
somewhat bruised and shaken, I am thinking it would be better to
send them back, with a few sound men as escort--for the provisions
will be welcome at the fort, which is not too well victualled--whilst
the rest of us push on, and see if we can accomplish our errand. Now
that we are thus reinforced, we shall be strong enough to do this."

The eyes of Stark and Fritz sparkled at the prospect.

"We will go with you," they cried. "We long for such work as this;
it is what we have come for from our homes and friends."

And then Stark added modestly:

"And if I am but little trained to arms, I can draw. I have been
used to that work in my old life, which was too tame for me. I
understand how to make plans and elevations. If I could but get a
good view of the fortifications, I will undertake to make a good
drawing of them for your general."

Rogers slapped him heartily upon the back.

"A draughtsman is the very fellow we want," he cried; "and a
draughtsman who can wield weapons as you can, John Stark, is the
very man for us. You and your band will be right welcome. You can
all use snowshoes, I see, and doubtless skates also?"

Stark nodded. By that time all were proficient in these arts, even
Fritz, to whom they had been new at the commencement of the winter.
Charles fingered the knife at his belt, and his cavern-like eyes
glowed in their sockets.

"Let me fight the French-the French!" he muttered. "I have avenged
myself upon the Indian foe. Now let me know the joy of meeting the
white foe face to face!"

"Is that poor fellow mad?" asked Rogers of Fritz, when next
morning, all preparations being speedily made, the party had
divided, and the larger contingent was sweeping down the lake
towards the distant junction, which was guarded by the guns of
Ticonderoga.

"I think his brain is touched. He has been like that ever since I
have known him; but his brother and friends say that once he was
the most gentle and peaceful of men, and never desired to raise
hand against his fellow. It is the horror of one awful memory that
has made him what he is. I thought perhaps that when he wreaked his
vengeance upon the Indian chieftain who had slain his wife and
children, he would have been satisfied; but the fire in his heart
seems unquenched and unquenchable. Sometimes I have a fancy that
when his wrath is satisfied the spring of life will cease within
him. He grows more gaunt and thin each week; but he is borne along
by the strong spirit within, and in battle his strength is as the
strength of ten."

"As is ofttimes the way with men whose minds are unhinged," said
Rogers. "Truly we have small reason to love our white brothers the
French, since at their door lies the sin of these ravages upon the
hapless border settlers. We will requite them even as they deserve!
We will smite them hip and thigh! though we must not, and will not,
become like the savage Indians. We will not suffer outrage; it
shall be enough of shame and humiliation for them to see the flag
of England flaunting proudly where their banners have been wont to
fly."

A few days of rather laborious travel--for the snow was soft--and
Crown Point lay before them. They had left the lake some time
before, skirting round Roger's Rock, and thus making a cut across
country, and missing the perils of passing Ticonderoga.

"We will take that in returning," said Rogers; "but we will not
risk being seen on our way down, else they might be upon the alert
for our return. We will arrange a pleasant surprise for them."

The way was laborious now, for they had to climb hills which gave
them a good view over the fortifications of Crown Point; but this
elevation once safely attained, without any further molestation
from Indians, they were able to make a complete survey of the
fortifications; and Stark made some excellent plans and drawings,
which gave a fine idea of the place.

So far all had been peaceful; but the Rangers were not wont to come
and go and leave no trace. There were outlying farms around the
fortifications, and comings and goings between the French soldiers
and peasants.

"We will stop these supplies," said Rogers, with a sardonic smile;
"the French shall learn to be as careful of their flour as we have
to be!"

And carefully laying an ambush in the early grey of a winter's
morning, he sprang suddenly out upon a train of wagons wending
their way to the fortifications.

The drivers, scared and terrified, jumped from their places, and
ran screaming into the defences, whence soldiers came rushing out,
sword in hand, but only to find the wagons in flames, the horses
driven off to the forest, and the barns and farmsteads behind
burning.

It was a savage sort of warfare, but it was the work of the Rangers
to repay ferocity in kind, and to leave behind them dread tokens of
the visits they paid.

Whilst the terrified inhabitants and the angry soldiers were
striving to extinguish the flames, and vituperating Rogers and his
company, these bold Rangers themselves were fleeing down the lake
as fast as snowshoes could take them, full of satisfaction at the
havoc they had wrought, and intent upon leaving their mark at
Ticonderoga before they passed on to Fort William Henry.

Guarded as it was by fortifications and surrounded by Indian spies,
Rogers and his men approached it cautiously, yet without fear; for
they knew every inch of the ground, and they were so expert in all
woodcraft and strategic arts that they could lie hidden in
brushwood within speaking distance of the foe, yet not betray their
presence by so much as the crackle of a twig.

It was night when they neared the silent fort. A dying moon gave
faint light. The advancing party glided like ghosts along the
opposite bank. A sentry here and there tramped steadily. The
Rangers could hear the exchange of salute and the rattle of a
grounded musket. But no sign did they make of their presence. They
kept close in the black shadow, and halted in a cavern-like spot
well known to them from intimate acquaintance.

Richard Rogers had been sent scouting by his brother, and came in
with news.

"There will be marching on the morrow. Some soldiers will leave the
fort for the nearest camp; I could not gather how many, but there
will be some marching through the forest. If we post ourselves near
to the road by which they will pass, we may do some havoc ere they
know our whereabouts."

This was work entirely to the liking of the Rangers. Before dawn
they were posted in their ambush, and allowed themselves a few
hours of repose, but lighted no fire. They must not draw attention
to themselves.

They were awake and astir with the first light of the tardy dawn,
eagerly listening whilst they looked to the priming of their arms,
and exchanged whispered prognostications.

Then came the expected sound--the tramp, tramp, tramp of a number
of men on the march.

"Hist!" whispered Rogers, "lie low, and reserve your fire. These
sound too many for us."

The men kept watch, and saw the soldiers file by. There were close
upon two hundred. It would have been madness to attack them, and
the Rangers looked at one another in disappointment.

"Cheer up! there may be more to come," suggested Rogers; and before
another hour had passed, their listening ears were rewarded by the
sound of a bugle call, and in a few minutes more the trampling of
feet was heard once again, and this time the sound was less and
more irregular.

"Some stragglers kept behind for something, seeking to catch up the
main body," spoke Rogers in a whisper. "Be ready, men; mark each
his foe, and then out upon them, and take prisoners if you can."

The taking of prisoners was most important. It was from them that
each side learned what was being done by the various commanders. A
prisoner was valuable booty to return with to the fort. Rogers
seldom went forth upon any important expedition without returning
with one or more.

The men swung by carelessly, laughing and talking. They had such
faith in their Indian scouts that they never thought of an ambushed
foe.

The ping of the rifles in their rear caused a strange panic amongst
them. They faced round to see the redoubtable Rogers spring out at
the head of a compact body of men.

But the strangest thing in that strange attack was a wild,
unearthly yell which suddenly broke from one of the Rangers.

It was like nothing human; it was like the fierce roar of some
terrible wild beast. Even Rogers himself was startled for the
moment, and looked back to see from whence it had come.

At that moment Charles Angell dashed forward in a frantic manner.
He had flung his gun from him; his eyeballs were fixed and staring;
there was foam upon his lips; his hair was streaming in the wind.
He bore an aspect so strange and fearful that the French uttered
yells of terror, and fled helter-skelter from the onslaught.

But if any had had eyes to note it, there was one Frenchman whose
face became ashy white as he met the rolling gaze of those
terrible, bloodshot eyes. He too flung away his gun, and uttered a
frantic yell of terror, plunging headlong into the wood without a
thought save flight.

"It is he! it is he! it is he!"

This was the shout which rang from the lips of Charles as he dashed
after the retreating figure. All was confusion now amid French and
Rangers alike; that awful yell, and something in the appearance of
Charles, had startled friend and foe alike.

There were several of the French soldiers left dead in the wood,
and one was captured and made prisoner; but the rest had fled like
men demented, and the Rangers could not come up with them. As for
Charles and his quarry, they had disappeared, and it was long
before any trace could be found of them.

Stark and Fritz, however, would not give up the search, and at last
they came upon the prostrate form of Charles. He lay face downwards
on the frozen ground, which was deeply stained with blood. His
wrist was fearfully gashed by some knife; yet in his fingers he
held still a piece of cloth from the coat of the French fugitive.
It had been literally torn out of his grasp before the man could
get free, and he had nearly hacked off the left hand of the hapless
Charles.

Yet the man had made good his escape, leaving Charles well nigh
dead from loss of blood. But they carried him tenderly back to
their cave, and making a rough sledge for him; then brought him
safely with their prisoner into the camp at Fort William Henry.



Chapter 3: The Life Of Adventure.


"I have seen him once, and he has escaped me. But we shall meet
again, and then the hour of vengeance will have come!"

This was the burden of Charles's words as he lay in his narrow
quarters in the Rangers' huts just without Fort William Henry,
tended by his comrades till his wound healed. The fever which so
often follows upon loss of blood had him in its grip for awhile,
and he would lie and mutter for hours in a state of semi-delirium.

The sympathy of his comrades for this strange man with the tragic
story was deep and widespread. Charles had become a favourite and
an object of interest throughout the ranks of the Rangers, and
great excitement prevailed when it was understood that he had
really seen the man--the Frenchman--who had stood by to see his
wife and family massacred, and had deliberately designed to leave
him, cruelly pinioned, to die a lingering death of agony in the
heart of the lonely forest.

Every day he had visitors to his sickbed, and again and again he
told the tale, described his foe, and told how he knew that the man
recognized him, first taking him--or so he believed--for a spectre
from the tomb, afterwards filled with the most lively terror as he
realized that he was pursued by one who had such dire cause for
bitter vengeance.

"We have met twice!" Charles would say, between his shut teeth.
"Once I was at his mercy, and he showed none. The second time he
fled before me as a man flees from death and hell. The third time
we meet--and meet we shall--it will be that the Lord has delivered
him into my hand. I will strike, and spare not. It will be the hour
appointed of Heaven!"

With the lengthening days and the approach of spring the life of
the Rangers became less full of hardship, though not less full of
adventure. Snowshoes and skates were laid aside, and the men
started to construct boats and canoes in which they soon began to
skim the surface of the lake; scouting here, there, and all over,
and bringing back news of the enemy's movements and strength even
when no capture of prisoners rewarded their efforts.

Rogers had taken a great liking to John Stark and his followers. He
dubbed Stark his lieutenant, and Fritz and Stark were inseparable
companions by this time. Charles attached himself to no person in
particular, but was the friend of all; pitied and respected for his
misfortunes, allowed to come and go much as he would; regarded
rather as one set aside by Heaven for an instrument of vengeance;
standing alone, as it were, not quite like any of his comrades; a
dreamy, solitary creature, seldom talking much, often passing the
whole day in silent brooding; yet when there was fighting to be
done, waking up to a sort of Berserker fury, dealing blows with an
almost superhuman strength, and invariably filling the hearts of
his adversaries with a species of superstitious fear and dread.

For the tall, gaunt figure with the haggard face, flaming eyes, and
wildly-floating locks bore so weird an aspect that a man might be
pardoned for regarding it as an apparition. Not a particle of
colour remained in Charles's face. The flesh had shrunk away till
the bones stood out almost like skin stretched over a skull. The
hair, too, was white as snow, whilst the brows were coal black,
enhancing the effect of the luminous, fiery eyes beneath. It was
small wonder that Charles was regarded by Rangers and soldiers
alike as a thing apart. He came and went as he would, no man
interfering or asking him questions.

At the same time he seemed to regard Fritz and Stark as his chief
friends; and if they started forth with any of the Rangers, it was
generally observed that Charles would be of the company.

The life of the forest was pleasant enough in the warmer weather;
but the garrison at the fort were anxious to know what orders they
would receive for the summer campaign, and so far nothing was heard
but that they were to remain on the defensive. This might be
prudent, seeing that Ticonderoga was< strongly fortified and
garrisoned; but it pleased neither soldiers nor officers, and the
Rangers went scouting more and more eagerly, hoping to learn news
which might tempt those in authority to sanction some more overt
movement.

One day a strange adventure befell the Rangers. Rogers and his
little flotilla of boats were here, there, and everywhere upon the
lake. Not only did they move up and down Lake George, which was
debatable ground, commanded at the different ends by a French and
English fort, but they carried boats across a mountain gorge to the
eastward, launched them again in South Bay, and rowed down the
narrow prolongation of Lake Champlain, and under cover of dark
nights would glide with muffled oars beneath the very guns of
Ticonderoga, within hearing of the sentries' challenge to each
other, and so on to Crown Point, whence they could watch the
movements of the enemy, and see their transports passing to and fro
with provisions for Ticonderoga.

Many a small boat was seized, many a large one sunk by these hardy
Rangers of the forest. They were as wily as Indians, and as sudden
and secret in their movements. The French regarded them with a
species of awe and fear. They would sometimes find an English boat
or canoe in some spot perfectly inexplicable to them. They could
not believe that anyone could pass the fortifications of
Ticonderoga unseen and unheard, and would start the wildest
hypotheses to account for the phenomenon, even to believing that
some waterway existed which was unknown alike to them and their
Indian scouts.

But to return to the adventure to which allusion has been made.

Rogers with some thirty of his Rangers was out upon one of those
daring adventures. They were encamped within a mile of Ticonderoga.
Their boats were lying in a little wooded creek which gave access
to the lake. Some of the party, headed by Rogers, had gone on
towards Crown Point by night. Stark, with a handful of trusty men,
lay in hiding, watching the movements from the fort, and keeping a
wary eye upon those who came and went, ready to pounce out upon any
straggler who should adventure himself unawares into the forest,
and carry him off captive to the English camp.

Certain tidings as to the course the campaign was likely to take
were urgently wanted by this time. The posts to the English fort
brought in no news save that it was thought better for the army on
the western frontier to remain upon the defensive, and no talk of
sending large reinforcements came to cheer or encourage them.
Winslow was impatient and resentful. He thought there were
mismanagement and lack of energy. He knew that the provinces had
been roused at last out of their lethargy, and had pledged
themselves to some active effort to check French aggression; yet
weeks were slipping by, one after the other, and no help of any
consequence came to the army on the outskirts. No command reached
the eager soldiers for a blow to be struck there, as had been
confidently expected.

Perhaps the French might be better informed as to what was going on
in other parts of the great continent, and so prisoners were wanted
more urgently than ever.

At midday upon a steamy midsummer day, one of the young Rangers who
had been wandering about near to the camp in search of game came
back with cautious haste to report that he had seen a small party
of French leaving the fort by the water gate, cross the narrow
waterway, and plunge into the forest. He had observed the direction
taken, and thought they could easily surround and cut them off. He
did not think there were more than six in the party; probably they
were out hunting, unconscious of the proximity of any foe.

Stark was on his feet in a second. This was just the chance for the
Rangers. Seizing their arms and hastily conferring together, they
laid their plans, and then divided themselves into three companies
of three, planning to fetch a circuit, keep under cover, and thus
surround the little company, who would believe themselves entirely
overmatched, and some of whom would surrender at discretion, if
they did not all do so.

Stark, Fritz, and Charles remained together, taking a certain path
as agreed upon. They crept like Indians through the wood. Hardly
the breaking of a branch betrayed their movements. In Charles's
eyes the slumbering fire leaped into life. He always lived in the
hope of again meeting his foe face to face. He knew that he was
probably within the walls of Ticonderoga. Any day might bring them
face to face once more.

Softly and cautiously they crept through the brushwood. Stark had
made a sign of extra caution, for some nameless instinct seemed to
have told him that they were near the quarry now. He paused a
moment, held up his hand as if in warning; and at that instant
there suddenly arose from the heart of the wood the unwonted sound
of a sweet, fresh girl's voice raised in a little French song!

The men looked at one another in amaze. Were their ears deceiving
them? But no; the trilling notes came nearer. Involuntarily they
pressed forward a few paces, and then came to a dead stop. What was
it they saw?

A maiden, a young girl of perhaps seventeen summers, her hat
suspended by a broad ribbon from her arm, and half filled with
flowers, was wandering through the woodland tracks as quietly as
though in her sheltered home across the water. As she moved she
sang snatches of song in a clear, bird-like voice; and when her
eyes suddenly fell upon the three strange figures in the path,
there was no fear in their violet depths, only a sort of startled
bewilderment, instantly followed by an eagerness that there was no
mistaking.

"Oh," she exclaimed eagerly, in accents which denoted almost
unmixed pleasure, and speaking English with only a very slight
intonation denoting her mixed nationality, "I am sure that I have
my wish at last! You are Rogers' Rangers!"

Stark and Fritz had doffed their hats in a moment. They were more
nonplussed a great deal than this fearless maiden, who looked like
the goddess of the glade, secure in her right of possession. Her
eyes were dancing with glee; her mouth had curved to a delicious
smile of triumph.

"I have been longing to see the Rangers ever since I arrived at
Ticonderoga; but they declared they were terrible fire-eating men,
worse than the wild Indians, and that they would kill me if I
adventured myself near to them--kill me or carry me away captive.
But I said 'No!'" (and the girl threw back her head in a gesture of
pride and scorn); "I said that the Rangers were Englishmen--English
gentlemen, many of them--and that they did not war with women! I
was not afraid; I knew they would not lay a finger upon me.

"I am not wrong, am I, sirs? You would not hurt a maiden who trusts
your chivalry and honour?"

"I would slay the first man who dared so much as to lay a finger
upon you, lady," answered Stark impetuously, "even though he were
my own comrade or brother! We are Rogers' Rangers, as you have
rightly guessed; and we are here scouting round Fort Ticonderoga,
ready to intercept its inmates when we may catch them. But you are
right: we war not with women; we fight with men who can fight us
back.

"But tell us, fair lady, how comes it that you are here alone in
the forest? It is scarce safe in these troubled times of warfare,
with Indians all around, and rude soldiers prowling the woods and
lurking in its fastnesses."

"Ah, but my escort is close at hand. I did but stray away a little
in search of flowers. They said the forest was free from peril
today. The Indians have gone off yonder on some enterprise of their
own, and the English are lying within their lines far enough away.
I begged and prayed, and at last they gave way. My brother and the
men are after a fine young deer they sighted. I bid them leave me.
I was not afraid. I thought the worst that could happen would be
that I came face to face with a party of Rangers, and that was
exactly what I have longed to do ever since I arrived."

The girl looked up smiling into the faces of the bronzed, stalwart
men standing before her; then she seated herself upon a fallen tree
and motioned them to be seated likewise.

"I want to talk," she said; "let us sit down and be sociable. I
daresay they will be some time in killing their quarry. We will
enjoy ourselves till they come back. They shall not hurt you; I
will ensure that."

Stark smiled a little at the girl's assurance.

"More likely they may suffer at our hands, lady. There are more of
us scattered about the forest. But our aim is not to slay, but to
obtain prisoners who shall give us news; so you need not fear that
harm will befall your brother--least of all if he speaks the
English tongue as you do. If I might make bold to ask you of
yourself, how comes it that an English girl is in such a wild spot
as this, and amid the soldiers of France?"

"I am not English," answered the maiden, with a smile; "I am French
upon my father's side, and my mother was a Scotchwoman. I have
lived in Scotland, where I learned your tongue; and I always spoke
it with my mother so long as she lived. It is as easy to me as my
father's French."

"And how come you to this wild spot in the heart of these forests,
and with warfare all around?"

"I will tell you that, too. My father has always been a man of
action, who has loved travel and adventure. Since the outbreak of
this war in the west he has longed to be in the midst of it. He is
something of a soldier, and something of a statesman, and he is the
friend of many great ones at Court, and has been entrusted before
now with missions requiring skill and tact. He is also the kinsman
of the Marquis of Montcalm, whose name no doubt you know by this
time."

"He is the new military commander sent out by the King of France,
to take the lead in the war now commenced in Canada and along the
border between France and England," answered Stark promptly.

"Yes; and my father and uncle came out with him, and my brother and
I also. My uncle is the good Abbe Messonnier; but you will not have
heard of him, though he is well known and well beloved in France.
My father has certain work to do here the nature of which I do not
fully know, nor could I divulge if I did. We arrived at Quebec a
short time ago, and thence we moved on to Montreal. But it was
needful for my father and uncle to visit some of these outposts,
and we begged, Colin and I, not to be left behind. We burned with
curiosity to see the strange sights of which we had heard--the
Indians in their war paint, the great forests and lakes, the forts
and their garrisons, and all the wonders of the west.

"So they brought us in their company. My father takes me everywhere
with him that he can. Since my mother's death he seems unable to
lose sight of me. We have been hard upon a month at the fort now.
We are learning all we can of the condition of affairs, to report
to the Marquis when we return to Montreal or to Quebec. He himself
talks of coming to command here when the time comes for the attack
to be made upon your fort; but that will scarcely be yet, for there
is so much he has to set in order in Canada. Oh, the way things are
managed there--it is a disgrace!"

"Is Canada weak then?" asked Stark, burning with curiosity for
information on the subject.

The girl slowly shook her head.

"Perhaps I ought not to talk with you, since you are the enemies of
my countrymen. And, in sooth, I know little enough to tell. I hear
one say this and one the other, and I cannot know where the truth
lies. But of one thing they are very certain and confident--that
they will drive out the English from all these western outposts,
and will keep them shut in between the mountains and the sea; and
that France alone shall rule this mighty continent of giant forests
and rivers, undisturbed by any foreign foe. Of that all men are
confident."

The Rangers exchanged glances, and the girl saw it.

"You do not believe me," she said quickly; "but, indeed, I have
heard so many strange things that I know not what to believe
myself. Strangest of all is that white men should call upon those
terrible savage Indians to war with them against their white
brethren. That, as my good uncle says, is a disgrace to humanity.
Ah! I would you could have heard him speak to the officers at
yonder fort since his arrival there. They brought in a few
prisoners a few days after we came. They were going to cook and eat
them--to treat them--oh, I cannot think of it! My uncle went to the
officers, and bid them interfere; but they only shrugged their
shoulders, and said they must not anger the Indians, or they would
desert, and become even more troublesome than they are already. He
got them out of their hands himself, and sent them safely to
Montreal; and oh, how he spoke to the French soldiers and officers
afterwards! He said that such wicked disregard of the bond betwixt
Christian and Christian must inevitably draw down the wrath of
Heaven upon those who practised it, and that no cause could prosper
where such things were permitted.

"I have heard things since I have been here that have filled my
heart with sorrow and anger. I have been ashamed of my countrymen!
I have felt that our foes are nobler than ourselves, and that God
must surely arise and fight for them if these abominations are
suffered to continue."

The Rangers were silent; they well knew what she meant. The French
were culpably weak where the Indians were concerned, permitting
them almost without remonstrance to burn their prisoners from the
English lines, and even after engagements leaving the English dead
and wounded to the Indians and the wolves, though the English
always buried the French dead with their own when they had been in
like circumstances, and had showed kindness to their wounded.

"The Indians are the plague of the lives of men and officers
alike," continued the girl, breaking forth in animated fashion.
"They eat up a week's rations in three days, and come clamouring
for more. They make rules for the English which they will not
observe themselves. They are insolent and disgusting and
treacherous. Oh, I cannot think how our people bear it! I would
sooner lose all than win through using such tools. I hate to think
of victory obtained by such means. You Rangers are brave men;
though men dread you, yet they respect you, and would fain imitate
your prowess. The Indians are devils--I can find no other name for
them. They are fiends, and I verily think that evil will befall us
if we league ourselves with them. Thus my uncle tries to teach; but
they will not listen to his words."

"Time will show, lady," answered Fritz; "and there are Indians who
are gentle and tamable, and are some of them even sincere believers
in our Christian faith. I have seen and lived among such in the
lands of the south. But here they have been corrupted by the vices
of those who should teach them better. It is a disgrace to England
and France alike that this should be so."

At this moment the sound of shouting and yelling arose from the
forest, and some shots were fired in close succession. The girl
started to her feet, looking white and scared; but Fritz and Stark
stood close beside her, one on either hand, as if to assure her
that no harm should befall her.

The next moment a fair-haired youth, with a strong likeness to the
girl, came dashing blindly through the forest, calling her name in
accents of frantic fear.

"Corinne, Corinne, Corinne! Where are you? Hide yourself! Have a
care! The Rangers are upon us!"

"I am here, Colin. I am safe!" she cried, in her flute-like
accents--"I am here all safe. The Rangers are taking care of me.
See!"

He pulled up short, blinded and breathless. He had come tearing
back to his sister's aid, full of remorse at having been tempted to
leave her for a moment in the pleasure of the chase. He stood
panting, staring at the strange group, unable to get out a word.

"Call the men in," said Stark, addressing Charles, who had remained
silent all the while; "tell them to hurt no one--to make no
captures. This lady's escort is to remain unmolested. Bring them
here, and we will deliver them their charge safe and sound."

With alacrity Charles disappeared upon his errand. The old
tender-heartedness of the man always returned when he saw anything
young and helpless. There was no fierceness in his strange face
today, and Corinne, looking after him, said wonderingly:

"Who is he? he looks like one who has seen a ghost!"

In a few terse phrases Fritz told the outline of Charles's story,
and how he himself with his companion had found the hapless man and
his brother.

"Oh, this war is a terrible thing!" cried Corinne, pressing her
hands together. "It makes men into devils, I think. Ah, why can we
not live at peace and concord with our brothers? Surely out here,
in these wild lands, French and English might join hands, and live
as brothers instead of foes."

"I fear me," said Fritz, looking out before him with wide gaze,
"that that time is far enough away--that it will never come until
the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdom of our God and
of His Christ, when He shall reign for ever and ever."

She looked at him in quick surprise. She had not expected to hear
such words in the mouth of one of Rogers' Rangers.

"I have heard my uncle speak so," she said slowly; "but the
soldiers think of nothing but fighting and conquest."

"We used to think much of that day down in my southern home. We
were taught to look for the day of the Lord and the coming of
Christ. But men were even there growing weary and impatient. The
strife of parties was spoiling our home. That is why so many of us
journeyed forth to see the world. But I do not forget what my
forefathers taught and believed."

There was a light of quick sympathy in the girl's eyes; but she had
no time to reply, for the Rangers were coming back, with the French
soldiers in their company. They had surprised the whole band, and
had practically made them prisoners when Charles came up with his
strange message, and they marched them along to see what it all
meant.

Great was their astonishment when they saw the golden-haired girl
with her fearless bearing, and the handsome lad standing beside
her, still breathless and bewildered.

"Release these men," said Stark briefly; "they have been told off
for the service of this lady. Let them resume their charge, and
return in safety to the fort, or continue their chase in the forest
at pleasure. We do not war with women.

"If you wish to see some pretty hunting, Mistress Corinne, Rogers'
Rangers are at your service, and the haunts of bird and beast are
well known to us."

The girl's eyes sparkled. She was as full of the love of adventure
as any boy could be. She looked at her brother, but he shook his
head in doubt.

"I think our father would not wish it," he said. "I thank these
gentlemen most gratefully for their courtesy and chivalry, but I
think we must be returning to the fort. It may be that the shots
will have been heard, and that soldiers may be coming in search of
us already.

"We shall not forget your kindness, sir. I trust the day will come
when we may be able to requite you in kind;" and he held out his
hand, first to Stark and then to Fritz.

Corinne had looked a little mutinous at first; but when her brother
spoke of a possible sortie across the water from the fort, her face
changed. Perhaps she was not quite so confident of the chivalry of
the French soldiers as she had been of that of the Rangers.

"Perhaps it is best so; yet I should have loved to scour the forest
with Rogers' Rangers.

"Are you the great Rogers himself?" she asked, turning to Stark,
and then letting her glance wander to Fritz's fine face.

"No, Mistress Corinne; Rogers himself is away farther afield,"
answered Stark. "This is Fritz Neville, and I am John Stark, whom
he honours with the title of his lieutenant."

"Fritz Neville--John Stark," she repeated, looking from one to the
other, a smile in her frank, sweet eyes. "I shall not forget those
names. I shall say them over every day to myself, and pray that in
times of warfare the saints will watch over and protect the brave
English Rangers, who had us as prisoners in their power, and let us
go away safe and sound."

She held out her hand as she spoke, first to one and then to the
other of the men, both of whom took it reverently, pressed it, and
bowed low with a sort of rude homage. The other Rangers sent up a
little cheer for the brave young lady who spoke their tongue so
well; and the French soldiers, who looked a little ashamed of the
predicament in which they had placed themselves, smiled, and became
friendly and at ease, realizing that all was well.

"We will escort you to your boat, lady," said Stark; "you will
suffer us that privilege."

"Ah yes, if it will be safe. But they will not dare fire from the
fort when they see that our company is returning. I would I could
take you back with me, and introduce you to my father and uncle;
but perchance it would not be safe."

"Perhaps we shall make their acquaintance some other way!" said
Stark, with a touch of grim humour; and Corinne, understanding him,
exclaimed:

"Ah, do not let us think of that! let us only remember that we have
met as friends in the wild forest."

"A pleasant memory truly," answered Stark gallantly, "and one so
new to a Ranger that he will never be like to forget it;" and as
they pursued their way towards the lake, he held the youth and the
girl spellbound and breathless by tales of the strange life of
adventure which they led, and by detailing some of their
hairbreadth escapes from the hands of Indians and Frenchmen as they
scoured the forest, lay in ambush, and skulked beneath the very
ramparts of the enemy's fortifications, hearing the talk of the
sentries overhead.

"Nay, but you are brave men in sooth; you deserve success. The
fortunes of war must surely be yours at last," cried Corinne, with
covert enthusiasm.

"Ah! here is the lake, and here is our boat. Nay, come not further.
I fear lest hurt should come to you. I thank you again with all my
heart. Perhaps the day will come when we shall see each other
again. I would fain believe that I shall meet again with Rogers'
bold, chivalrous Rangers."

"It may be--it may be," answered Stark, with a smile. "Farewell,
sweet Mistress Corinne; may you come safely through all perils by
land and water. Your brave spirit will carry you well through
life's troubled sea, I think."

She smiled, and stepped into the boat. Then suddenly turning and
waving her hand, she said:

"I will tell you one thing which my uncle has said. Whether he will
be a true prophet or no I cannot tell. His words are these, and
they were spoken to M. de Montcalm: 'You are safe now, for England
is governed by an imbecile--the Duke of Newcastle--a minister
without parts, understanding, or courage. But there is another man
in England of a different calibre. If ever you hear that Pitt is at
the head of the administration, then look to your laurels; for, if
I be not greatly deceived, that man has brain and energy to turn
the whole tide of battle. Three years after he begins to rule
England's policy, and France will have begun to lose her empire in
the West!'"



Chapter 4: Vengeance And Disaster.


The episode of Corinne, and the prophecy she had quoted to them,
formed one of the bright episodes in a year which brought little
success or relief to the army encamped upon the waters of Lake
George. There was no campaign that year. The two armies lay inside
their respective fortifications, each keeping on the defensive; and
the bold Rangers alone did active skirmishing service, as has been
related, appearing at all sorts of apparently impossible points,
swooping down upon an unwary hunting party or a sleeping sentinel,
bringing in spoil to the fort, burning transports bound for
Ticonderoga, and doing gallant irregular service which kept the
garrison and the Rangers in spirits, but did little or nothing to
effect any change in the condition of affairs.

Anxiously was news waited for from England. What was the parent
country going to do for her Western children in their hour of need
and extremity? There were rumours afloat of a massing of Indian
tribes to be let loose upon the hapless settlers along the Indian
border; and although Sir William Johnson, that able agent of
England's with the natives, was hard at work seeking to oppose and
counteract French diplomacy amongst the savage tribes, there was
yet so much disunion and misunderstanding and jealousy amongst
English commanders and governors, that matters were constantly at a
deadlock; whilst France, with her centralized authority, moved on
towards her goal unimpeded and at ease (as it seemed to the
harassed English officials), although not without her internal
troubles also.

November brought about the usual breaking up of the camps on both
sides. The French soldiers were drafted back to Canada in great
companies, sorely beset and harassed at times by the action of the
Rangers; whilst Winslow drew off the bulk of his men to winter
quarters in the larger towns of New England and the adjacent
colonies, leaving Major Eyre in charge of the fort, with sufficient
men to hold it during the dead winter season.

Rogers' Rangers were independent of weather. They pursued their
hardy and adventurous calling as well through the ice-bound winter
months as during the genial season of summer. But from time to time
his followers liked to visit their homes and friends, and Winslow
was glad enough to have their company upon his march back upon
civilization; for the Rangers were masters of the art of woodcraft,
and were the most able allies when difficulties arose through the
rising of rivers or the intricacies of the forest paths.

Stark and his little band, now reduced from a dozen to nine,
accompanied the army back to winter quarters; for John desired to
see his friends, and also to raise recruits for next season's
campaign, now that he had learned experience, and had inspiring
tales to tell of adventure, victory, and quick retributive
vengeance upon a treacherous and rapacious enemy.

Fritz and Charles both accompanied him, though the latter with some
reluctance. He would rather have remained in the neighbourhood of
the French lines, behind which lay the foe he was bent on meeting
once more face to face; but Stark had represented to him that his
sister would wish to see him once more, and Rogers had appointed
January as the time when he and his Rangers would be back, when the
ice would be firm and hard, and they could renew their wild winter
warfare, whilst during the earlier months of the winter there was
no certainty of carrying on any successful operations. Heavy rain
and soft snow were too much even for the hardy Rangers to grapple
with. They were practically useless now till the frost came and
fastened its firm grip upon the sleeping world.

There was joy in many a city throughout the English colony when the
troops marched in; although there was mourning in many homes for
the loss of some son or brother killed by the foe, or by the many
forms of sickness which prevailed at the fort.

There were troubles, too, with the citizens about the billeting of
the English contingent, and many were the heart burnings which
arose between stubborn townsmen and military rulers before these
matters could be adjusted. But all this made little matter in
houses like that of Benjamin Ashley, who was a true patriot at
heart, and threw open his doors not only to his wife's brother, but
to as many war-weary soldiers as he could accommodate, and was
never tired of hearing all that they could tell as to their past
experiences, or of discussing with them the probable result of the
coming struggle.

Fritz would sit beside Susanna's spinning wheel in the evening,
telling her stories to which she listened in open-eyed amaze, and
giving eager heed to the discussion of politics amongst the other
men. Charles would sit apart, absent and dreamy--a strange figure
amongst the rest--very gentle and tender in his manner towards
Hannah and Susanna, but taking little or no interest in the daily
round of life, and only counting the days till he could return to
the forest and his mission of vengeance.

There was great discontent in the hearts of the colonists. They
declared that nothing was done for them, and yet they were never
prepared to bestir themselves actively. When Fritz asked eagerly
about the English statesman Pitt, he was told that he and the Duke
of Newcastle were now acting together in the ministry, and that
some hoped for better things in consequence. But it was evident to
all by this time that the first move made by the new minister would
be directed against Louisbourg in Acadia, the only stronghold yet
remaining to the French in Cape Breton Island. After driving the
enemy from thence, he might, and probably would, turn his attention
to the western frontier; but meantime the colonists here would have
mainly to hold back the enemy by their own united efforts, and
unity of action was just the thing which appeared most difficult to
them.

It was not encouraging; but the hardy Rangers were not to be
disheartened, and true to their promise, they only stayed within
winter quarters till after the festive Christmas season; and then
gathering together a compact little body of volunteers, Stark set
forward once again for the wild forest, where he was to meet Rogers
and his band.

Fritz was ready to go, despite his parting with pretty Susanna,
whose bright eyes sparkled with tears as she said goodbye. It was
not a time for making new ties; yet the little maiden knew very
well by this time that her life and his were bound together by a
strong and tender bond, and that into her own something had entered
which could never be taken away.

They met in the heart of the forest, a few miles from Fort William
Henry--Rogers and his large company, and Stark with his smaller
contingent. But Stark was now the leader of a band of five-and-twenty
bold spirits; for so inspiring had been his stories of the Ranger's
life that volunteers had come crowding in, and he had had some ado
to get rid of those who were manifestly unfit for the life. Even
Ebenezer Jenkyns, in his wild desire to win the approval of Susanna,
had begged to be permitted to join the Ranger band, and Stark had
had some difficulty in ridding himself of the youthful Quaker,
suddenly possessed of martial ambitions and ardour.

Right glad were the garrison at the fort to see the Rangers come
marching in. They had been quite quiet, save for a few minor
nocturnal raids from Indians, which had not done much harm. Their
chief foe was smallpox, which kept breaking out amongst the men, as
well as other forms of sickness. They did not understand
sanitation, and the fort was dirty and unhealthy. Rogers would not
have his men lodged within it; but the Rangers built themselves
huts just outside, and when not otherwise occupied, spent their
time in the construction of boats and sloops for use on the lake,
in which work Major Eyre had kept his men employed during the
previous months.

But it was not for peaceful toil like this that the Rangers had
gathered together; in a little while, accordingly, a scouting party
was formed, with Crown Point as its goal.

Snowshoes and skates were looked to, and the hardy Rangers started
off beneath the grey, leaden winter sky, gliding through the grim,
ghost-like forest, silent as death, past ice-bound waterfalls, and
forests of fir and larch bent and bowed by the load of snow, ever
onwards and northwards, always on the alert, ready for instant
action, fearless and undismayed in a white wilderness and in those
trackless solitudes which would strike dismay into many a bold
heart.

They skirted round Ticonderoga, not showing themselves to their
foe, and encamped upon the edge of Lake Champlain, lighting fires,
and making themselves as comfortable as circumstances permitted.
They had travelled hard for many days, and were glad of a little
rest.

But this rest was not of long duration. Early the next morning,
before it was well light, Charles, the sleepless watcher, awoke the
camp by his low whistle of warning.

"I hear the sound of a sledge on the ice!" he said.

In a moment every Ranger was on the alert; every man had seized his
weapons, the fires were stamped out, and preparations were made for
an instant move.

A few minutes more and they heard the sound also--the sharp ring of
a sledge upon the ice, and the beat of horse hooves as it drew
nearer.

Now horses were prizes greatly in demand at the English fort, and
Rogers was eager to obtain possession of this prize. He called out
to Stark to make a dash along the lake side with a dozen of his
men, and try to head it off towards the spot where he and the rest
of the Rangers would wait. And hardly had the order left his lips
before Stark was off upon his mission.

On and on dashed the sledge with its unsuspecting occupants. They
had come forth from Ticonderoga, and were heading for Crown Point.
Stark and his men flitted like shadows along the snowy banks. The
horses paused. There was something amiss wit

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/15958