"Watch him!" she said, slamming the shutters; and fell to scolding her children, who, poor things, were striving at the well with dripping bucket too heavy for their strength.
So I drew the water they might need if, indeed, it should prove true that Little Abe's Mohawks at the Lower Castle had painted themselves and were broken loose; and then I ran back along the spring path to the Salisbury's, and found them already well bolted in, and their man gone to Stoner's with rifle and pack.
And now comes Johnny Silver, who had ridden my mare from Varick's, but had no news, all being tranquil along Frenchman's Creek, and nobody able to say what the Block House bell was telling us.
"Did you stable Kaya?" I asked.
"Oui, mon garce! I have bolt her in tight!"
"Good heavens," said I, "she can not remain bolted in to starve if I am sent on to Canada! Get you forward to Stoner's house and say that I delay only to fetch my horse!"
The stout little French trapper flung his piece to his shoulder and broke into a dog-trot toward the west.
"Follow quickly, Sieur Jean!" he called gaily. "By gar, I have smell Iroquois war paint since ver' long time already, and now I smell him strong as old dog fox!"
I turned and started back through the woods as swiftly as I could stride.
As I came in sight of my log house, I was astounded to see my mare out and saddled, and a woman setting foot to stirrup. As I sprang out of the edge of the woods and ran toward her, she wheeled Kaya, and I saw that it was the Caughnawaga wench in my saddle and upon my horse – her yellow hair twisted up and shining like a Turk's gold turban above her bloodless face.
"What do you mean!" I cried in a fury. "Dismount instantly from that mare! Do you hear me?"
"I must ride to Caughnawaga!" she called out, and struck my mare with both heels so that the horse bounded away beyond my reach.
Exasperated, I knew not what to do, for I could not hope to overtake the mad wench afoot; and so could only shout after her.
However, she drew bridle and looked back; but I dared not advance from where I stood, lest she gallop out of hearing at the first step.
"This is madness!" I called to her across the field. "You do not know why that bell is ringing at Mayfield. A week since the Mohawks were talking to one another with fires on all these hills! There may be a war party in yonder woods! There may be more than one betwixt here and Caughnawaga!"
"I cannot desert Mr. Fonda at such a time," said she with that same pale and frightened obstinacy I had encountered at Bowman's.
"Do you wish to steal my horse!" I demanded.
"No, sir… It is not meant so. If some one would guide me afoot I would be glad to return to you your horse."
"Oh. And if not, then you mean to ride there in spite o' the devil. Is that the situation?"
"Yes, sir."
Had it been any man I would have put a bullet in him; and could have easily marked him where I pleased. Never had I been in colder rage; never had I felt so helpless. And every moment I was afeard the crazy girl would ride on.
"Will you parley?" I shouted.
"Parley?" she repeated. "How so, young soldier?"
"In this manner, then: I engage my honour not to seize your bridle or touch you or my horse if you will sit still till I come up with you."
She sat looking at me across the fallow field in silence.
"I shall not use violence," said I. "I shall try only to find some way to serve you, and yet to do my own duty, too."
"Soldier," she replied in a troubled voice, "is this the very truth you speak?"
"Have I not engaged my honour?" I retorted sharply.
She made no reply, but she did not stir as I advanced, though her brown eyes watched my every step.
When I stood at her stirrup she looked down at me intently, and I saw she was younger even than I had thought, and was made more like a smooth, slim boy than a woman.
"You are Penelope Grant, of Caughnawaga," I said.
"Yes, sir."
"Do you know who I am?"
"No, sir."
I named myself, saying with a smile that none of my name had ever broken faith in word or deed.
"Now," I continued, "that bell calls me to duty as surely as drum or trumpet ever summoned soldier since there were wars on earth. I must go to Stoner's; I can not guide you to Caughnawaga through the woods or take you thither by road or trail. And yet, if I do not, you mean to take my horse."
"I must."
"And risk a Mohawk war party on the way?"
"I – must."
"That is very brave," said I, curbing my impatience, "but not wise. There are others of his kin to care for old Douw Fonda if war has truly come upon us here in Tryon County."
"Soldier," said she in her still voice, which I once thought had been made strange by fear, but now knew otherwise – "my honour, too, is engaged. Mr. Fonda, whom I serve, has made of me more than a servant. He uses me as a daughter; offers to adopt me; trusts his age and feebleness to me; looks to me for every need, every ministration…
"Soldier, I came to Dries Bowman's last night with his consent, and gave him my word to return within a week. I came to Fonda's Bush because Mr. Fonda desired me to visit the only family in America with whom I have the slightest tie of kinship – the Bowmans.
"But if war has come to us here in County Tryon, then instantly my duty is to this brave old gentleman who lives all alone in his house at Caughnawaga, and nobody except servants and black slaves to protect him if danger comes to the door."
What the girl said touched me; nor could I discern in her anything of the coquetry which Nick Stoner's story of her knitting and her ring of gallants had pictured for me.
Surely here was no rustic coquette to be flattered and courted and bedeviled by her betters – no country suck-thumb to sit a-giggling at her knitting, surfeited with honeyed words that meant destruction; – no wench to hang her head and twiddle apron while some pup of quality whispered in her ear temptations.
I said: "This is the better way. Listen. Ride my mare to Mayfield by the highway. If you learn there that the Lower Castle Indians have painted for war, there is no hope of winning through to Cayadutta Lodge. And of what use to Mr. Fonda would be a dead girl?"
"That is true," she whispered.
"Very well. And if the Mohawks are loose along the river, then you shall remain at the Block House until it becomes possible to go on. There is no other way. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Do you engage to do this thing? And to place my horse in safety at the Mayfield fort?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then," said I, "in my turn I promise to send aid to you at Mayfield, or come myself and take you to Cayadutta Lodge as soon as that proves possible. And I promise more; I shall endeavour to get word through to Mr. Fonda concerning your situation."
She thanked me in that odd, still voice of hers. Her eyes had the starry look of a child's – or of unshed tears.
"My mare will carry two," said I cheerfully. "Let me mount behind you and set you on the Mayfield road."
She made no reply. I mounted behind her, took the bridle from her chilled fingers, and spoke to Kaya very gaily. And so we rode across my sunlit glebe and across the sugar-bush, where the moist trail, full of ferns, stretched away toward Mayfield as straight as the bee flies.
I do not know whether it was because the wench was now fulfilling her duty, as she deemed it, and therefore had become contented in a measure, but when I dismounted she took the bridle with a glance that seemed near to a faint smile. But maybe it was her mouth that I thought fashioned