"They but answer their nature, which is to nose about and smell out what's a-frying," growled Putman. "Shall we turn them back and be done with them? It will mean civil war in Fonda's Bush."
"Watched hens never lay," said I. "Let them come with us. While they remain under our eyes the stale old plan they brood will addle like a cluck-egg."
Salisbury nodded meaningly:
"So that I can see my enemy," growled he, "I have no care concerning him. But let him out o' sight and I fret like a chained beagle."
As he finished speaking we came into Stoner's clearing, which was but a thicket of dead weed-stalks in a fallow field fenced by split rails. Fallow, indeed, lay all the Stoner clearing, save for a patch o' hen-scratched garden at the log-cabin's dooryard; for old Henry Stoner and his forest-running sons were none too fond of dallying with plow and hoe while rifle and fish-pole rested across the stag-horn's crotch above the chimney-piece.
And if ever they fed upon anything other than fish and flesh, I do not know; for I never saw aught growing in their garden, save a dozen potato-vines and a stray corn-stalk full o' worms.
Around the log house in the clearing already were gathered a dozen or sixteen men, the greater number wearing the tow-cloth rifle-frock of the district militia.
Other men began to arrive as we came up. Everywhere great, sinewy hands were extended to greet us; old Henry Stoner, sprawling under an apple tree, saluted us with a harsh pleasantry; and I saw the gold rings shining in his ears.
Nick came over to where I stood, full of that devil's humour which so often urged him into – and led him safely out of – endless scrapes betwixt sun-up and moon-set every day in the year.
"It's Sir John we're to take, I hear," he said to me with a grin. "They say the lying louse of a Baronet has been secretly plotting with Guy Johnson and the Butlers in Canada. What wonder, then, that our Provincial Congress has its belly full of these same Johnstown Tories and must presently spew them up. And they say we are to march on the Hall at noon and hustle our merry Baronet into Johnstown jail."
I felt myself turning red.
"Is it not decent to give Sir John the benefit of doubt until we learn why that bell is ringing?" said I.
"There we go!" cried Nick Stoner. "Just because your father loved Sir William and you may wear gold lace on your hat, you feel an attachment to all quality. Hearken to me, John Drogue: Sir William is dead and the others are as honourable as a pack of Canada wolves." He climbed to the top of the rickety rail fence and squatted there. "The landed gentry of Tryon County are a pack of bloody wolves," said he, lighting his cob pipe; – "Guy Johnson, Colonel Claus, Walter Butler, every one of them – every one! – only excepting you, John Drogue! Look, now, where they're gathering in the Canadas – Johnsons, Butlers, McDonalds, – the whole Tory pack – with Brant and his Mohawks stole away, and Little Abraham like to follow with every warrior from the Lower Castle!
"And do you suppose that Sir John has no interest in all this Tory treachery? Do you suppose that this poisonous Baronet is not in constant and secret communication with Canada?"
I looked elsewhere sullenly. Nick took me by the arm and drew me up to a seat beside him on the rail fence.
"Let's view it soberly and fairly, Jack," says he, tapping his palm with the stem of his pipe, through which smoke oozed. "Let's view it from the start. Begin from the Boston business. Now, then! George the Virginian got the Red-coats cooped up in Boston. That's the Yankee answer to too much British tyranny.
"We, in the Northland, looked to our landed gentry to stand by us, lead us, and face the British King who aims to turn us into slaves.
"We called on our own governing class to protect us in our ancient liberties, – to arm us, lead us in our own defense! We begged Guy Johnson to hold back his savages so that the Iroquois Confederacy should remain passive and take neither the one side nor t'other.
"I grant you that Sir William in his day did loyally his uttermost to quiet the Iroquois and hold his own Mohawks tranquil when Cresap was betrayed by Dunmore, and the first breeze from this storm which is now upon us was already stirring the Six Nations into restlessness."
"Sir William," said I, "was the greatest and the best of all Americans."
He said gravely: "Sir William is dead. May God rest his soul. But this is the situation that confronts us here this day on the frontier: We appealed to the landed gentry of Tryon. They sneered at us, and spoke of us as rebels, and have used us very scornfully – all excepting yourself, John!
"They forced Alec White on us as Sheriff, and he broke up our meetings. They strove by colour of law and by illegal force to stamp out in Tryon County the last spark of liberty, of manhood among us. God knows what we have endured these last few years from the landed gentry of Tryon! – what we have put up with and stomached since the first shot was fired at Lexington!
"And what has become of our natural protectors and leaders! Where is the landed gentry of County Tryon at this very hour? Except you, John Drogue, where are our gentlemen of the Northland?"
"Gone," said I soberly.
"Gone to Canada with the murderous Indians they were supposed to hold neutral! Guy Park stands empty and locked. It is an accursed place! Guy Johnson is fled with every Tory desperado and every Indian he could muster! May God damn him!
"Old John Butler followed; and is brigading malcontents in Canada. Butlersbury stands deserted. May every devil in hell haunt that house! Young Walter Butler is gone with many of our old neighbors of Tryon; and at Niagara he is forming a merciless legion to return and cut our throats.
"And Colonel Claus is gone, and McDonald, the bloody thief! – with his kilted lunatics and all his Scotch banditti – "
"But Sir John remains," said I quietly.
"Jack! Are you truly so blinded by your caste! Did not you yourself answer the militia call last winter and march with our good General to disarm Sir John's popish Highlanders! And even then they lied – and Sir John lied – for they hid their broad-swords and pikes! and delivered them not when they paraded to ground their muskets!"
"Sir John has given his parole," I repeated stubbornly.
"Sir John breaks it every hour of the day!" cried Nick. "And he will break it again when we march to take him. Do you think he won't learn of our coming? Do you suppose he will stay at the Hall, which he has pledged his honour to do?"
"His lady is still there."
"With his lady I have no quarrel," rejoined Nick. "I know her to be a very young, very wilful, very bitter, and very unhappy Tory; and she treats us plain folk like dirt under her satin shoon. But for that I care nothing. I pity her because she is the wife of that cold, sleek beast, Sir John. I pity her because she is gently bred and frail and lonely and stuffed with childish pride o' race. I pity her lot there in the great Hall, with her girl companions and her servants and her slaves. And I pity her because everybody in County Tryon, excepting only herself, knows that Sir John cares nothing for her, and that Claire Putnam of Tribes Hill is Sir John's doxy! – and be damned to him! And you think such a man will not break his word?
"He broke his vows to wife and mistress alike. Why should he keep his vows to men?" He slid to the ground as he spoke, and I followed, for our three drummers had formed rank and were drawing their sticks from their cross-belts. Our fifers, also, lined up behind them; and Nick and his young brother, John, took places with them.
"Fall in! Fall in!" cried Joe Scott, our captain; and everybody ran with their packs and rifles to form in double ranks of sixteen files front while the drums rolled like spring thunder, filling the woods with their hollow sound, and the fifes shrilled like the swish of rain through trees.
Standing at ease between Dries Bowman and Baltus Weed, I answered to the roll call. Some among us lighted pipes and leaned on our long rifles, chatting with neighbors;