Part 66 (2/2)

The painted Tory was not ten yards from where we lay, and, as I gazed intently at those hideously daubed features, all at once I knew the man.

For this horrid and grotesque figure, all besmeared with ochre and indigo, and wearing Indian dress, was none other than an old neighbour of mine in Tryon County, one George Cuck, who lived near Jan Zuyler and his two buxom daughters, and who had gone off with Sir John last May.

As I stared at him in ever-rising astonishment and rage, comes another _blue-eyed Indian_--Barney Cane,--wearing Iroquois paint and feathers, and all gaudy in his beaded war-dress. And, at his belt, I saw a fresh scalp hanging by its hair,--_the light brown hair of a white man_!

I could hear Cane speaking with Cuck in English. Beacraft came down to the water; and Billy Newberry[22] and Hare[22] also came down, both wearing the uniform of the forester service. And I was astounded to see Henry Hare back again after his narrow escape at Summer House last autumn, the night I got my hurt.

[Footnote 22: This same man, William Newberry, a sergeant in Butler's regiment; and Henry Hare, lieutenant in the same regiment, were caught inside the American lines, court-martialed, convicted of unspeakable cruelties, and Were hung as spies by order of General Clinton, July 6th, 1779.]

But he wore no Valley militia disguise now; all these men were in green-coats, openly flaunting the enemy uniform in County Tryon,--save only those painted beasts Cuck and Cane.

It was a war party, and it had accomplished a clean job at Fish House; and now they all were coming down to the flooded hollow and looking across it where lay the short route west to Summer House.

Presently I heard a great splas.h.i.+ng to our left, and saw a skiff and two green-coats and two Mohawk Indians in it pulling across the back-water.

And these latter were real Mohawks, stripped, oiled, their heads shaved, and in their battle-paint, who squatted there in the skiff, scanning with glowing eyes the bank where my Saguenay and I lay concealed.

It was perfectly plain, now, what they meant to do. Beacraft, Cane, and Cuck went back to the ruined redoubt, and presently returned loaded with packs. Baggage and rifles were laid in the skiff.

I touched Yellow Leaf on the arm, and we wriggled backward out of sight.

Then, rising, we turned and pulled foot for our canoe.

Now my chiefest anxiety was whether Penelope and Nick had got clean away and were already well on the road to the Mayfield Block House.

We found our canoe where we had hid it, and we made the still water boil with our two paddles, so that, although it seemed an age to me, we came very swiftly to our landing at Summer House Point.

Here we sprang out, seized the canoe, ran with it up the gra.s.sy slope, then continued over the uncut lawn and down the western slope, where again we launched it and let it swing on the water, held anch.o.r.ed by its nose on sh.o.r.e.

House, barn, orchard, all were deathly still there in the brilliant suns.h.i.+ne; I ran to the manger and found it empty of cattle. There were no fowls to be seen or heard, either. Then I hastened to the sheep-fold.

That, also, was empty.

Perplexed, I ran down to the gates, found them open, and, in the mud of the Johnstown Road, discovered sheep and cattle tracks, the imprint of Kaya's sharp-shod hoofs, a waggon mark, and the plain imprint of Nick's moccasins.

So it was clear enough what he and Penelope had done. A terrible anxiety seized me, and I wondered how far they had got on the way to Mayfield, with cattle and sheep to drive ahead of a loaded waggon and one horse.

And now, more than ever, it was certain that my Indian and I must make a desperate stand here to hold back these marauders until our people were safe in Mayfield without a shadow of doubt.

The Saguenay had gone to the veranda roof with his rifle, where he could see any movement by land or water.

I called up to him that the destructives might come by both routes; then I went to my room, gathered all the lead bars and bags of bullets, seized our powder keg, and dragged all down to the water, where I stored everything in the canoe.

That was all I could take, save a sack of ground corn mixed with maple sugar, a flask of rum, and a bag of dry meat.

These articles, with our fur robes and blankets, a fish-spear, and a spontoon which I discovered, were all I dared attempt to save.

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