Part 50 (1/2)
Fortunately this party was not pursued. Nearly every man in it had his gun and ammunition. The scout had picked up a goodly outfit of axes and shovels and put them in the boats. He organized his retreat with sentries, rear guard, signals and a plan of defense. The carriers were s.h.i.+fted every hour. After two days of hard travel through the deep woods they came to a lake more than two miles long and about half as wide. Their provisions were gone save a few biscuit and a sack of salt. There were sixty-four men in the party.
Solomon organized a drive. A great loop of weary men was flung around the end of the lake more than a mile from its sh.o.r.e. Then they began approaching the camp, barking like dogs as they advanced. In this manner three deer and a moose were driven to the water and slain.
These relieved the pangs of hunger and insured the party, for some little time, against starvation. They were, however, a long way from help in an unknown wilderness with a prospect of deadly hards.h.i.+ps.
Solomon knew that the streams in this territory ran toward the sea and for that reason he had burdened the party with boats and tools.
The able scout explored a long stretch of the lake's outlet which flowed toward the south. It had a considerable channel but not enough water for boats or canoes even. That night he began cutting timber for a dam at the end of the lake above its outlet. Near sundown, next day, the dam was finished and the water began rising. A rain hurried the process. Two days later the big water plane had begun to spill into its outlet and flood the near meadow flats. The party got the boats in place some twenty rods below and ready to be launched. Solomon drove the plug out of his dam and the pent-up water began to pour through.
The stream was soon flooded and the boats floating. Thus with a spirited water horse to carry them they began their journey to the sea.
Men stood in the bow and stern of each boat with poles to push it along and keep it off the banks. Some ten miles below they swung into a large river and went on, more swiftly, with the aid of oars and paddles.
Thus Solomon became the hero of this ill-fated expedition. After that he was often referred to in the army as the River Maker, although the ingenious man was better known as the Lightning Hurler, that phrase having been coined in Jack's account of his adventures with Solomon in the great north bush. In the ranks he had been regarded with a kind of awe as a most redoubtable man of mysterious and uncanny gifts since he and Jack had arrived in the Highlands fresh from their adventure of ”s.h.i.+fting the skeer”--as Solomon was wont to put it--whereupon, with no great delay, the rash Colonel Burley had his Binkussing. The scout was often urged to make a display of his terrible weapon but he held his tongue about it, nor would he play with the lightning or be induced to hurl it upon white men.
”That's only fer to save a man from bein' burnt alive an' et up,” he used to say.
At the White Pine Mills near the sea they were taken aboard a lumber s.h.i.+p bound for Boston. Solomon returned with a great and growing influence among the common soldiers. He had spent a week in Newport and many of his comrades had reached the camp of Was.h.i.+ngton in advance of the scout's arrival.
When Solomon--a worn and ragged veteran--gained the foot of the Highlands, late in October, he learned to his joy that Stony Point and King's Ferry had been abandoned by the British. He found Jack at Stony Point and told him the story of his wasted months. Then Jack gave his friend the news of the war.
D'Estaing with a French fleet had arrived early in the month. This had led to the evacuation of Newport and Stony Point to strengthen the British position in New York. But South Carolina had been conquered by the British. It took seven hundred dollars to buy a pair of shoes with the money of that state, so that great difficulties had fallen in the way of arming and equipping a capable fighting force.
”I do not talk of it to others, but the troubles of our beloved Was.h.i.+ngton are appalling,” Jack went on. ”The devil loves to work with the righteous, waiting his time. He had his envoy even among the disciples of Jesus. He is among us in the person of Benedict Arnold--lover of gold. The new recruits are mostly of his stripe. He is their Captain. They demand big bounties. The faithful old guard, who have fought for the love of liberty and are still waiting for their pay, see their new comrades taking high rewards. It isn't fair.
Naturally the old boys hate the newcomers. They feel like putting a coat of tar and feathers on every one of them. You and I have got to go to work and put the gold seekers out of the temple. They need to hear some of your plain talk. Our greatest peril is Arnoldism.”
”You jest wait an' hear to me,” said Solomon. ”I got suthin' to say that'll make their ears bleed pa.s.sin' through 'em.”
The evening of his arrival in camp Solomon talked at the general a.s.sembly of the troops. He was introduced with most felicitous good humor by Was.h.i.+ngton's able secretary, Mr. Alexander Hamilton. The ingenious and rare accomplishments of the scout and his heroic loyalty were rubbed with the rhetoric of an able talker until they shone.
”Boys, ye kint make no hero out o' an old scrag o' a man like me,”
Solomon began. ”You may b'lieve what Mr. Hamilton says but I know better. I been chased by Death an' grabbed by the coat-tails frequent, but I been lucky enough to pull away. That's all. You new recruits 'a' been told how great ye be. I'm a-goin' fer to tell ye the truth.
I don't like the way ye look at this job. It ain't no job o' workin'
out. We're all workin' fer ourselves. It's my fight an' it's yer fight. I won't let no king put a halter on my head an', with the stale in one hand an' a whip in t' other, lead me up to the tax collector to pay fer his fun. I'd ruther fight him. Some o' you has fam'lies.
Don't worry 'bout 'em. They'll be took care of. I got some confidence in the Lord myself. Couldn't 'a' lived without it. Look a' me. I'm so ragged that I got patches o' sunburn on my back an' belly. I'm what ye might call a speckled man. My feet 'a' been bled. My body looks like an ol' tree that has been clawed by a bear an' bit by woodp.e.c.k.e.rs.
I've stuck my poker into the fire o' h.e.l.l. I've been singed an' frost bit an' half starved an' ripped by bullets, an' all the pay I want is liberty an' it ain't due yit. I've done so little I'm 'shamed o'
myself. Money! Lord G.o.d o' Israel! If any man has come here fer to make money let him stan' up while we all pray fer his soul. These 'ere United States is your hum an' my hum an' erway down the trail afore us they's millions 'pon millions o' folks comin' an' we want 'em to be free. We're a-fightin' fer 'em an' fer ourselves. If ye don't fight ye'll git nothin' but taxes to pay the cost o' lickin' ye. It'll cost a hundred times more to be licked than it'll cost to win. Ye won't find any o' the ol' boys o' Was.h.i.+ngton squealin' erbout pay. We're lookin' fer brothers an' not pigs. Git down on yer knees with me, every one o' ye, while the Chaplain asks G.o.d A'mighty to take us all into His army.”
The words of Solomon put the new men in better spirit and there was little complaining after that. They called that speech ”The Binkussing of the Recruits.” Solomon was the soul of the old guard.
CHAPTER XXVIII
IN WHICH ARNOLD AND HENRY THORNHILL ARRIVE IN THE HIGHLANDS
Margaret and her mother returned to England with David Hartley soon after Colonel Irons had left France. The British Commissioner had not been able to move the philosopher. Later, from London, he had sent a letter to Franklin seeking to induce America to desert her new ally.
Franklin had answered:
”I would think the destruction of our whole country and the extirpation of our people preferable to the infamy of abandoning our allies. We may lose all but we shall act in good faith.”