Part 76 (2/2)

On the parade inside the fort, and out o' the tail of my eye, I saw Mistress Sabin knitting on a rustic settle at the base of Block-house No. 2, and Captain Sabin beside her writing fussily in a large, leather-bound book.

She did not know that the dovecote overhead was now empty, and that the pigeons had flown; nor did I myself suspect such a business, even when from the woods behind me came the low sound of a ranger's whistle blown very softly. I turned my head and saw Boyd beckoning; and arose and went thither, my Indians trotting at my heels.

Then, as I came up and stood to offer the officer's salute, Lois stepped from behind a tree, laughing and laying her finger across her lips, but extending her other hand to me.

And there was Lana, too, paler it seemed to me than ever, yet sweet and simple in her greeting.

”The ladies desire to see our cattle,” said Boyd, ”The herd-guard is doubled, our pickets trebled, and the rounds pa.s.s every half hour. So it is safe enough, I think.”

”Yet, scarce the country for a picnic,” I said, looking uneasily at Lois.

”Oh, Broad-brim, Broad-brim!” quoth she. ”Is there any spice in life to compare to a little dash o' danger?”

Whereat I smiled at her heartily, and said to Boyd:

”We pa.s.s not outside our lines, of course.”

”Oh, no!” he answered carelessly. Which left me still reluctant and unconvinced. But he walked forward with Lana through the open forest, and I followed beside Lois; and, without any signal from me my Indians quietly glided out ahead, silently extending as flankers on either side.

”Do you notice what they are about?” said I sourly. ”Even here within whisper of the fort?”

”Are you not happy to see me, Euan?” she cooed close to my ear.

”Not here; inside that log curtain yonder.”

”But there is a dragon yonder,” she whispered, with mischief adorable in her sparkling eyes; then slipped hastily beyond my reach, saying: ”Oh, Euan! Forget not our vows, but let our conduct remain seemly still, else I return.”

I had no choice, for we were now pa.s.sing our inner pickets, where a line of bush-huts, widely set, circled the main camp. There were some few people wandering along this line--officers, servants, boatmen, soldiers off duty, one or two women.

Just within the lines there was a group of people from which a fiddle sounded; and I saw Boyd and Lana turn thither; and we followed them.

Coming up to see who was making such scare-crow music, Lana said in a low voice to us:

”It's an old, old man--more than a hundred years old, he tells us--who has lived on the Ouleout undisturbed among the Indians until yesterday, when we burnt the village. And now he has come to us for food and protection. Is it not pitiful?”

I had a hard dollar in my pouch, and went to him and offered it. Boyd had Continental money, and gave him a handful.

He was not very feeble, this ancient creature, yet, except among Indians who live sometimes for more than a hundred years, I think I never before saw such an aged visage, all cracked into a thousand wrinkles, and his little, bluish eyes peering out at us through a sort of film.

To smile, he displayed his shrivelled gums, then picked up his fiddle with an agility somewhat surprising, and drew the bow harshly, saying in his cracked voice that he would, to oblige us, sing for us a ballad made in 1690; and that he himself had ridden in the company of horse therein described, being at that time thirteen years of age.

And Lord! But it was a doleful ballad, yet our soldiers listened, fascinated, to his squeaking voice and fiddle; and I saw the tears standing in Lois's eyes, and Lana's lips a-quiver. As for Boyd, he yawned, and I most devoutly wished us all elsewhere, yet lost no word of his distressing tale:

”G.o.d prosper long our King and Queen, Our lives and safeties all; A sad misfortune once there did Schenectady befall.

”From forth the woods of Canady The Frenchmen tooke their way, The people of Schenectady To captivate and slay.

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