Part 8 (1/2)
”There'll be work for us here. The sign o' that fresh water mairmaid is comin' true agin.”
They pa.s.sed a week in restless, impatient waiting, when, unheralded by the hound, Newton again entered the cabin and chanced to come face to face with the boy.
”Well, here you be,” he said, without surprise and smiling good-humoredly; ”I s'pected as much t'other day when I see the extry knife an' pile o' mushrats. Say, Job, how is't? Can I speak out afore him consarnin' the business we was talkin' on?”
”To be sure. He's close-mouthed an' he's achin' to go an' jine our folks down in the ol' Bay Colony.”
”Good; he's the same stuff as his father.” He laid his friendly hand on Nathan's shoulder and continued in a low, earnest voice: ”There's a plan all fixed to take Ti and Crown P'int. It seems a Connecticut feller named Brown started the thing a-goin' some weeks ago. There's nigh ontu two hunderd and fifty men in the Grants engaged to do the job. Ethan Allen commands. We muster at Beeman's Crik, day after to-morrow night.
You'll be there?” Job stretched forth his hand to his friend, who warmly clasped it.
”Me, too; let me go, too.” Nathan's heart swelled with pride, and he felt himself suddenly leaping to manhood and a place among men.
”He's a stout lad an' he handles a gun like a man. Let him come,” said Job. ”But how be we goin' to git across the lake? There hain't boats enough hereabouts to take more'n thirty men to oncet.”
”Colonel Skeene's is goin' to be borrowed, an' there's a plan to git some more without askin' at Crown P'int; with them an' what we can pick up we'll make enough. How many'll your birch carry?”
”Six men that's used to such craft, but not one lummax.”
”Well, bring it along. Everything of the boat kind'll be needed. Toombs troubles me most. He's on the fence, which means he ain't to be trusted.
He'll see our men a musterin' an' s'pect what's up, an' let the garrison know some way. He and his Canuck has got to be watched.”
”Easy done! We can tie 'em, neck an' heels, an' leave 'em to take keer o' theirselves.”
”Well, I'll send a guard an' see to that,” Newton said as he hurried away to warn other settlers of the projected enterprise.
Those left began to clean their weapons carefully and prepare to mould some bullets. Job rehea.r.s.ed his long disused manual of arms, in which he found Nathan familiar through his close observation of the soldiers'
drill at the Fort.
”You don't want to aim that way,” the old man said, when, at the command, Nathan held his piece ready to fire with the b.u.t.t end under his elbow. ”Lord, how I've heard Major Rogers swear to see the reg'lars wastin' lead, shootin' int' the tree tops wi' the enemy fair afore 'em!
Fightin' hain't no foolin'. Aim to kill, jes' as ye would at a pa'tridge. There-that's the talk,” when Nathan, following his instructions, laid his cheek to the stock and flashed the priming at the breast of an imaginary foe.
CHAPTER XIV-GABRIEL'S GOOD SERVICE
On the afternoon of the 9th of May, 1775, Job and Nathan laid their guns in the canoe and stood beside her ready to set her afloat in the brown water, whose ripples softly lapped the drift of dried sedges along the sh.o.r.e. Job looked anxiously about, and once more, as he had several times previously done, he whistled a loud shrill note through his fingers.
”Where on airth is that dog? He mistrusted somethin' was up and run off.
He'd ortu be tied up, but we can't wait any longer, an' he'll hafter run loose. Wal, le's be off.”
Lifting the canoe, they set her afloat, stepped lightly on board, and, kneeling in the bottom, sent her flying down the creek. They skirted the lake almost beneath the spreading branches of the maples, now already dappled with the tender green of budding leaves. A little back from the naked, western sh.o.r.e, with its crumbling ruins of the old French water battery, uprose the gray battlements and barracks of Ticonderoga, and the blazoned cross of England floating lazily in the breeze.
”I've follered it for many a day,” said Job sadly, ”an' I never thought to go agin it. But I b'lieve I'm right,” and he turned his face resolutely forward.
The turmoil and horror of war seemed far removed from the serene sky, the rippled water kissing the quiet sh.o.r.es, and the pervading sense of the earth's renewing life, enforced by bursting buds and opening flowers and songs of birds. Even the grim fortress seemed but a memento of conflict long since ended forever.
Sweeping into the broad mouth of the creek, they joined the motley crowd already gathered there. The a.s.semblage was composed of all who were capable of bearing arms, from gray-headed veterans of the last war, to the striplings who had not yet been mustered on a training field. Job received hearty greetings from more than one old comrade whom he had not seen since they ranged this region, then an unreclaimed wilderness, under the leaders.h.i.+p of the brave and wary Robert Rogers, and he was soon in reminiscences of scouts and ambuscades, while Nathan watched and noted everything, a most interested spectator of what was pa.s.sing so un.o.btrusively into history.
Presently there was a stir and gathering together of the detached groups and an expectant hush. Then he saw towering among them, in c.o.c.ked hat and military garb of blue and buff, the stalwart figure of Ethan Allen.