“Ugh! In Revolution, scouted for General Gates.”
“Judging by the talk, we're liable to be called on before a year. What will you do?”
“Fight.”
“As soldier?”
“No! scout.”
“They may not want us.”
“Always want scouts,” replied the Indian.
“It seems to me I ought to start training now.”
“You have been training.”
“How is that?”
“A scout is everything that an army is, but it's all in one man. An' he don't have to keep step.”
“I see, I see,” replied Rolf, and he realized that a scout is merely a trained hunter who is compelled by war to hunt his country's foes instead of the beasts of the woods.
“See that?” said the Indian, and he pointed to a buck that was nosing for cranberries in the open expanse across the river where it left the lake. “Now, I show you scouting.” He glanced at the smoke from the fire, found it right for his plan, and said: “See! I take my bow. No cover, yet I will come close and kill that deer.”
Then began a performance that was new to Rolf, and showed that the Indian had indeed reached the highest pitch of woodcraft. He took his bow and three good arrows, tied a band around his head, and into this stuck a lot of twigs and vines, so that his head looked like a tussock of herbage. Then he left the shanty door, and, concealed by the last bushes on the edge, he reached the open plain. Two hundred yards off was the buck, nosing among the herbage, and, from time to time, raising its superb head and columnar neck to look around. There was no cover but creeping herbage. Rolf suspected that the Indian would decoy the buck by some whistle or challenge, for the thickness of its neck showed the deer to be in fighting humour.
Flat on his breast the Indian lay. His knees and elbow seemed to develop centipedic power; his head was a mere clump of growing stuff. He snaked his way quietly for twenty-five yards, then came to the open, sloping shore, with the river forty yards wide of level shining ice, all in plain view of the deer; how was this to be covered?
There is a well-known peculiarity of the white tail that the Indian was counting on; when its head is down grazing, even though not hidden, the deer does not see distant objects; before the head is raised, its tail is raised or shaken. Quonab knew that if he could keep the tail in view, he could avoid being viewed by the head. In a word, only an ill-timed movement or a whiff could betray him.
The open ice was, of course, a hard test, and the hunter might have failed, but that his long form looked like one of the logs that were lying about half stranded or frozen in the stream.
Watching ever the alert head and tail, he timed his approach, working hard and moving East when the head was down; but when warned by a tail-jerk he turned to a log nor moved a muscle. Once the ice was crossed, the danger of being seen was less, but of being smelt was greater, for the deer was moving about, and Quonab watched the smoke from the cabin for knowledge of the wind. So he came within fifty yards, and the buck, still sniffing along and eagerly champing the few red cranberries it found above the frozen moss, was working toward a somewhat higher cover. The herbage was now fully eighteen inches high, and Quonab moved a little faster. The buck found a large patch of berries under a tussock and dropped on its knees to pick them out, while Quonab saw the chance and gained ten yards before the tail gave warning. After so long a feeding-spell, the buck took an extra long lookout, and then walked toward the timber, whereby the Indian lost all he had gained. But the browser's eye was drawn by a shining bunch of red, then another; and now the buck swung until there was danger of betrayal by the wind; then down went its head and Quonab retreated ten yards to keep the windward. Once the buck raised its muzzle and sniffed with flaring nostrils, as though its ancient friend had brought a warning. But soon he seemed reassured, for the landscape showed no foe, and nosed back and forth, while Quonab regained the yards he had lost. The buck worked now to the taller cover, and again a tempting bunch of berries under a low, dense bush caused it to kneel for farther under-reaching. Quonab glided swiftly forward, reached the twenty-five-yard limit, rose to one knee, bent the stark cedar bow. Rolf saw the buck bound in air, then make for the wood with great, high leaps; the dash of disappointment was on him, but Quonab stood erect, with right hand raised, and shouted:
“Ho—ho.”
He knew that those bounds were unnecessarily high, and before the woods had swallowed up the buck, it fell—rose—and fell again, to rise not. The arrow had pierced its heart.
Then Rolf rushed up with kindled eye and exultant pride to slap his friend on the back, and exclaim:
“I never thought it possible; the greatest feat in hunting I ever saw; you are a wonder!”
To which the Indian softly replied, as he smiled:
“Ho! it was so I got eleven British sentries in the war. They gave me a medal with Washington's head.”
“They did! how is it I never heard of it? Where is it?”
The Indian's face darkened. “I threw it after the ship that stole my Gamowini.”
The winter might have been considered eventful, had not so many of the events been repetitions of former experience. But there were several that by their newness deserve a place on these pages, as they did in Rolf's memory.
One of them happened soon after the first sharp frost. It had been an autumn of little rain, so that many ponds had dried up, with the result that hundreds of muskrats were forced out to seek more habitable quarters. The first time Rolf saw one of these stranded mariners on its overland journey, he gave heedless chase. At first it made awkward haste to escape; then a second muskrat was discovered just ahead, and a third. This added to Rolf's interest. In a few bounds he was among them, but it was to get a surprise. Finding themselves overtaken, the muskrats turned in desperation and attacked the common enemy with courage and fury. Rolf leaped over the first, but the second sprang, caught him by the slack of the trouser leg, and hung on. The third flung itself on his foot and drove its sharp teeth through the moccasin. Quickly the first rallied and sprang on his other leg with all the force of its puny paws, and powerful jaws.
Meanwhile Quonab was laughing aloud and holding back Skookum, who, breathing fire and slaughter, was mad to be in the fight.
“Ho! a good fight! good musquas! Ho, Skookum, you must not always take care of him, or he will not learn to go alone.
“Ugh, good!” as the third muskrat gripped Rolf by the calf.
There could be but one finish, and that not long delayed. A well-placed kick on one, the second swung by the tail, the third crushed under his heel, and the affair ended. Rolf had three muskrats and five cuts. Quonab had much joy and Skookum a sense of lost opportunity.
“This we should paint on the wigwam,” said Quonab. “Three great warriors attacked one Sagamore. They were very brave, but he was Nibowaka and very strong; he struck them down as the Thunderbird, Hurakan, strikes the dead pines the fire has left on the hilltop against the sky. Now shall you eat their hearts, for they were brave. My father told me a fighting muskrat's heart is great medicine; for he seeks peace while it is possible, then he turns and fights without fear.”
A few days later, they sighted a fox. In order to have a joke on Skookum, they put him on its track, and away he went, letting off his joy-whoops at every jump. The men sat down to wait, knowing full well that after an hour Skookum would come back with a long tongue and an air of depression. But they were favoured with an unexpected view of the chase. It showed a fox bounding over the snow, and not twenty yards behind was their energetic four-legged colleague.
And, still more unexpected, the fox was overtaken in the next thicket, shaken to limpness, and dragged to be dropped at Quonab's feet. This glorious victory by Skookum was less surprising, when a closer examination showed that the fox had been in a bad way. Through some sad, sudden indiscretion, he had tackled a porcupine and paid the penalty. His mouth, jaws and face, neck and legs, were bristling with quills. He was sick and emaciated. He could not have lasted many days longer, and Skookum's summary lynching was a blessing in disguise.
The trappers' usual routine was varied by a more important happening. One day of deep snow in January, when they were running the northern line on Racquet River, they camped for the night at their shelter cabin, and were somewhat surprised at dusk to hear a loud challenge from Skookum replied to by a human voice, and a short man with black whiskers appeared. He raised one hand in token of friendliness and was invited to come in.
He was a French Canadian from La Colle Mills. He had trapped here for some years. The almost certainty of war between Canada and the States had kept his usual companions away. So he had trapped alone, always a dangerous business, and had gathered a lot of good fur, but had fallen on the ice and hurt himself inwardly, so that he had no strength. He could tramp out on snowshoes, but could not carry his pack of furs. He had long known that he had neighbours on the south; the camp fire smoke proved that, and he had come now to offer all his furs for sale.
Quonab shook his head, but Rolf said, “We'll come over and see them.”
A two-hours' tramp in the morning brought them to the Frenchman's cabin. He opened out his furs; several otter, many sable, some lynx, over thirty beaver—the whole lot for two hundred dollars. At Lyons Falls they were worth double that.
Rolf saw a chance for a bargain. He whispered, “We can double our money on it, Quonab. What do ye say?”
The reply was simply, “Ugh! you are Nibowaka.”
“We'll take your offer, if we can fix it up about payment, for I have no money with me and barely two hundred dollars at the cabin.”
“You half tabac and grosairs?”
“Yes, plenty.”
“You can go 'get 'em? Si?”
Rolf paused, looked down, then straight at the Frenchman.
“Will you trust me to take half the fur now; when I come back with the pay I can get the rest.”
The Frenchman looked puzzled, then, “By Gar you look de good look. I let um go. I tink you pretty good fellow, parbleu!”
So Rolf marched away with half the furs and four days later he was back and paid the pale-faced but happy Frenchman the one hundred and fifty dollars he had received from Van Cortlandt, with other bills making one hundred and ninety-five dollars and with groceries and tobacco enough to satisfy the trapper. The Frenchman proved a most amiable character. He and Rolf took to each other greatly, and when they shook hands at parting, it was in the hope of an early and happier meeting.
Francois la Colle turned bravely for the ninety-mile tramp over the snow to his home, while Rolf went south with the furs that were to prove a most profitable investment, shaping his life in several ways, and indirectly indeed of saving it on one occasion.
Eighteen hundred and twelve had passed away. President Madison, driven by wrongs to his countrymen and indignities that no nation should meekly accept, had in the midsummer declared war on Great Britain. Unfitted to cope with the situation and surrounded by unfit counsellors, his little army of heroic men led by unfit commanders had suffered one reverse after another.
The loss of Fort Mackinaw, Chicago, Detroit, Brownstown, and the total destruction of the American army that attacked Queenstown were but poorly offset by the victory at Niagara and the successful defence of Ogdensburg.
Rolf and Quonab had repaired to Albany as arranged, but they left it as United States scouts, not as guides to the four young sportsmen who wished to hark back to the primitive.
Their first commission had been the bearing of despatches to Plattsburg.
With a selected light canoe and a minimum of baggage they reached Ticonderoga in two days, and there renewed their acquaintance with General Hampton, who was fussing about, and digging useless entrenchments as though he expected a mighty siege. Rolf was called before him to receive other despatches for Colonel Pike at Plattsburg. He got the papers and learned their destination, then immediately made a sad mistake. “Excuse me, sir,” he began, “if I meet with—”
“Young man,” said the general, severely, “I don't want any of your 'ifs' or 'buts'; your orders are 'go.' 'How' and 'if' are matters for you to find out; that's what you are paid for.”
Rolf bowed; his cheeks were tingling. He was very angry at what he thought a most uncalled for rebuke, but he got over it, and he never forgot the lesson. It was Si Sylvanne that put it into rememberable form.
“A fool horse kin follow a turnpike, but it takes a man with wits to climb, swim, boat, skate, run, hide, go it blind, pick a lock, take the long way, round, when it's the short way across, run away at the right time, or fight when it's wise—all in one afternoon.” Rolf set out for the north carrying a bombastic (meant to be reassuring) message from Hampton that he would annihilate any enemy who dared to desecrate the waters of the lake.
It was on this trip that Rolf learned from Quonab the details of the latter's visit to his people on the St. Regis. Apparently the joy of meeting a few of his own kin, with whom he could talk his own language, was offset by meeting with a large number of his ancient enemies the Mohawks. There had been much discussion of the possible war between the British and the Yankees. The Mohawks announced their intention to fight for the British, which was a sufficient reason for Quonab as a Sinawa remaining with the Americans; and when he left the St. Regis reserve the Indian was without any desire to reenter it.
At Plattsburg Rolf and Quonab met with another Albany acquaintance in General Wilkinson, and from him received despatches which they brought back to Albany, having covered the whole distance in eight days.
When 1812 was gone Rolf had done little but carry despatches up and down Lake Champlain. Next season found the Americans still under command of Generals Wilkinson and Hampton, whose utter incompetence was becoming daily more evident.
The year 1813 saw Rolf, eighteen years old and six feet one in his socks, a trained scout and despatch bearer.
By a flying trip on snowshoes in January he took letters, from General Hampton at Ticonderoga to Sackett's Harbour and back in eight days, nearly three hundred miles. It made him famous as a runner, but the tidings that he brought were sad. Through him they learned in detail of the total defeat and capture of the American army at Frenchtown. After a brief rest he was sent across country on snowshoes to bear a reassuring message to Ogdensburg. The weather was much colder now, and the single blanket bed was dangerously slight; so “Flying Kittering,” as they named him, took a toboggan and secured Quonab as his running mate. Skookum was given into safe keeping. Blankets, pots, cups, food, guns, and despatches were strapped on the toboggan, and they sped away at dawn from Ticonderoga on the 18th of February 1813, headed northwestward, guided by little but the compass. Thirty miles that day they made in spite of piercing blasts and driving snow. But with the night there began a terrible storm with winds of zero chill. The air was filled with stinging, cutting snow. When they rose at daylight they were nearly buried in drifts, although their camp was in a dense, sheltered thicket. Guided wholly by the compass they travelled again, but blinded by the whirling white they stumbled and blundered into endless difficulties and made but poor headway. After dragging the toboggan for three hours, taking turns at breaking the way, they were changing places when Rolf noticed a large gray patch on Quonab's cheek and nose.
“Quonab, your face is frozen,” he said.
“So is yours,” was the reply.
Now they turned aside, followed a hollow until they reached a spruce grove, where they camped and took an observation, to learn that the compass and they held widely different views about the direction of travel. It was obviously useless to face the storm. They rubbed out their frozen features with dry snow and rested by the fire.
No good scout seeks for hardship; he avoids the unnecessary trial of strength and saves himself for the unavoidable. With zero weather about them and twenty-four hours to wait in the storm, the scouts set about making themselves thoroughly comfortable.
With their snowshoes they dug away the snow in a circle a dozen feet across, piling it up on the outside so as to make that as high as possible. When they were down to the ground, the wall of snow around them was five feet high. Now they went forth with the hatchets, cut many small spruces, and piled them against the living spruces about the camp till there was a dense mass of evergreen foliage ten feet high around them, open only at the top, where was a space five feet across. With abundance of dry spruce wood, a thick bed of balsam boughs, and plenty of blankets they were in what most woodmen consider comfort complete.
They had nothing to do now but wait. Quonab sat placidly smoking, Rolf was sewing a rent in his coat, the storm hissed, and the wind-driven ice needles rattled through the trees to vary the crackle of the fire with a “siss” as they fell on the embers. The low monotony of sound was lulling in its evenness, when a faint crunch of a foot on the snow was heard. Rolf reached for his gun, the fir tree screen was shaken a little, and a minute later there bounded in upon them the snow covered form of little dog Skookum, expressing his good-will by excessive sign talk in which every limb and member had a part. They had left him behind, indeed, but not with his consent, so the bargain was incomplete.
There was no need to ask now, What shall we do with him? Skookum had settled that, and why or how he never attempted to explain.
He was wise who made it law that “as was his share who went forth to battle, so shall his be that abode with the stuff,” for the hardest of all is the waiting. In the morning there was less doing in the elemental strife. There were even occasional periods of calm and at length it grew so light that surely the veil was breaking.
Quonab returned from a brief reconnoitre to say, “Ugh!—good going.”
The clouds were broken and flying, the sun came out at times, but the wind was high, the cold intense, and the snow still drifting. Poor Skookum had it harder than the men, for they wore snowshoes; but he kept his troubles to himself and bravely trudged along behind. Had he been capable of such reflection he might have said, “What delightful weather, it keeps the fleas so quiet.”
That day there was little to note but the intense cold, and again both men had their cheeks frost-bitten on the north side. A nook under an overhanging rock gave a good camp that night. Next day the bad weather resumed, but, anxious to push on they faced it, guided chiefly by the wind. It was northwest, and as long as they felt this fierce, burning cold mercilessly gnawing on their hapless tender right cheek bones, they knew they were keeping their proper main course.
They were glad indeed to rest at dusk and thaw their frozen faces. Next day at dawn they were off; at first it was calm, but the surging of the snow waves soon began again, and the air was filled with the spray of their lashing till it was hard to see fifty yards in any direction. They were making very bad time. The fourth day should have brought them to Ogdensburg, but they were still far off; how far they could only guess, for they had not come across a house or a settler.
The same blizzard was raging on the next day when Skookum gave unequivocal sign talk that he smelled something.
It is always well to find out what stirs your dog. Quonab looked hard at Skookum. That sagacious mongrel was sniffing vigorously, up in the air, not on the ground; his mane was not bristling, and the patch of dark hair that every gray or yellow dog has at the base of his tail, was not lifted.
“He smells smoke,” was the Indian's quick diagnosis. Rolf pointed Up the wind and made the sign-talk query. Quonab nodded.
It was their obvious duty to find out who was their smoky neighbour. They were now not so far from the St. Lawrence; there was a small chance of the smoke being from a party of the enemy; there was a large chance of it being from friends; and the largest chance was that it came from some settler's cabin where they could get necessary guidance.
They turned aside. The wind now, instead of on the right cheek, was square in their faces. Rolf went forward increasing his pace till he was as far ahead as was possible without being out of sight. After a mile their way led downward, the timber was thicker, the wind less, and the air no more befogged with flying snow. Rolf came to a long, deep trench that wound among the trees; the snow at the bottom of it was very hard. This was what he expected; the trail muffled under new, soft snow, but still a fresh trail and leading to the camp that Skookum had winded.
He turned and made the sign for them to halt and wait. Then strode cautiously along the winding guide line.
In twenty minutes the indications of a settlement increased, and the scout at length was peering from the woods across the open down to a broad stream on whose bank was a saw mill, with the usual wilderness of ramshackle shanties, sheds, and lumber piles about.
There was no work going on, which was a puzzle till Rolf remembered it was Sunday. He went boldly up and asked for the boss. His whole appearance was that of a hunter and as such the boss received him.
He was coming through from the other side and had missed his way in the storm, he explained.
“What are ye by trade?”
“A trapper.”
“Where are ye bound now?”
“Well, I'll head for the nearest big settlement, whatever that is.”
“It's just above an even thing between Alexandria Bay and Ogdensburg.”
So Rolf inquired fully about the trail to Alexandria Bay that he did not want to go to. Why should he be so careful? The mill owner was clearly a good American, but the scout had no right to let any outsider know his business. This mill owner might be safe, but he might be unwise and blab to some one who was not all right.
Then in a casual way he learned that this was the Oswegatchie River and thirty miles down he would find the town of Ogdensburg.
No great recent events did he hear of, but evidently the British troops across the river were only awaiting the springtime before taking offensive measures.
For the looks of it, Rolf bought some tea and pork, but the hospitable mill man refused to take payment and, leaving in the direction of Alexandria Bay, Rolf presently circled back and rejoined his friends in the woods.
A long detour took them past the mill. It was too cold for outdoor idling. Every window was curtained with frost, and not a soul saw them as they tramped along past the place and down to continue on the ice of the Oswegatchie.
Pounded by the ceaseless wind, the snow on the ice was harder, travel was easier, and the same tireless blizzard wiped out the trail as soon as it was behind them.
Crooked is the river trail, but good the footing, and good time was made. When there was a north reach, the snow was extra hard or the ice clear and the scouts slipped off their snow shoes, and trotted at a good six-mile gait. Three times they halted for tea and rest, but the fact that they were the bearers of precious despatches, the bringers of inspiring good news, and their goal ever nearer, spurred them on and on. It was ten o'clock that morning when they left the mill, some thirty miles from Ogdensburg. It was now near sundown, but still they figured that by an effort they could reach the goal that night. It was their best day's travel, but they were nerved to it by the sense of triumph as they trotted; and the prospective joy of marching up to the commandant and handing over the eagerly looked for, reassuring documents, gave them new strength and ambition. Yes! they must push on at any price that night. Day was over now; Rolf was leading at a steady trot. In his hand he held the long trace of his toboggan, ten feet behind was Quonab with the short trace, while Skookum trotted before, beside, or behind, as was dictated by his general sense of responsibility.
It was quite dark now. There was no moon, the wooded shore was black. Their only guide was the broad, wide reach of the river, sometimes swept bare of snow by the wind, but good travelling at all times. They were trotting and walking in spells, going five miles an hour; Quonab was suffering, but Rolf was young and eager to finish. They rounded another reach, they were now on the last big bend, they were reeling off the miles; only ten more, and Rolf was so stirred that, instead of dropping to the usual walk on signal at the next one hundred yards spell, he added to his trot. Quonab, taken unawares, slipped and lost his hold of the trace. Rolf shot ahead and a moment later there was the crash of a breaking air-hole, and Rolf went through the ice, clutched at the broken edge and disappeared, while the toboggan was dragged to the hole.
Quonab sprung to his feet, and then to the lower side of the hole. The toboggan had swung to the same place and the long trace was tight; without a moment's delay the Indian hauled at it steadily, heavily, and in a few seconds the head of his companion reappeared; still clutching that long trace he was safely dragged from the ice-cold flood, blowing and gasping, shivering and sopping, but otherwise unhurt.
Now here a new danger presented itself. The zero wind would soon turn his clothes to boards. They stiffened in a few minutes, and the Indian knew that frozen hands and feet were all too easy in frozen clothes.
He made at once for the shore, and, seeking the heart of a spruce thicket, lost no time in building two roaring fires between which Rolf stood while the Indian made the bed, in which, as soon as he could be stripped, the lad was glad to hide. Warm tea and warm blankets made him warm, but it would take an hour or two to dry his clothes. There is nothing more damaging than drying them too quickly. Quonab made racks of poles and spent the next two hours in regulating the fire, watching the clothes, and working the moccasins.
It was midnight when they were ready and any question of going on at once was settled by Quonab. “Ogdensburg is under arms,” he said. “It is not wise to approach by night.”
At six in the morning they were once more going, stiff with travel, sore-footed, face-frozen, and chafed by delay; but, swift and keen, trotting and walking, they went. They passed several settlements, but avoided them. At seven-thirty they had a distant glimpse of Ogdensburg and heard the inspiring roll of drums, and a few minutes later from the top of a hill they had a complete view of the heroic little town to see—yes! plainly enough—that the British flag was flying from the flag pole.
Oh, the sickening shock of it! Rolf did not know till now how tired he was, how eager to deliver the heartening message, and to relax a little from the strain. He felt weak through and through. There could be no doubt that a disaster had befallen his country's arms.
His first care was to get out of sight with his sled and those precious despatches.
Now what should he do? Nothing till he had fuller information. He sent Quonab back with the sled, instructing him to go to a certain place two miles off, there camp out of sight and wait.
Then he went in alone. Again and again he was stung by the thought, “If I had come sooner they might have held out.”
A number of teams gathered at the largest of a group of houses on the bank suggested a tavern. He went in and found many men sitting down to breakfast. He had no need to ask questions. It was the talk of the table. Ogdensburg had been captured the day before. The story is well known. Colonel MacDonnell with his Glengarry Highlanders at Prescott went to drill daily on the ice of the St. Lawrence opposite Ogdensburg. Sometimes they marched past just out of range, sometimes they charged and wheeled before coming too near. The few Americans that held the place watched these harmless exercises and often cheered some clever manceuvre. They felt quite safe behind their fortification. By an unwritten agreement both parties refrained from firing random shots at each other. There was little to suggest enemies entrenched; indeed, many men in each party had friends in the other, and the British had several times trotted past within easy range, without provoking a shot.
On February 22d, the day when Rolf and Quonab struck the Oswegatchie, the British colonel directed his men as usual, swinging them ever nearer the American fort, and then, at the nearest point, executed a very pretty charge. The Americans watched it as it neared, but instead of wheeling at the brink the little army scrambled up with merry shouts, and before the garrison could realize that this was war, they were overpowered and Ogdensburg was taken.
The American commander was captured. Captain Forsyth, the second in command, had been off on a snowshoe trip, so had escaped. All the rest were prisoners, and what to do with the despatches or how to get official instructions was now a deep problem. “When you don't know a thing to do, don't do a thing,” was one of Si Sylvanne's axioms; also, “In case of doubt lay low and say nothing.” Rolf hung around the town all day waiting for light. About noon a tall, straight, alert man in a buffalo coat drove up with a cutter. He had a hasty meal in an inside room. Rolf sized him up for an American officer, but there was a possibility of his being a Canadian. Rolf tried in vain to get light on him but the inner door was kept closed; the landlord was evidently in the secret. When he came out he was again swaddled in the buffalo coat. Rolf brushed past him—here was something hard and long in the right pocket of the big coat.
The landlord, the guest, and the driver had a whispered conference. Rolf went as near as he dared, but got only a searching look. The driver spoke to another driver and Rolf heard the words “Black Lake.” Yes, that was what he suspected. Black Lake was on the inland sleigh route to Alexandria Bay and Sackett's Harbour.
The driver, a fresh young fellow, was evidently interested in the landlord's daughter; the stranger was talking with the landlord. As soon as they had parted, Rolf went to the latter and remarked quietly: “The captain is in a hurry.” The only reply was a cold look and: “Guess that's his business.” So it was the captain. The driver's mitts were on the line back of the stove. Rolf shook them so that they fell in a dark corner. The driver missed his mitts, and glad of a chance went back in, leaving the officer alone. “Captain Forsyth,” whispered Rolf, “don't go till I have talked with you. I'll meet you a mile down the road.”
“Who are you and what do you want?” was the curt and hostile reply, evidently admitting the identification correct however.
Rolf opened his coat and showed his scout badge.
“Why not talk now if you have any news—come in side.” So the two went to the inner room. “Who is this?” asked Rolf cautiously as the landlord came in.
“He's all right. This is Titus Flack, the landlord.”
“How am I to know that?”
“Haven't you heard him called by name all day?” said the captain.
Flack smiled, went out and returned with his license to sell liquor, and his commission as a magistrate of New York State. The latter bore his own signature. He took a pen and reproduced it. Now the captain threw back his overcoat and stood in the full uniform of an army officer. He opened his satchel and took out a paper, but Rolf caught sight of another packet addressed to General Hampton. The small one was merely a map. “I think that packet in there is meant for me,” remarked Rolf.
“We haven't seen your credentials yet,” said the officer. “I have them two miles back there,” and Rolf pointed to the woods.
“Let's go,” said the captain and they arose. Kittering had a way of inspiring confidence, but in the short, silent ride of two miles the captain began to have his doubts. The scout badge might have been stolen; Canadians often pass for Americans, etc. At length they stopped the sleigh, and Rolf led into the woods. Before a hundred yards the officer said, “Stop,” and Rolf stopped to find a pistol pointed at his head. “Now, young fellow, you've played it pretty slick, and I don't know yet what to make of it. But I know this; at the very first sign of treachery I'll blow your brains out anyway.” It gave Rolf a jolt. This was the first time he had looked down a pistol barrel levelled at him. He used to think a pistol a little thing, an inch through and a foot long, but he found now it seemed as big as a flour barrel and long enough to reach eternity. He changed colour but quickly recovered, smiled, and said: “Don't worry; in five minutes you will know it's all right.”
Very soon a sharp bark was heard in challenge, and the two stepped into camp to meet Quonab and little dog Skookum.
“Doesn't look much like a trap,” thought the captain after he had cast his eyes about and made sure that no other person was in the camp; then aloud, “Now what have you to show me?”
“Excuse me, captain, but how am I to know you are Captain Forsyth? It is possible for a couple of spies to give all the proof you two gave me.”
The captain opened his bag and showed first his instructions given before he left Ogdensburg four days ago; he bared his arm and showed a tattooed U. S. A., a relic of Academy days, then his linen marked J. F., and a signet ring with similar initials, and last the great packet of papers addressed to General Hampton. Then he said: “When you hand over your despatches to me I will give mine to you and we shall have good guarantee each of the other.”
Rolf rose, produced his bundle of papers, and exchanged them for those held by Forsyth; each felt that the other was safe. They soon grew friendly, and Rolf heard of some stirring doings on the lake and preparations for a great campaign in the spring.
After half an hour the tall, handsome captain left them and strode away, a picture of manly vigour. Three hours later they were preparing their evening meal when Skookum gave notice of a stranger approaching. This was time of war; Rolf held his rifle ready, and a moment later in burst the young man who had been Captain Forsyth's driver.
His face was white; blood dripped from his left arm, and in his other hand was the despatch bag. He glanced keenly at Rolf. “Are you General Hampton's scout?” Rolf nodded and showed the badge on his breast. “Captain Forsyth sent this back,” he gasped. “His last words were, 'Burn the despatches rather than let the British get them.' They got him—a foraging party—there was a spy at the hotel. I got away, but my tracks are easy to follow unless it drifts. Don't wait.”
Poor boy, his arm was broken, but he carried out the dead officer's command, then left them to seek for relief in the settlement.
Night was near, but Rolf broke camp at once and started eastward with the double packet. He did not know it then, but learned afterward that these despatches made clear the weakness of Oswego, Rochester, and Sackett's Harbour, their urgent need of help, and gave the whole plan for an American counter attack on Montreal. But he knew they were valuable, and they must at once be taken to General Hampton.
It was rough, hard going in the thick woods and swamps away from the river, for he did not dare take the ice route now, but they pushed on for three hours, then, in the gloom, made a miserable camp in a cedar swamp.
At dawn they were off again. To their disgust the weather now was dead calm; there was no drift to hide their tracks; the trail was as plain as a highway wherever they went. They came to a beaten road, followed that for half a mile, then struck off on the true line. But they had no idea that they were followed until, after an hour of travel, the sun came up and on a far distant slope, full two miles away, they saw a thin black line of many spots, at least a dozen British soldiers in pursuit.
The enemy was on snowshoes, and without baggage evidently, for they travelled fast. Rolf and Quonab burdened with the sled were making a losing race. But they pushed on as fast as possible—toiling and sweating at that precious load. Rolf was pondering whether the time had not yet come to stop and burn the packet, when, glancing back from a high ridge that gave an outlook, he glimpsed a row of heads that dropped behind some rocks half a mile away, and a scheme came into his mind. He marched boldly across the twenty feet opening that was in the enemy's view, dropped behind the spruce thickets, called Quonab to follow, ran around the thicket, and again crossed the open view. So he and Quonab continued for five minutes, as fast as they could go, knowing perfectly well that they were watched. Round and round that bush they went, sometimes close together, carrying the guns, sometimes dragging the sled, sometimes with blankets on their shoulders, sometimes with a short bag or even a large cake of snow on their backs. They did everything they could to vary the scene, and before five minutes the British officer in charge had counted fifty-six armed Americans marching in single file up the bank with ample stores, accompanied by five yellow dogs. Had Skookum been allowed to carry out his ideas, there would have been fifty or sixty yellow dogs, so thoroughly did he enter into the spirit of the game.
The track gave no hint of such a troop, but of course not, how could it? since the toboggan left all smooth after they had passed, or maybe this was a reinforcement arriving. What could he do with his ten men against fifty of the enemy? He thanked his stars that he had so cleverly evaded the trap, and without further attempt to gauge the enemy's strength, he turned and made all possible haste back to the shelter of Ogdensburg.
It was hours before Rolf was sure that he had stopped the pursuit, and the thing that finally set his mind at rest was the rising wind that soon was a raging and drifting snow storm. “Oh, blessed storm!” he said in his heart, as he marked all trail disappear within a few seconds of its being made. And he thought: “How I cursed the wind that held me back—really from being made prisoner. How vexed I was at that ducking in the river, that really saved my despatches from the enemy. How thankful I am now for the storm that a little while back seemed so bitterly cruel.”
That forenoon they struck the big bend of the river and now did not hesitate to use the easy travel on the ice as far as Rensselaer Falls, where, having got their bearings from a settler, they struck across the country through the storm, and at night were encamped some forty miles from Ogdensburg.
Marvellously few signs of game had they seen in this hard trip; everything that could hide away was avoiding the weather. But in a cedar bottom land near Cranberry Lake they found a “yard” that seemed to be the winter home of hundreds of deer. It extended two or three miles one way a half a mile the other; in spite of the deep snow this was nearly all in beaten paths. The scouts saw at least fifty deer in going through, so, of course, had no difficulty in selecting a young buck for table use.
The going from there on was of little interest. It was the same old daily battle with the frost, but less rigorous than before, for now the cold winds were behind, and on the 27th of February, nine days after leaving, they trotted into Ticonderoga and reported at the commandant's headquarters.
The general was still digging entrenchments and threatening to annihilate all Canada. But the contents of the despatches gave him new topics for thought and speech. The part he must play in the proposed descent on Montreal was flattering, but it made the Ticonderoga entrenchments ridiculous.
For three days Rolf was kept cutting wood, then he went with despatches to Albany.
Many minor labours, from hog-killing to stable-cleaning and trenching, varied the month of March. Then came the uncertain time of April when it was neither canoeing nor snow-shoeing and all communication from the north was cut off.
But May, great, glorious May came on, with its inspiring airs and livening influence. Canoes were afloat, the woods were brown beneath and gold above.
Rolf felt like a young stag in his strength. He was spoiling for a run and volunteered eagerly to carry despatches to Sackett's Harbour. He would go alone, for now one blanket was sufficient bed, and a couple of pounds of dry meat was enough food for each day. A small hatchet would be useful, but his rifle seemed too heavy to carry; as he halted in doubt, a junior officer offered him a pistol instead, and he gladly stuck it in his belt.
Taller than ever, considerably over six feet now, somewhat lanky, but supple of joint and square of shoulder, he strode with the easy stride of a strong traveller. His colour was up, his blue-gray eyes ablaze as he took the long trail in a crow line across country for Sackett's Harbour. The sentry saluted, and the officer of the day, struck by his figure and his glowing face as much as by the nature of his errand, stopped to shake hands and say, “Well, good luck, Kittering, and may you bring us better news than the last two times.”
Rolf knew how to travel now; he began softly. At a long, easy stride he went for half an hour, then at a swinging trot for a mile or two. Five miles an hour he could make, but there was one great obstacle to speed at this season—every stream was at flood, all were difficult to cross. The brooks he could wade or sometimes could fell a tree across them, but the rivers were too wide to bridge, too cold and dangerous to swim. In nearly every case he had to make a raft. A good scout takes no chances. A slight raft means a risky passage; a good one, a safe crossing but loss of time in preparations. Fifteen good rafts did Rolf make in that cross-country journey of three days: dry spruce logs he found each time and bound them together with leather-wood and withes of willow. It meant a delay of at least an hour each time; that is five hours each day. But the time was wisely spent. The days were lengthening; he could travel much at dusk. Soon he was among settlements. Rumours he got at a settler's cabin of Sir George Prevost's attack on Sackett's Harbour and the gallant repulse and at morning of the fourth day he came on the hill above Sackett's Harbour—the same hill where he had stood three months before. It was with something like a clutching of his breath that he gazed; his past experiences suggested dreadful thoughts but no—thank God, “Old Glory” floated from the pole. He identified himself to the sentinels and the guard, entered the fort at a trot, and reported at headquarters.
There was joy on every side. At last the tide had turned. Commodore Chauncey, after sweeping Lake Ontario, had made a sudden descent on York (Toronto now) the capital of Upper Canada, had seized and destroyed it. Sir George Prevost, taking advantage of Chauncey's being away, had attacked Sackett's Harbour, but, in spite of the absence of the fleet, the resistance had been so vigorous that in a few days the siege was abandoned.
There were shot holes in walls and roofs, there were a few wounded in the hospital, the green embankments were torn, and the flag-pole splintered; but the enemy was gone, the starry flag was floating on the wind, and the sturdy little garrison filled with a spirit that grows only in heroes fighting for their homes.
How joyfully different from Ogdensburg.