Enoch was very silent on the way back to Lot’s house. The shock of seeing Simon Halpen again after all this time, had stirred the youth greatly. Despite the fact that the villain was so far away from the Walloomscoik, and would probably not dare go near Bennington, Enoch could not help feeling troubled by the circumstance of his presence within the borders of the Grants. And he was glad that ’Siah Bolderwood had promised to remain at or near the Hardings’ home while he, Enoch, was at Westminster.
Under Lot’s advice the two boys said nothing of the little scene at the inn and the next morning Mr. Lewis went with other stable men of the town to call upon the justices who would preside at the court when it met. The feeling between Whigs and Tories was so strong that all peace-loving men feared bloodshed. At the first blow a terrible civil war might begin–a war in which neighbor would engage with neighbor and the community be utterly ruined. And if the court sat and tried the cases against those settlers who refused to purchase New York titles to their lands, or to leave their homes at the order of the sheriff and his deputies, the battle would begin. Nobody could doubt that.
Despite the fact that the offices were held by the Tories, the Whigs were greatly in the majority. And this majority declared the will of the people should be upheld, and that will was that no court should sit until matters quieted down and the heat had gone out of the political veins of the community. They presented this matter strongly to the judges and warned them of what might be expected if the court undertook to sit at Westminster. Although staunch Tories, the judges were impressed by what was told them by the committee; Justice Chandler, indeed, gave his word that nothing should be done toward convening the court until time had been given the people to cool down. It was promised, too, that the sheriff and his men should not be given a free hand in the town.
With these assurances from Judge Chandler the committee of Whigs returned. To make sure that the sheriff, who with his men were spending every day and night at the Royal Inn, did not seize the court-house in defiance of the people’s will, the Whigs sent a guard to that building on the evening of the 13th–the day before that set for the convening of the court. This guard, however, was armed only with clubs, and was set to keep the troublesome factions of both parties in order, and was recruited from among the better affected families of the town. Lot Breckenridge and Enoch were allowed by Mr. Lewis to join these volunteers.
What March 5, 1770, had been to the people of Boston and the Colony of Massachusetts, March 14, 1775, was destined to become to the patriot citizens of Vermont. That date reminds them to-day of the first blood shed in the great struggle within the borders of the Grants–the first pitched battle between American yeomanry and the minions of a cruel and tyrannical king. Before the martyrs were shot down at Lexington was the Westminster Massacre–an incident which set the torch to the passions of the Whigs throughout the Grants.
Despite the efforts of Judge Chandler, who really was honestly bent on peace, the associate Judge Sabin and the fire-eating sheriff brought about that clash of arms, the stain of which was to be wiped out by nearly eight years of bitter war. The Tory officials and their henchmen gathered about the court-house when it was known that the Whigs had seized it, and threatened an attack early in the evening of the 13th; but apparently willing to abide by the decision of the chief justice, they dispersed after that worthy had promised the Whigs that nothing should be done to oust them from the premises until the following day. Chandler doubtless went to his repose, believing that his partisans would uphold him in his promise.
But the sheriff had other views. He had gathered a noble army at John Norton’s inn. There were no Whigs there that night. They sought other houses of entertainment, or their own homes, for their leaders had counseled moderation. But the wily sheriff finally gave his orders, and those orders were inspired by Judge Sabin and other rank Tories. Separating as they issued from the inn into three bodies, the sheriff’s men approached the guarded court-house from as many directions and were thundering at the doors before the Whigs were aware that such treachery was intended. There was not a fire-arm in the court-house, but when called upon to surrender the guard refused and strove to barricade the entrance.
Although the young men had expected nothing like this, they had not taken their duty lightly. They were of the best Whig families of the neighborhood and had not accepted the responsibility as a lark. Enoch became acquainted with one of his companions early in the evening who, because of his open face, free and gentle manner, and earnest conversation impressed the Bennington boy as being a youth of better parts than were most of the backwoods people. Lot told his guest that this individual was William French, the son of a Mr. Nathaniel French, a man well known and respected highly by his neighbors. Like Lot, young French was deeply interested in the affairs of the colonies, especially in what was occurring in and about Boston. He had planned to go to the Massachusetts colony and offer his services to the Committee of Safety there if war really became imminent, though he would go, Enoch saw, in a much different spirit from Lot’s. Lot was eager for a fight for the fight’s sake; but French realized the root of the trouble and espoused the cause of the persecuted colonists from principle.
It was eleven o’clock at night when the sheriff and his men attacked the Whig guards, and many of the latter were asleep. The uproar was great as the besieged tried to keep the Tories out of the building; but the latter were reckless and knew that they had to do with a practically helpless enemy. They forced an entrance, though the Whigs rallied well and delivered some telling blows with their clubs. These blows doubtless had much to do with what followed, for the sheriff’s men became greatly incensed. All the lights in the house were put out and for several moments the antagonists fought in the dark. Enoch was not behind in the battle and was one of those in the front rank which strove to beat the sheriff’s men back to the door. William French fought next him, while he could hear his friend Lot shouting encouragement not far away.
The Tories were under a disadvantage in the dark and some of those still without ran with torches and thrust them in, that the battleground might be illumined. At that the sheriff, spurred by rage and the smart of a blow he had received, cried to his men: “Fire! Fire at the rascals who defy the law’s authority!”
Some of his men took him at his word and putting their pieces to their shoulders, they had been using them as clubs, shot blank-point into the group of opposing Whigs!
It was a terrible scene that followed. Several men fell about Enoch, and groans and cries rose from the wounded. A bullet had sent Enoch’s cap spinning into the air, but he did not notice that. Young William French had fallen beside him and the Bennington boy stooped and caught the young man’s head and shoulders from the floor that he might not be trampled upon.
Shouts and imprecations deafened him. The Whigs still fought, but some had already tried to escape by a side passage and were being brought back by the sheriff’s men. That wicked man was calling upon the Whigs to surrender, and more than one shot was fired after that first volley.
Enoch, with the head of the bleeding youth in his arms, cried to those about him to move aside and bring a light. All were too much inflamed by passion to heed him for a time; but suddenly one man sprang forward and thrust a huge, brass-locked pistol into his own face. The boy was frightened, and strove to throw himself backward out of range; but the pistol snapped!
Providentially the weapon was either unloaded, or the powder was damp. Otherwise that moment would have ended Enoch Harding’s earthly career. And in the flash of torchlight which was an instant later cast upon the scene, the startled boy recognized the dark features and hawk nose of Simon Halpen. The villain had sought him out and had striven to pay off old scores in that moment of confusion and uproar.
But the confusion helped Enoch to escape, too. Lot seized his shoulder and dragged him up from his knees. “Let him alone, poor chap!” he whispered hoarsely in his friend’s ear, and Enoch saw that he was crying, “Let him alone. He is dead. Oh, these villains shall be punished for this–they shall be punished! War has begun, Nuck–and we have seen its beginning!” In his horror and despair Lot Breckenridge was prophetic. War had begun; the first blood of the revolution–antedating in its sacrifice the Battle of Lexington–had been shed.
Indeed, Lot and Enoch were fortunate to escape from the building, for ten of the Whigs had been wounded beside poor French, and seven of the remaining were taken prisoner. The town was roused and a great concourse of people gathered in the streets. The sheriff and his men were loudly execrated, and even some of the Tories expressed their indignation. The men who had done the deed were forced to remain under cover for the rest of the night while the alarm went into all the countryside and by daybreak the patriot farmers were pouring into Westminster–a horde of indignant citizens before whom the Tory officials trembled.
The very judges themselves were taken into custody and had not the better counsel of the staid and solid men prevailed, the sheriff and those who aided him might have been hung to a gibbet erected in the court-house yard. On the fifteenth Captain Cochran and forty Green Mountain Boys, who had been apprised of the terrible affair, marched over the mountain to arraign themselves upon the side of the Whigs if the matter should come to real warfare. But fortunately further bloodshed was averted, and never again did a Tory judiciary hold court in Eastern Vermont.
Enoch went back to Bennington with some of Robert Cochran’s company. News of the Westminster affair had preceded him and the Catamount Inn was thronged with earnest men discussing the matter and various other news-packets which had lately come from other colonies. War with the mother country seemed inevitable and Ethan Allen and men of his stamp looked forward to it not without some eagerness. It was not that they were reckless and irresponsible, or did not understand the terrible situation in which the colonies might find themselves should the mother country send across the sea a great army. But in the coming struggle they beheld the salvation of their own people and of the Hampshire Grants.
Therefore, perhaps even previous to this time, immediately following the Westminster Massacre, these leaders had earnestly discussed the possibilities of war and what the Green Mountain Boys could do to further the cause of the colonies. On the shores of the beautiful lake which was the colonists’ boast, were two of the strongest fortresses–or two which had been and could be made again the strongest–of the New World, Ticonderoga and Crown Point. At Old Ti were many stores and munitions of war and the place was held by a comparatively small guard of red-coats who had a great contempt for, and therefore small appreciation of, the valor of the colonials.
With these circumstances in mind Old Ti was already an object of the conferences of Vermont’s leading men. Possessing that fortress, Crown Point, and Skenesboro, the lake would be free of British and the way to Canada open; and at that early date it was strongly believed by the patriots that the French descendants of the early settlers of Canada would join the Colonies in their fight for freedom.
Young Enoch Harding did not see the leaders as he passed through Bennington; but he was waylaid there a dozen times, and upon his road home, to satisfy the curiosity and interest of his neighbors in the Westminster trouble. Letters from Boston had roused them to the highest pitch, too. Nor were his mother and Bryce any less anxious to hear and discuss the news. Mistress Harding had lived within a few miles of Boston and felt a deep interest still in the people and the affairs of the Massachusetts Colony. That a foreign soldiery should have been landed on her shores fired even this good and gentle woman with anger, and when Bryce said he’d go to Boston, too, along with Lot Breckenridge, if there was war, she did not say him nay.
But the Hardings had little time to waste upon politics. The boys had to drop the drilling soon, too, for it came ploughing and seed time. ’Siah Bolderwood remained about the settlement rather later than usual that year; and mainly for the reason that public affairs were so strained. He said his own crop of corn which he intended putting into the lot near Old Ti upon which he “had let the light of day” could wait a bit, under the circumstances, for there might be occasion to “beat his ploughshare into a sword” before corn-planting time.
Therefore he was still with the Hardings that day late in April when Ethan Allen, riding out of Bennington into the north to carry a torch which should fire every farm and hamlet with patriotic fervor, reined in his steed at the door of the farmhouse. The children saw the great man coming and ran from the fields with Bolderwood, while the widow appeared at her door and welcomed Colonel Allen.
“Will you ’light, sir?” she asked him. “It has been long since you favored us with a visit.”
“And long will it be ere I come again, perhaps, Mistress Harding. I am like Sampson–I have taken an oath. And mine is not to rest, nor to give this critter rest, until I have spoken to as many true men in these Grants as may be seen in a week. The time has come to act!”
“Reckon I’d better be joggin’ erlong toward Old Ti, heh, Colonel?” remarked the ranger, leaning an elbow on the pommel of the saddle.
“You had, ’Siah, you had. We can depend upon you, and those red-coated rascals there must be kept unsuspicious and their fears–if they have any–lulled to sleep. I have one man already who proposes to put his head in the Lion’s mouth and return–providing the jaws do not close on him–to tell us in what state the old pile of stone is kept.”
“But what has started you out so suddenly, Colonel Allen?” demanded the widow.
“What! have ye not heard? There was a packet came from Boston yesterday.”
“We have seen nobody this week,” declared Enoch.
“There has been blood shed, friends,” said the giant, earnestly, his eyes flashing and the color in his cheek deepening. “American freemen have been shot down like sheep in the slaughter!”
“Where? Who were killed? What was the cause? Who did it?” were some of the queries hurled at their informant by the little group.
“Fifty men, they say, were murdered. At Lexington, in Massachusetts. There were munitions stored there belonging to the militia. The British got word of it and marched from Boston to destroy the goods. They fired on our people at the bridge and when the poor fellows broke and ran they followed and potted them like rabbits! War has begun, friends. Nothing under the blue canopy can stop it now. American blood has been shed and I tell you it is but the beginning of the flood which must pour from our veins until these colonies are free!”
“Oh, Colonel! you do not believe that?” cried the widow. “Surely this trouble can be averted. Calmer and more honest men will gain control and prevail. War is an awful thing.”
“True, Widow Harding. And well may you say it who have two sons to give for freedom. But mark my words, madam! Those two boys of yours will be needed, and if the Almighty spares them they will be some years older before either side in this controversy gives in.... Now friends, I must away. You know what is expected of you, ’Siah. Young Nuck, you’ll be wanted at Bennington to-morrow.”
“Oh, shall our people really attack Ticonderoga?” cried Kate. “The schoolmaster says that is the strongest fortress in the Colonies.”
“Your schoolmaster is a bit of a Tory, I fear, miss,” said Allen, smiling down upon her. “We shall have to ‘view’ him if he tells such tales in school,” and waving his gauntleted hand he rode swiftly away from the homestead.
“I am off at once, folks,” said ’Siah, beginning to make his pack for the journey. “I’ll see you up near Old Ti, Nuck, for the Colonel means business sure! We may have some such doin’s up there as your father and I had under Rogers and Old Put years ago.”
He went away shortly and there was little the Hardings could do that day but talk over the wonderful news and let their fancy run upon the future. The widow saw that coming which she had feared for months, but she was cheerful. Nuck must go on this expedition to Lake Champlain, and she said it with unshaken voice. Bryce was to remain to guard the home, for there was no knowing what the result of the attack on Old Ti might be.
The alarming intelligence brought by Colonel Allen had its effect upon the younger members of the family as well as on the older, for late in the afternoon Harry came running to his mother with the information that there was a man lurking in the forest across the creek. The child had seen the stranger twice and being fearful that the man was there for no good purpose was much troubled. The older boys were in the field at work, but when the widow blew the horn Enoch came up to learn the cause, for it was not yet supper time. Hearing Harry’s report he seized his rifle and went to the creek bank, approaching the spot very carefully, for he feared at once that their enemy, Simon Halpen, might have dared follow him from Westminster.
He had scarcely reached the creek, however, when he was apprised of the identity of the visitor. A head, in the black locks of which a tuft of eagle feathers was fastened, appeared above the bushes, and the next moment the person thus betrayed came out into full view and beckoned him. It was Crow Wing who had approached the Harding place through the forest. Enoch leaped into his own boat and paddled across, remembering the Indian’s promise the year before to visit him at some time for the purpose of examining the vicinity of the spot where Jonas Harding had been slain.
The grave face of the young Indian brave was undisturbed by a smile as he greeted the white youth whom he had not seen for more than a year. But he shook Enoch’s hand with an emphatic “Umph!” when the latter sprang ashore.
“Crow Wing!” exclaimed young Harding. “I thought you had forgotten us in these parts. You’ve been away a long time.”
“Umph! Injin no forget friends,” remarked Crow Wing, sententiously.
“And you’ve come here to see me–’way from Lake George?”
“Umph!” was again the non-committal answer. “Harding and Crow Wing go hunt,–shoot deer? Crow Wing need new moccasins,” and he thrust forward one foot on which was a ragged covering. But Nuck knew well enough the Indian had not traveled through the wilderness from Lake George merely for the pleasure of going on a deer hunt with him. But he said, doubtfully: “We’re pretty busy just now, Crow Wing. Can’t go far with you.”
“Not go far. Plenty deer yonder,” and he pointed in the direction of the lick where Jonas Harding had been killed. Nuck understood. “I’ll go with you. Will you come across and eat supper with us?”
But the Indian shook his head vigorously. “Will eat yonder. Have meat. Harding get rifle and blanket. Will make fire.”
He turned about instantly and plunged into the forest. Enoch was astonished by his manner and words, familiar as he was with the peculiarities of the red race. Crow Wing had never refused to eat with them before; he had always seemed to enjoy the “white squaw’s” cooking. But Enoch had no fear that his one-time enemy was playing him a trick. He paddled across the creek for his blanket, told his mother that he was going on a torchlight hunt, with whom he was going, and without further explanation returned to follow his red friend. He had noted the direction the young brave had taken. The way led directly to that little glade where, nearly four years before, he had spied upon Simon Halpen, the Yorker, and Crow Wing had driven him so ignominiously home. There was a fire here now, but the Indian was alone.
An appetizing odor of broiling flesh greeted the white youth, for it was already growing dark in the forest and Crow Wing was preparing supper. Enoch did not open the conversation, but busied himself with making a couple of bark platters out of which they might eat the meat when it was cooked. He was anxious enough to broach the subject uppermost in his mind; but he knew Crow Wing better than to do that. Anxiety, or curiosity, were emotions which only squaws gave way to, and Enoch would not exhibit his feelings and so disgust his red brother.
Crow Wing was evidently a man of importance in his tribe now, and his gravity was far beyond his years. While they ate Enoch asked a question or two about his people, and if the decimated tribe, which had never recovered numerically from a scourge of smallpox, still resided near Lake George. He learned then that the Indians had struck their lodges and were journeying toward the northern wilderness. The old chief, Crow Wing’s father, was dead, and the youth himself aspired to be the leader of his people. From a word or two he let drop and from his manner of speaking, Enoch judged that the older men of the tribe had some doubt of Crow Wing’s ability to govern the braves; but evidently the youth had strong hopes of gaining their confidence–and that by some act in the near future. What his plan for advancement was, Enoch could not get his friend to tell.
“Why do your people leave the shores of the pleasant water?” asked the white boy.
“Injin not ’lone there now. Red-coat come; then white farmer. Push, push; crowd, crowd; no game. Injin starve.”
“And where are you going?”
“To the hunting grounds of the Hurons.”
“But then there will be war between your people and the Hurons.”
“No; no war. Hurons be squaws–children; Iroquois master ’em. Then, war-hatchet buried between Hurons and Six Nations. Buried when French and Yenghese bury hatchet–long time ’go.”
Enoch, with more than curiosity, yet speaking in a careless manner, continued his questioning: “What would the people of Crow Wing do if there was another war?”
The Indian flashed a sudden sharp glance at him. “How could be?” he asked, craftily. “Yenghese got many red-coats–much gun. French no fight more.”
“Suppose we should fight the red-coats?”
“Umph! Me hear Long-guns” (the Virginians) “talk fight to Six Nations. No. Yenghese send too many big chiefs over water.”
“Those big chiefs aren’t always good,” returned Enoch, quickly. “Your people remember General Abercrombie. He did not know how to fight in these forests. And there was Braddock; he was no good at all. He wouldn’t have been beaten if he’d taken Colonel Washington’s advice. I’d give a lot more when it comes to a fight for our Major Putnam, Mr. Washington, and Ethan Allen.”
The Indian’s face was gloomy. He had finished eating now and leaned back against a tree while he puffed the tobacco in the little copper pipe which was his constant companion. Not until the pipe was smoked out did he speak. “Harding my friend,” he finally said, in his grave tone, repeating a formula which he had used so many times since the night Nuck had saved him from the wolves. “Harding my friend. Crow Wing know what is in his mind. He thinks to fight the red-coats–to take their great stockades; he is not afraid of their many guns. But he is foolish; he is as a child; he does not understand. Let him open his ears and listen to his friend.”
The young chief had assumed that oracular tone and manner so dear to the red man in his counsels. His earnestness, however, impressed Enoch. “The white youth and his friends are angry with the great King across the water; they would kill his red-coats. But the red-coats are like leaves when the frost comes; they fall to the ground and so cover the earth; and it is thus with the red-coats for numbers. And the Six Nations will be with the red-coats; Crow Wing’s people will be with them. If there is war we will take many scalps; we will come here,” with a gesture, sweeping in the Bennington country, “and then Crow Wing and Harding not be friends. So Crow Wing come now to say to Harding, ‘Good-bye.’”
“But why do not the Indians help us instead of the red-coats?” demanded Enoch, striving to speak calmly.
“The great King give us blankets; he give us powder for scalp; he give us gun. The red-coats let Injin fight his own way. And Crow Wing be great war chief!” he exclaimed, with some emphasis. It was plain that he expected to make his position with his tribe secure by his valor in battle, should the settlers and the British come to a rupture. He refrained from speaking longer, however, rising soon and covering the fire which he had kindled. Then, seizing a bundle of torches and his rifle, he motioned Enoch to follow and they set off through the forest toward the deer-lick.
Although he felt the utmost confidence in the fact that Crow Wing had not come clear from Lake George simply to give him this warning and to bid him good-bye, Enoch still remained silent upon that subject which the Indian’s appearance had brought so forcibly to his mind. Through the darkened forest, in which the owls now hooted mournfully, the white youth followed the red without a word; every step was taking them nearer to that place where his father had been found dead so long ago. Crow Wing had spoken with some confidence the year before of being able to find, even at this late day, some sign which should disprove the generally accepted belief in the manner of Jonas Harding’s death.
The brave soon reached the deeply worn runway which Enoch, on the morning he was introduced to the reader, followed to the creek, and soon the two came upon the little glade where the saline deposits in the earth had attracted the deer and other animals since such creatures inhabited the forest. Dark as it was Enoch could even distinguish the very tree out of which the catamount had sprung at him, and the murmur of the hurrying waters down the rocky bed reached his ear. Here ’Siah Bolderwood and the other neighbors had found the dead body of the elder Harding, apparently trampled and gored to death by the huge buck whose hoofprints marked the ground all about. Enoch had seldom passed the spot without a shudder–especially since he had so nearly lost his own life there.
Still the Indian made no comment, nor mentioned the real reason for which they had come to the lick. He wet his finger and held it up so as to get the direction of the wind. Then circling the lick and getting between it and the creek-bank, he flung down the bundle of torches and motioned Enoch back into the deeper shadow. With his own flint and steel, and using a bit of tinder from the leather pouch he carried, he lit one of the resinous torches. This he stood upright some little distance away, yet not too near the piece of ground where the creatures of the forest were accustomed to obtain their salt. Then, crouching beside his white friend, the Indian remained motionless and speechless for the next three hours. Once Enoch crept out and renewed the torch which had burned low; then he returned to Crow Wing’s side.
All the sounds of the forest at night are not to be distinguished with ease. Even Enoch, bred in the wilderness and possessing much knowledge of wood-ranging, heard only the coarser sounds. Therefore he lay half dreaming for some moments after the Indian raised his head and lent an attentive ear to some noise which came from far away. The night-owl’s hoot was intermittent; a lone wolf howled mournfully on the hillside; in the swamp a catamount screamed as it pounced upon its prey. But it was none of these sounds which had attracted the Indian’s attention. Enoch suddenly roused to see Crow Wing softly reach for his gun and bring the weapon slowly to his shoulder.
The white youth already had his own weapon in hand. He tried to pierce the darkness beyond the flickering torch with his eyes, seeing naught at first but shapeless shadows. At length, however, the sound that had warned Crow Wing of the approach of their game, was audible to Enoch’s much less acute ear. It was that of a steady grinding of a ruminant animal feeding. The creature was coming slowly nearer and soon the hunters could plainly hear it cropping the leaves and twigs along the path; then, having gained a choice mouthful, the grinding of the molars recommenced.
Suddenly the thick brush across the glade parted and the animal halted with a surprised snuff–one might almost say gasp of astonishment. The crash in the bushes betrayed that the creature had flung itself half around in its contemplated flight; then it hesitated; the flaming torch spurred its curiosity and, there being no movement in the glade, except of the shadows caused by the dancing flame from the fragrant pine, the startled creature was tempted.
And being tempted to the point of hesitation, it was lost! Slowly, blowing as it came yet drawing nearer and nearer to the light, the beast moved out of the brush into the open. Suddenly Enoch saw it–the branching antlers, the fawn-colored breast, the pointed, outstretched, eager muzzle, the great eyes in which the torch reflected a glint of fire. It was a magnificent buck, the largest specimen of the deer tribe the youth had ever seen. Suddenly Crow Wing jogged his elbow. A glance passed between them. Each understood the other’s intention. The Indian fired, his ball entering just above the buck’s breast and ploughing slantingly upward through the throat. With a snort of terror the buck swerved to one side and might have gotten away had not Enoch’s shot found a more vulnerable spot behind the foreleg. The heart of the great deer was punctured, and it fell in the agony of death.
“Umph! Now Crow Wing have new moccasins,” the Indian grunted, without emotion. But Enoch went forward, lighting a second torch the better to view the great buck. It was still now and outstretched on the earth looked even larger than when in life. The thought flashed through his mind: “Ah! perhaps this was the very brute–this enormous fellow with his hoofs bigger than those of a steer and his terrible horns–that killed my father here. Could it be possible?”
Looking upon this huge buck, noting its power and its fierce aspect, though the brute’s eye was glazed by death, he wondered if, by any chance, he had been accusing an innocent person? This brute would have been perfectly able to kill a man. Naught but the hoof-marks of the deer were found about the body of his father. How, then, could Simon Halpen be in any wise guilty of his enemy’s death?
But Crow Wing brought the white youth to a realization of present things. The Indian knew that their hunting was over for that night. No other deer would approach the lick, for the smell of the blood from the slain buck would warn its mates away. Only the creatures of prey would be attracted now. So he was down on his knees and had already begun to flay the dead carcass, and Enoch, seeing this, began to help him. It was near midnight, and when the hide was off, the tongue and the most tasty parts removed, Crow Wing built another fire, wrapped his blanket about him, and lay down to sleep.
But Enoch could not sleep. He had cut off and hung up near the camp a haunch of the venison to take back with him in the morning. They had removed so far from the lick that certain preying beasts dared quarrel over the remains of the noble buck until daylight; but the youth sat with his back against a tree and his rifle across his knees until the dimpling water of the creek was kissed by the first beams of the sun which shot over the distant range of hills. His thoughts were sufficient to keep him wide awake.
Enoch was not the first to stir; but Crow Wing, possessing the hunter’s faculty of awaking at any desired hour, sat up and threw back his blanket. “My brother did not sleep,” he said, looking upon the white youth with gloomy brow.
“No; I couldn’t do that, Crow Wing,” Enoch returned, sadly.
The Indian got upon his feet, threw wood upon the fire, and prepared to cook the deer meat he had reserved. They ate in silence as they had the night before. Never had young Harding seen the redskin act so strangely, for during the winter Crow Wing had spent with Enoch and Lot on the Otter, he had by no means been silent or morose. The white youth could not fail to see that something–something beside what troubled Enoch–bore heavily upon Crow Wing’s mind.
After eating the Indian scattered and covered the embers of the fire and prepared to leave the spot. He went toward the lick where the deer had been torn to pieces by the prowling animals Enoch had heard. At the edge of the clearing he halted and attracted his companion’s attention by a commanding gesture. “Harding’s father found here by the tall white man,” he said, simply.
“Yes. ’Siah Bolderwood found him,” Enoch sadly admitted.
“Then we look–see how Hawknose kill him.”
“But Crow Wing, it was four years ago—”
The Indian stopped him with a gesture of disdain. “Does my brother think we look for trail? No, no! The white man not find trail?”
“Of course not. There were only marks of the buck’s hoofs.”
Crow Wing pointed to the spoor of the dead buck made the night before. “Trail big as that?” he asked.
“Yes. It might have been this buck.”
“No buck,” declared the other, emphatically and then began to move about the open glade, examining each tree trunk as he went. Enoch did not understand his actions but he followed him. The Indian gazed upon each tree scrutinizingly, and no knothole in the rough boles escaped his attention.
When the tree proved to be hollow at its base the searcher experimented with his gun barrel, poking it into the farther extremity of the cavity and rattling out the decayed wood and the débris of squirrel nests and owl lairs. In several cases these creatures themselves were disturbed, the lively squirrels to run chattering up the higher branches, the owls lumbering away into the forest, bumping against the trees in their blindness, and hooting mournfully at the disturbers of their peace. All this time Crow Wing continued with an unmoved face. Not an interstice in the roots of the trees escaped his eye and to Enoch, who could not imagine what he was looking for, his actions seemed without reason. But he knew better than to ask him the nature of his search.
For two hours Crow Wing circled about the little glade. There was not a tree which escaped him, nor did any hollow go unexamined which was within reach of the tallest man. Crow Wing’s face betrayed neither hope nor disappointment and therefore his companion could not tell how important this search was. The patience displayed by the Indian was all that suggested the object of his examination to be of any moment.
At length, in poking the barrel of his gun into the hollow at the base of a big tree Crow Wing disturbed some object which fell out upon the ground. Enoch, who looked over his shoulder could not at first imagine what it was. He saw several rotting straps attached to the thing, however, and as his companion with a grunt of evident satisfaction, began poking into the hollow still further, the white boy picked the object up and knocked the dirt and decayed wood off it. It was so strange an object that at first Enoch saw no connection between it and the matter which he and Crow Wing had discussed–Jonas Harding’s death.
It was the dry and broken hoof of some ruminant animal–an ox, perhaps, for it was too large for any deer that Enoch had ever seen. It was even larger than the hoof of the buck he and Crow Wing had recently shot. And when the boy thought of that he was reminded of the hoof prints which had been found all about the lick when his father’s body was discovered lying there. He uttered a stifled exclamation and drawing up one foot fitted the cloven hoof against the sole of his moccasin. The rotten straps or thongs would once have bound the thing to a man’s foot. He might have stood upon it–walked upon it, indeed; and the impression left by this cloven hoof would naturally lead one to suppose that a big deer had been that way!
Enoch turned with sweating brow and shaking hands toward the Indian. Crow Wing stood upright again and now held a second hoof, likewise supplied with thongs, in his hand. They looked at each other.
“Umph!” grunted Crow Wing. “Now Harding know? See moose hoofs. Crow Wing know where moose killed–see moose killed. Hawknose kill much that winter; Hawknose hunt with Injins up north; then come back to crick. Harding ’member what Crow Wing tell him when trapping on Otter Crick? See Hawknose running; blood on clothes; blood on hands and on gun. Now Harding know how father be killed.”
Enoch’s eyes blazed with wrath. “I know, Crow Wing. I believe what you tell me. I see no other explanation of the affair. Give me those hoofs, Crow Wing.”
“Harding keep them till he punish Hawknose?” queried the Indian.
“Yes.”
The young brave pulled his belt tighter and prepared to depart. “Hawknose never Crow Wing’s brother,” he said. “Harding been brother. But now the hatchet will be dug up. The Long-guns cannot get the Six Nations to fight the red-coats. And the friends of my white brother will be beaten. They will become the squaws of the red-coats and of the great King across the sea. So my people will go north and join the red-coats.” He shook Enoch’s hand gravely. “Crow Wing and Harding been brothers; but when they meet again be enemies. Umph?”
“I hope we’ll never meet again, then, Crow Wing,” declared the white youth. “I hope there will be no war. More than that, I hope your people will not join the British if there is war.”
But without further speech, or a glance behind him, the Indian brave strode away into the forest and was quickly lost to view.
Having at length been assured beyond peradventure that his suspicions were true, a desire for vengeance upon Simon Halpen sprang to life in Enoch’s heart. He forgot the momentous matter which had filled his mind before the appearance of Crow Wing the evening before. He thought only of his father’s murderer, the man who had tried to injure them all, even to the point of destroying their home and attempting to shoot himself.
As he tramped back to the house with the haunch of venison on his shoulder, he determined to tell nobody there of the finding of the moose hoofs which explained the mystery of his father’s death. The hoofs he saved to show Bolderwood, and for evidence against Simon Halpen if the opportunity ever arose to punish that villain. It was easy to see with this evidence before him, how the awful deed had been accomplished. With the moose hoofs strapped upon his feet the Yorker had crept through the forest on the trail of the unconscious Jonas Harding; had seen him shoot the doe; and then falling upon him suddenly had beaten him to the earth with his clubbed rifle and had bruised and mangled him so terribly that the neighbors, at first glance, pronounced the poor man killed by a mad buck. Hurrying from the vicinity, dress and hands covered with blood as Crow Wing had seen him, Halpen had hidden the deer hoofs in the hollow of the tree, and escaped to Albany, his vengeance accomplished.
“But he shall suffer for this yet,” thought the youth, with compressed lips. “God will punish him if the courts do not. And sometime he may be delivered into my hand, and if he is—”
The implied threat frightened him, and he did not follow it even in his thoughts, but by again turning his attention to the matter which Ethan Allen’s visit the day before had suggested, he strove to bring his mind into better tone before meeting his mother. He feared that the expression on his features would betray something of his horror and determination to her sharp eyes. When he reached home, however, he found the family so greatly excited that nobody thought to either ask questions or to notice his behavior. A drill had been called at Bennington and Enoch was forced to saddle the horse and hurry away at once. Under the present conditions it was thought best for Bryce to remain at home, for if the Green Mountain Boys marched upon Ticonderoga the younger Harding could not be spared to accompany the expedition.
The Council was in session and the leaders of the Green Mountain Boys remained in Bennington for more than a week. Couriers had arrived from the south and east and it was known that the British were rapidly being shut up in Boston. The Massachusetts Colony was afire with wrath because of the Lexington massacre. The Grants people were quite as rebellious against the King’s authority, with the sad affair at Westminster fresh in their minds. The proposal to capture the British strongholds on the lake met with favor everywhere. Small bodies of armed men began to come in and a camp was planned at Castleton. It was said that a large body of troops was to march from Western Massachusetts and Connecticut to aid the expedition. When Ethan Allen returned and heard of these reinforcements he immediately desired to bring in more of his own people for the work proposed.
“This is our work,” he declared. “We have planned to lead this campaign and lead it we shall. We must show the southerners that we are one in heart and intention and therefore every able-bodied man in the Grants must come in. It isn’t enough for us to have some men; we must have the most men and thereby control the expedition. We want the honor of it!”
“You must lead us, Colonel!” exclaimed Warner, who, although he had no such following as did Allen, was sure of a goodly company of determined men to join the expedition. “We’ll follow you into Old Ti or anywhere else; but no stranger must command.”
“Then I must have more men to my following than anybody else,” declared Allen, vigorously. “I have seen a great many myself, but there are districts I haven’t been able to reach.”
“We must send out a cross of fire to rouse the clans,” Captain Warner said, with a smile. “But who shall go? Bolderwood?”
“’Siah has reached his own land–where he’s let the light in upon some acres, I understand–near Old Ti. And he’s got his work cut out for him there. No; I have the chap in mind to send up along the Otter. There’s only one thing I fear. I understand that a plaguey Yorker has been seen about Manchester for a week past. Just what he’s so attentive to certain people for at this time bothers me, Seth.”
“But if he’s only a surveyor, or speculator—”
“A Yorker means a King’s man these times,” exclaimed Allen. “I got a sight of him–a lean, hook-nosed fellow with a face puckered like a walnut; but we didn’t pass the time o’ day. I think he’s spying on us.”
“If he is—” began Warner, wrathfully.
“I’m sorry for him, that’s all,” declared the Green Mountain leader. “If I catch him and it’s proven against him, I’ll hang him to the highest limb in this neck of woods.”
“But the person you will send out with the warning, Colonel?” cried Warner. “Whom have you in your mind?”
“I see him coming now,” declared the leader, laughing. “I sent word to him last evening. He should have been to Castleton ere this; but the widow—”
“It’s young Harding!” cried Captain Warner. “I recognize him. And, Colonel, from what I have seen of the young man, he’ll bear out your confidence in him.”
Enoch had approached near enough to hear this last and he flushed deeply. “I was told you wanted to see me, Colonel Allen,” he said, saluting awkwardly.
“I do indeed,” said Allen. “You’re ready for campaigning, I see. Leave your traps–even to your blanket and gun–with Master Fay here. You’ll want to travel light where I send you,” and he proceeded to explain the mission he wished the youth to perform.
“I am ready, Colonel,” declared Enoch, throwing off his knapsack.
“Good! Away with you at once. Use yonder horse till you get to Manchester. Beyond that there will scarcely be bridle paths, so a horse will be in your way. Take the word around that the time has come to strike. And have them rendezvous at Castleton. Be off, my boy, and may success go with you!”
The horse in question was a fine steed that Allen had ridden into town that very morning. The youth sprang into the saddle and, understanding that haste and cautiousness were the two things most desired of him, trotted the animal easily out of the town and then put the spurs to him along the road to Manchester. He spared neither the horse nor himself until he reached the latter place and had left the steed in the keeping of a loyal man to be returned at the first opportunity to Colonel Allen. Of course, all the men in this section of the Grants had been warned of the proposed expedition against the fortresses on Champlain; it was those who dwelt deeper in the wilderness to whom young Enoch Harding had been sent.
He knew what was expected of him. And he knew, too, how most of the Grants people would receive the news. Colonel Allen was beloved by them as were few leaders. This Connecticut giant who had given up his desire for a college education and a life among books because duty called him to the work of supporting his family, who had been by turn a farmer, an iron forger, had tried mining and other toilsome industries, but who nearly always worked with a book in his hand or beside him where he could read and study–this man with his free, jovial air and utterly reckless courage, was become as one of the heroes of old to the people of Vermont. The men on his side of the controversy in which Allen had taken such a deep interest, loved him devotedly; those who espoused the New York cause hated him quite as dearly, for they feared him.
So when Enoch set out from Manchester to go from farmstead to farmstead and from clearing to clearing, he was not in much doubt as to whom he should send to Castleton and whom he should pass by without speaking to regarding the proposed expedition. There would be no doubtful settlers. The line between Tories and Whigs was drawn too sharply; and every Whig stood by Ethan Allen.
Enoch had learned something of the paths and runways of this part of the Grants. It had been near here that Lot Breckenridge and himself, with Crow Wing, had spent a winter trapping. Lot had now gone, so he had heard, to Boston as he said he should if fighting began. He had gone to help Israel Putnam and the other New England leaders pen the British into the city and aid in that series of maneuvres which finally drove the red-coats into their ships. As for himself, Enoch was only eager to be one of those who should storm the walls of Ticonderoga, and glad as he was to have been singled out for this present duty, he was determined to husband his strength so as to get back to Castleton before the army gathering there should move against the British fortifications.
He walked rapidly; more often he ran. In the pouch at his belt he carried parched corn, like an Indian on the warpath. Occasionally at a clearing, where some hardy borderer was scratching a living from the half-cleared soil, he would stop long enough to eat. But usually he halted only to give the good man of the house the message from Ethan Allen and, as he passed on and entered the forest on the further side he looked back to see the settler, his gun on his shoulder, bidding his family good-bye preparatory to setting out for the rendezvous appointed for the American troops.
But nature revolts when a certain point of exhaustion is reached. Refusing to remain the night at one kindly settler’s home, Enoch finally found himself in the forest a goodly distance from any other house. The path could be followed quite easily, the woods being open; but he was footsore and thoroughly wearied. He shrank from lying down beside the trail, however, for more reasons than one. On several occasions that afternoon he had heard of the presence of another traveler in the vicinity, and the identity of this man he could not learn. The settlers who had mentioned him, however, declared they believed him to be a New York agent, or a spy from the British across the lake, who was going through the region to discover just how the people felt regarding the rising trouble between the Colonials and the mother country. Such, at least, had been the trend of his conversation with the loyal Americans to whom he had been unwise enough to speak.
The appearance of the man, too, rather troubled Enoch. He was said to be tall and lean, with a very black face, a huge nose and fiery eyes. The youth remembered how Simon Halpen looked a few weeks before when he saw him at Westminster, and this pretty well described the scoundrel. Halpen was in the Grants–or had been recently. Perhaps he had dared come across the mountains toward the lake on some errand for the Tory party, and the thought that the man who had murdered his father and who had tried to take his own life, might be within rifle shot, troubled the youth exceedingly. He could not drive away this thought and when finally he was forced to stop for rest he trembled to think that perhaps the light of his campfire would attract an enemy more to be feared than either the wolves or catamounts.
But he built his fire, broiled a piece of meat which the last settler he spoke to had given him, ate his supper, and then prepared to sleep for a few hours. The moon would rise late, and he desired to set forward on his journey again as soon as it was light enough in the forest. Just at present the darkness shrouded all objects. But when he lay down with his feet toward the blaze and his head upon a heap of moss for a pillow, he could not sleep, tired though he was. His nerves were all alive. His limbs twitched so that he could not keep them still. Every sound of the forest smote upon his ear with insistence. Although his muscles were wearied his eyes would not close.
Who was the Yorker that had crossed his path so many times during the past few hours? What did he desire here in the Otter country? Was he a spy for the British? or was he upon his own business? And, above all, was he, Nuck Harding, in danger? The stranger might be roaming the forest even then, hunting for the messenger of the Green Mountain chieftain. He had likely heard that Nuck was going from farmer to farmer, as Nuck had heard of his presence, and the man might contemplate stopping him. It would be easy for him to creep upon and shoot the defenseless youth as he lay before the fire.
Nuck’s only weapons were his knife and the hatchet stuck in his belt. Lying there within the circle of light cast by the flames he would be an easy mark for any enemy. As minute after minute passed it seemed utterly impossible for him to quench this fear and he finally rose to his feet and got out of the fire light. He stood in the deep shadow of a tree trunk and cast searching glances around the tiny clearing in which he had established his camp. Not a living thing did he observe.
But if there was an enemy on his trail, and he should come near the camp and see it deserted he would suspect a trap at once. Either he would circle about so as to finally find Enoch, or he would fly from the ambush at once. “I expect I am very foolish,–losing good sleep that I need, too!” muttered the young fellow. “But still—”
He could not explain the strange unrest that possessed him. He was not of a particularly nervous temperament; therefore his present mood troubled him the more. There was danger menacing him; he felt it, if he could not see nor understand it. The only possibility of peril which reason suggested was through the agency of that stranger. “I must have things here so that he will not suspect that I am on my guard,” the youth muttered.
Forthwith he dragged a piece of a broken tree-trunk to the fire, wrapped his coat about it and placed his cap at the end of the stick farthest from the blaze. He was careful to place the rude dummy far enough away from the fire so that its flickering light should not be cast upon it too strongly. It really looked, when he was through, as though some person lay there asleep. He did not feed the flames too generously, but left burning some hardwood sticks, the glowing coals of which would lend but little light to the scene. Then he retired again to the shadow of the tree where, crouching between two huge exposed roots, he waited with sleepless eyes for that which was, perhaps, merely the phantom of his fears.
As still as the shadow of the tree itself, Enoch lay with his face toward the camp. Truly, had the forest not been so dark outside the radiance of the fire, he would have set out again upon his journey, and left this spot which seemed to his troubled mind the lurking place of some serious danger. The minutes grew to an hour, however, without a suspicious sound reaching his ears. The usual noises of the forest–the hooting of the owl, the wolf’s cry, the whimper of the wild-cat–were all that disturbed the repose of the wilderness.
But suddenly a dry twig snapped somewhere near him. The sound went through the anxious youth like a shock of electricity. Its direction he could not fathom; yet he was sure that the branch had crackled under the pressure of a foot. Somebody–or something–was approaching his fire, which now threw a dull red light across the forest glade. Enoch’s eyes were fastened first upon one blot of shadow and then another. Occasionally, too, he darted a glance over his shoulder, that the approaching enemy might not come upon him unawares. Just at that time Enoch would have given much for his rifle. Its presence would have inspired him with a deal of courage. The very fact that the danger, which intuition rather than reason assured him was threatening, came from an unknown source, increased his fears. Perhaps Simon Halpen was not within a hundred miles of that identical spot. He who was visiting the Tories and New York sympathizers of this region was possibly nothing worse than the agent of a land speculator. The youthful Green Mountain Boy might be the only human being within five miles.
But suddenly that happened which shattered this fallacious web of thought in an instant. In the deep shadow of a thick clump of brush upon the other side of the fire, the youth observed a movement–rather, a flash or glint of light. The fire, increasing unexpectedly by the falling apart of one of the logs, had sent a penetrating ray of light into the thicket and there it glittered upon some polished piece of metal. Nothing else could have sent forth this answering gleam; it was not a pair of eyes; Enoch was confident of that.
“He is there!” whispered the youth, and he crouched lower between the roots. His eyes, sharp as they were, could not penetrate the gloom of the brush clump, and the glittering metal had now disappeared. But he was sure that the intruder was still there, reconnoitering the camp. Would he suspect the ruse? Would he observe that the body lying by the fire was simply a dummy? The youth was glad to see that the log with his jacket and cap upon it lay almost entirely in the shadow and that one coat-sleeve was stretched out upon the ground in a very natural manner indeed.
The moments that passed then were really terrible to young Harding. He knew himself to be in no immediate danger from this mysterious individual who had crept near his camp. Surely, the man could not see him where he lay shrouded in the darkness. Yet the thought that he was being dogged by a deadly enemy possessed him, and the doubt as to what the unknown would do next, brought the sweat to his brow and limbs and set him trembling like one with an ague. Not a breath disturbed the bushes, yet he felt that the man was there–there across the opening in the forest with his eyes fixed upon the supine figure near the fire. Had he not been warned by that mysterious feeling which had kept his eyes open and his nerves alert he, Enoch Harding, might now be lying unconscious with a deadly weapon trained upon him!
And then the shot was fired! Enoch expected it, yet the explosion almost betrayed him to the enemy. A gasp of terror left his lips. Incidental with the explosion he heard the thud of the ball as it penetrated the log, and the shock of the impact actually stirred the dummy. It leaped upon the uneven ground!
This fact was an awful accessory to the attempted murder. The inanimate object had moved as a human being would if suddenly shot through a vital part. Perhaps the very gasp of horror Enoch had uttered reached the ears of him who had fired from ambush. At least the enemy did not seek to come nearer. Indeed, the youth heard a crash in the brush and then the retreat of rapid footsteps. Having done, as he supposed, the awful deed, the murderer fled from the spot. Enoch had half risen to his feet. Now he sank upon his knees, clasped his hands, and thanked God for his preservation.
But he did not leave the sanctuary of the forest’s shadow until he was fully convinced that the villain who had made the attempt upon his life was far away. Then, still shaking from the nervous terror inspired by the incident, he crept to the dying fire, secured his cap and coat, and went back to the roots of the tree again until the growing glow above the tree-tops announced the rising of the moon. The sky grew bright rapidly and soon the moonbeams wandered among the straight, handsome trees and lay calmly upon the earth. He could once more see objects about him with almost the clearness of full daylight.
Enoch arose and crossed to the clump of brush from which the treacherous shot had been fired. Through a break in the branches a flood of moonlight now silvered the earth at this point. He dropped upon one knee and examined the ground closely. There were the marks of the feet of him who had tried to shoot a helpless and sleeping human being. Enoch shuddered and placed his fingers in the impression of the moccasins. The incident that had just transpired was very real to him now.
But he had not come here merely to assure himself of this fact. The bullet in the log and the hole through his coat were sufficient, if he had indeed doubted his eyes and ears before. He glanced down at the coat. Oddly enough the bullet had torn its way through the stout homespun directly over his heart!
He glanced keenly now from side to side and saw that the enemy who made the treacherous attack had come from the trail he had followed that afternoon, and had returned in the same direction. He followed the footsteps which led away from the brush clump. In doing this he was quickly assured that the man who had shot at him was a white man. An Indian walks with his toes pointed inward; this individual, even as he ran, pointed his toes out. He was certain, therefore, that his enemy was no wandering redskin.
“It was Halpen–I am sure of it!” muttered the youth, striking into the trail at last and continuing the journey upon which the darkness had overtaken him. “He believes that he has killed me. I only hope he will not be undeceived. But if he is ever in my power he shall suffer! What a villain the man is to follow our family and seek to murder and injure us! Oh, I hope this war which Colonel Allen says is surely beginning, will give us folks of the Grants our freedom from New York as well as from England. I fear men like Halpen more than I do the soldiers of the King.”
Although he had not slept, Enoch was rested in body and he traveled quite rapidly. Before dawn he had aroused two settlers from their slumbers, delivered Colonel Allen’s message, and gone on his way. He observed no signs of his enemy of the night and was confident that the man had not continued on this trail, and was not, therefore, ahead of him. But he determined not to sleep in the forest during the remainder of his journey. He spent the day in alarming the farmers, circling around into the mountains before night and stopping at last with a distant pioneer who, with his two grown sons, promised to go back with him to the rendezvous of Allen’s army at Castleton in the morning.
Enoch’s mind was burdened with the mystery of Halpen’s presence in the Grants at this time, however. Surely the Yorker could not be upon private business. He must have a mission from either the land speculators, the New York authorities, or from those even higher. The plans of the Colonials to attack Old Ti and seize the munitions of war stored there, might have been whispered in the ears of the British commander, De la Place. Perhaps he had sent this man, who knew the territory so well, to spy upon the Green Mountain Boys and their friends. Simon Halpen could do the cause afoot much harm by returning swiftly to the lake and warning the commander of Fort Ticonderoga. Enoch believed Colonel Allen should know of Halpen’s presence as soon as possible; and he was determined to return at once, although he certainly deserved rest and refreshment after his arduous journey through the wilderness. Therefore he urged the hurried departure of these three pioneers and before dawn the quartette started for Castleton.
Meanwhile, at the camp of the Green Mountain Boys much was transpiring of importance to the expedition. The honor of capturing Ticonderoga history gives unconditionally to Ethan Allen and his handful of followers; but the suggestion and preparations for the momentous task was divided between the Colonies of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and the Hampshire Grants, or Vermont, as it was now beginning to be called. In April the authorities of Connecticut raised three hundred pounds for the expense of this expedition and Samuel H. Parsons, Silas Deane (afterward one of America’s representatives in Paris, but an arch enemy of Washington) and Benedict Arnold, raised a handful of troops to send north as a nucleus of that army which was expected to fall upon one of the strongest British forts in the country.
At Pittsfield, in western Massachusetts, Colonel Easton had recruited a larger band of earnest patriots, and these, joined with the company from the more southern colony, made a very respectable force to march through the country to Bennington, where they arrived on May third. In the meantime at Albany Messrs. Halsey and Stephens had been pleading with the New York Congress to grant permission for troops to be raised for, and money devoted to, the capture of the same fortresses as the New England leaders had in mind. But, as we have seen, New York was at that time lukewarm in the uprising of the colonies. Beside, the Continental Congress was to meet in seven days and it was judged better by the cautious Yorkers to wait and see what that body of representatives would do before any direct act of war was indulged in. Therefore New York lost her opportunity of joining in one of the most glorious campaigns of the entire Revolutionary period.
The Committee of Safety in Massachusetts, on the other hand, had decided to act against Old Ti. Benedict Arnold, after stirring up the people to fever pitch in his own colony, Connecticut, went post-haste to Cambridge and demanded a commission and authority to raise and lead the troops against the Champlain forts. This first move of this much-hated man in the Revolution savored of intrigue and self-seeking–as did most of his other public acts. He desired the honor of commanding this expedition, and he was personally courageous enough to march up to the mouths of Old Ti’s guns if need be; but he had no personal following and could not hope to recruit men himself for the expedition. Nevertheless, he proposed to have the backing of a regular commission from the Massachusetts committee and thus supersede Colonel Easton. This desire on his part might have become a fact had it not been for one person whom Benedict Arnold did not take into consideration.
The Massachusetts and Connecticut forces were guided to the camp of the Green Mountain Boys while the leaders held a conference at the Catamount Inn in Bennington. Colonel Easton was a truly brave man, and as such was not disturbed by petty jealousy. It was left to fate to decide who should command the expedition, and Ethan Allen having the largest personal following, was acclaimed commander. Greatly to Captain–now Major–Warner’s disappointment his own men did not number as many as the Massachusetts troops; but he gracefully yielded second place to Easton and accepted third himself. Plans for the march through the wilderness were then carefully discussed and the leaders rode to Castleton and reviewed the raw recruits whose valor was, at a later day, to be so noised abroad.
The Green Mountain Boys, after four years of training, presented much the better appearance. And every man was practically a sharpshooter. What their rifles and muskets could do against the thick, if crumbling, walls of Ticonderoga, might with good judgment be asked; but they lacked neither courage nor faith in their leader. They would have followed Ethan Allen through a wall of fire if need be to the line of the British fortifications. In their eyes he was invincible.
On the morning of the start from Castleton the army was paraded–a few hundred meagrely armed men to march against a fortress, to capture which had cost the British two expensive campaigns and the loss of some three thousand men. Their leaders harangued them, and Ethan Allen’s promises of glory and honor inspired quite as much enthusiasm as the commander of any expedition could have wished. There had gathered to observe the departure many gentlemen of the countryside, and not a few of those individuals who, at a time like this, always occupy a prominent position “on the fence”–that is, they having not yet decided which cause to espouse, waited to see whether the King’s troops or the earnest patriots would win.
Among these spectators was a well set up man of military bearing, indeed garbed in a military coat, with a cockade in his hat and his hair carefully dressed. He was quite a dandy, or a “macoroni” as the exquisites of that day were called both in London and in the Colonies. His dark visage and hawk-like eye commanded more than a passing glance from all and when, just before the troops started, he was observed to walk across the parade and calmly approach the group of officers standing at one side, all eyes became fixed upon him.
“Who is that haughty looking man yonder?” asked one spectator of his neighbor who happened to be better informed than his friend, “and what does he here?”
“What he does here I know not,” declared the individual thus addressed, “but his name I can tell you, having seen him in Hartford on several occasions. It is Benedict Arnold, a name quite well known–and not altogether honorably–in that part of Connecticut.”