Robert Chambers - The Little Red Foot

"Where is the horse?" I asked.

"Safe stabled in the new fort."

"Where is the girl?"

"Well," said he, "she sits yonder eating soupaan in the fort, and all the Continentals making moon-eyes at her."

"That's my horse," said I shortly. "Take your lantern and show her to me."

One of the militia men picked up the lantern, which had been burning on the grass between us, and I followed along the bank of the creek.

Presently I saw the Block House against the stars, but all loops were shuttered and no light came from them.

There was a ditch, a bridge of three logs, a stockade not finished; and we passed in between the palings where a gateway was to be made, and where another militia-man sat guard on a chopping block, cradling his fire-lock between his knees, fast asleep.

The stable was but a shed. Kaya turned her head as I went to her and made a soft little noise of welcome, and fell a-lipping me and rubbing her velvet nose against me.

"The Scotch girl cared for your mare and fed her, paying four pence," said the militia-man. "But we were ashamed to take pay."

I examined Kaya. She had been well cared for. Then I lifted her harness from the wooden peg where it hung and saddled her by the lantern light.

And when all was snug I passed the bridle over my arm and led her to the door of the Block House.

Before I entered, I could hear from within the strains of a fiddle; and then opened the door and went in.

The girl, Penelope, sat on a block of wood eating soupaan with a pewter spoon out of a glazed bowl upon her knees.

Ten soldiers stood in a ring around her, every man jack o' them a-courting as hard as he could court and ogle – which all was as plain to me as the nose on your face! – and seemed to me a most silly sight.

For the sergeant, a dapper man smelling rank of pomatum and his queue smartly floured, was a-wooing her with his fiddle and rolling big eyes at her to kill at twenty paces; and a tall, thin corporal was tying a nosegay made of swamp marigolds for her, which, now and again, he pretended to match against her yellow hair and smirked when she lifted her eyes to see what he was about.

Every man jack o' them was up to something, one with a jug o' milk to douse her soupaan withal, another busy with his Barlow carving a basket out of a walnut to please her; – this fellow making pictures on birch-bark; that one scraping her name on his powder-horn and pricking a heart about it.

As for the girl, Penelope, she sat upon her chopping block with downcast eyes and very leisurely eating of her porridge; but I saw her lips traced with that faint smile which I remembered.

What with the noise of the fiddle and the chatter all about her, neither she nor the soldiers heard the door open, nor, indeed, noticed us at all until my militia-men sings out: "Lieutenant Drogue, boys, on duty from Johnstown!"

At that the Continentals jumped up very lively, I warrant you, being troops of some little discipline already; and I spoke civilly to their sergeant and went over to the girl, Penelope, who had risen, bowl in one hand, spoon in t'other, and looking upon me very hard out of her brown eyes.

"Come," said I pleasantly, "you have kept your word to me and I mean to keep mine to you. My mare is saddled for you."

"You take me to Caughnawaga, sir!" she exclaimed, setting bowl and spoon aside.

"Tomorrow. Tonight you shall ride with us to the Summer House, where I promise you a bed."

I held out my hand. She placed hers within it, looked shyly at the Continentals where they stood, dropped a curtsey to all, and went out beside me.

"Is there news?" she asked as I lifted her to the saddle.

"Sir John is gone."

"I meant news from Caughnawaga."

"Why, yes. All is safe there. A regiment of Continentals passed through Caughnawaga today with their waggons. So, for the time at least, all is quite secure along the Mohawk."

"Thank you," she said in a low voice.

I led the horse back to the road, where my little squad of men was waiting me, and who fell in behind me, astonished, I think, as I started east by north once more along the Mayfield road.

Presently Nick stole to my side through the darkness, not a whit embarrassed by my new military rank.

"Why, John," says he in a guarded voice, "is this not the Scotch girl of Caughnawaga who rides your mare, Kaya?"

I told him how she had come to the Bowmans the night before, and how, having stolen my mare, I bargained with her and must send her or guide her myself on the morrow to Cayadutta.

I was conscious of his stifled mirth but paid no heed, for we were entering the pineries now, where all was inky dark, and the trail to be followed only by touch of foot.

"Drop your bridle; Kaya will follow me," I called back softly to the girl, Penelope. "Hold to the saddle and be not afraid."

"I am not afraid," said she.

We were now moving directly toward Fonda's Bush, and not three miles from my own house, but presently we crossed the brook, ascended a hill, and so came out of the pinery and took a wide and starlit waggon-path which bore to the left, running between fields where great stumps stood.

This was Sir William's carriage road to the Point; and twice we crossed the Kennyetto by shallow fords.

Close beside this carriage path on the north, and following all the way, ran the Iroquois war trail, hard and clean as a sheep walk, worn more than a foot deep by the innumerable moccasined feet that had trodden it through the ages.

Very soon we passed Nine-Mile Tree, a landmark of Sir William's, which was a giant pine left by the road to tower in melancholy majesty all alone.

When I rode the hills as Brent-Meester, this pine was like a guide post to me, visible for miles.

Now, as I passed, I looked at it in the silvery dusk of the stars and saw some strange object shining on the bark.

"What is that shining on Nine-Mile Tree?" said I to Nick. He ran across the road; we marched on, I leading, then the Scotch girl on my mare, then my handful of men trudging doggedly with pieces a-trail.

A moment later Nick same swiftly to my side and nudged me; and looking around I saw an Indian hatchet in his hand, the blade freshly brightened.

"It was sticking in the tree," he breathed. "My God, John, the Iroquois are out!"

Chill after chill crawled up my back as I began to understand the significance of that freshly polished little war-axe with its limber helve of hickory worn slippery by long usage, and its loop of braided deer-hide blackened by age.

"Was there aught else?" I whispered.

"Nothing except this Mohawk hatchet struck deep into the bark of Nine-Mile Tree, and sticking there."

"Do you know what it means, Nick?"

"Aye. Also, it is an old war-axe newly polished. And struck deep into the tallest pine in Tryon. Any fool must know what all this means. Shall you speak of this to the others, John?"

"Yes," said I, "they must know at once."

I waited for Kaya to come up, laid my hand on the bridle and called back in a low voice to my men: "Boys, an Indian war-axe was left sticking in Nine-Mile Tree. Nick drew it out. The hatchet is an old one, but it is newly polished !"

"Sacré garce!" whispered Silver fiercely. "Now, grâce à dieu, shall I reckon with those dirtee trap-robbers who take my pelts like the carcajou! Ha! So is it war? A la bonheur! Let them come for my hair then! And if they get Johnny Silver's hair they may paint the Little Red Foot on the hoop, nom de dieu!"

"Get along forward, boys," said I. "Some of you keep an eye on the mountains lest they begin calling to Sir John with fire – "

"A flame on Maxon!" whispered Nick at my elbow.

I jerked my head around as though I had been shot. There it rose, a thin red streak above the blunt headland that towered over the Drowned Lands. Steadily as a candle's flame in a still room, it burned for a few moments, then was shattered into crimson jets.