Роберт Чамберс - The Hidden Children

Boyd nodded; the Oneidas drew their hatchets and blazed the trees; and we all sat down in the woods to await the coming of our advanced guard.

After a little while, our pioneers appeared, rifles slung, axes glittering on their shoulders, and immediately began to fell trees and rebuild the log bridge. Hard on their heels came my rifle battalion; and in the red sunshine we watched the setting of the string of outposts.

Far back along the trail behind us we could hear the halted army making camp; flurries of cheery music from the light infantry bugle–horns, the distant rolling of drums, the rangers penetrating whistle, lashes of wagoners cracking, the melancholy bellow of the beef herd.

Major Parr came and talked with us for a few minutes, and went away convinced that Butler's people lay watching us across the creek. Ensign Chambers came a–mincing through the woods, a–whisking the snuff from his nose with the only laced hanker in the army; and:

"Dear me!" says he. "Do you really think we shall have a battle, Loskiel? How very interesting and enjoyable it will be."

"Who drilled your pretty hide, Benjamin?" said I bluntly, noting that he wore his left arm in a splint.

"Lord!" says he. "'Twas a scratch from a half–ounce ball at the Chemung. Dear, dear, how very disappointing was that affair, Loskiel! Most annoying of them not to stand our charge!" And, "Dear, dear, dear," he murmured, mincing off again with all the air of a Wall Street beau ogling the pretty dames on Hanover Square.

"Where is this damned Castle?" growled Boyd. "Chinisee, Chenussio, Genesee—whatever it is called? The name keeps buzzing in my head—nay, for the last three days I have dreamed of it and awakened to hear it sounding in my ears, as though beside me some one stooped and whispered it."

I pulled out our small map, which we had long since learned to distrust, yet even our General had no better one.

Here was marked the Chinisee Castle, near the confluence of Canaseraga Creek and the Chinisee River; and I showed the place to Boyd, who looked at it curiously.

Mayaro, however, shook his crested head:

"No, Loskiel," he said. "The Chinisee Castle stands now on the western shore. The Great Town should stand here!"—placing his finger on an empty spot on the map. "And here, two miles above, is another town."

"And you had better tell that to the General when he comes," remarked Boyd. And to me he said: "If we are to take Amochol at all, it will be this night or at dawn at the Chinisee Castle."

"I am also of that opinion," said I.

"I shall want twenty riflemen," he said.

"If it can not be done with four, and my Indians, we need not attempt it."

"Why?" he asked sullenly.

"The General has so ordered."

"Yes, but if I am to catch Amochol I must do it in my own way. I know how to do it. And if I risk taking my twenty riflemen, and am successful, the General will not care how it was accomplished."

I said nothing, because Boyd ranked me, but what he proposed made me very uneasy. More than once he had interpreted orders after his own fashion, and, being always successful in his enterprises, nothing was said to him in reproof.

My Indians had made a fire, I desiring to let the enemy suppose that we suspected nothing of his ambuscade so close at hand; and around this we lay, munching our meagre meal of green corn roasted on the coals, and ripe apples to finish.

As we ended, the sun set behind the western bluffs, and our evening gun boomed good–night in the forest south of us. And presently came, picking their way through the trail–mire, our General, handsomely horsed as usual, attended by Major Adam Hoops, of his staff, and several others.

We instantly waited on him and told him what we knew and suspected; and I showed him my map and warned him of the discrepancy between its marked places and the report of the Mohican Sagamore.

"Damnation!" he said. "Every map I have had lies in detail, misleading and delaying me when every hour empties our wagons of provisions. Were it not for your Indians, Mr. Loskiel, and that Sagamore in particular, we had missed half the game as it lies."

He sat his saddle in silence for a while, looking at the unfinished log bridge and up at the bluffs opposite.

"I feel confident that Butler is there," he said bluntly. "But what I wish to know is where this accursed Chinisee Castle stands. Boyd, take four men, move rapidly just before midnight, find out where this castle stands, and report to me at sunrise."

Boyd saluted, hesitated, then asked permission to speak. And when the General accorded it, he explained his plan to take Amochol at the Chinisee Castle, and that this matter would neither delay nor interfere with a prompt execution of his present orders.

"Very well," nodded the General, "but take no more than four men, and Mr. Loskiel and his Indians with you; and report to me at sunrise."

I heard him say this; Major Hoops heard him also. So I supposed that Boyd would obey these orders to the letter.

When the mounted party had moved away, Boyd and I went back to the fire and lay down on our blankets. We were on the edge of the trees; it was still daylight; the pioneers were still at work; and my Indians were freshening their paint, rebraiding their scalp–locks, and shining up hatchet, rifle, and knife.

"Look at those bloodhounds," muttered Boyd. "They did not hear what we were talking about, but they know by premonition."

"I do not have any faith in premonitions," said I.

"Why?"

"I have dreamed I was scalped, and my hair still grows."

"You are not out of the woods yet," he said, sombrely.

"That does not worry me."

"Nor me. Yet, I do believe in premonition."

"That is old wives' babble."

"Maybe, Loskiel. Yet, I know I shall not leave this wilderness alive."

"Lord!" said I, attempting to jest. "You should set up as a rival to Amochol and tell us all our fortunes."

He smiled—and the effort distorted his pale, handsome face.

"I think it will happen at Chinisee," he said quietly.

"What will happen?"

"The end of the world for me, Loskiel."

"It is not like you, Boyd, to speak in such a manner. Only lately have I ever heard from you a single note of such foreboding."

"Only lately have I been dowered with the ominous clairvoyance. I am changed, Loskiel."

"Not in courage."

"No," he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders that set ruffles and thrums a–dancing on his rifle–dress.

We were silent for a while, watching the Indians at their polishing. Then he said in a low but pleasant voice:

"How proud and happy must you be with your affianced. What a splendour of happiness lies before you both! An unblemished past, an innocent passion, a future stretching out unstained before you—what more can God bestow on man and maid?…May bright angels guard you both, Loskiel."

I made to thank him for the wish, but suddenly found I could not control my voice, so lay there in silence and with throat contracted, looking at this man whose marred young life lay all behind him, and whose future, even to me, lowered strangely and ominously veiled.

And as we lay there, into our fire–circle came a dusty, mud–splashed, and naked runner, plucking from his light skin–pouch two letters, one for Boyd and one for me.

I read mine by the flickering fire; it was dated from Tioga Point:

"Euan Loskiel, my honoured and affianced husband, and my lover, worshipped and adored, I send you by this runner my dearest affections, my duties, and my most sacred sentiments.

"You must know that this day we have arrived at the Fort at Tioga Point without any accident or mischance of any description, and, indeed, not encountering one living creature between Catharines–town and this post.