II

They started from Dutton's next morning, a troop of a dozen men and

three boys, bound for Beaver Falls. "Big Bill" left his store in charge

of his wife, and took command of the troop. They were all hardy and

strong, and they covered the twenty miles to Beaver Falls by the middle

of the afternoon.

Here there stood a sawmill on the river, with a score of log houses, and

farms scattered through the neighborhood. The place looked perfectly

quiet as the fifteen Green Mountain Boys trooped up to it. But they soon

found there was plenty of excitement in the mill. There were gathered

most of the men of the Falls, and they were very glad to see the

reinforcements.

"Yorkers been found prowling round in the woods!" "Surveyors been caught

in the act of staking claims!" "Jim Murdock found a paper stuck on his

door, saying we'd better get out peaceful-like, and let the lawful

owners have their land!" Such were some of the items of information

given to Dutton's band.

"Let 'em come!" exclaimed Snyder, slapping his hand round the muzzle of

his gun. "This is the law of the land we'll read to them!"

After a time Jack and Sam, having heard all there was to hear, struck

out on a line of their own. They followed the bank of the river until

they came to woods, and then skirted the forest southward. This brought

them at length to a wide trail with frozen wheel ruts. Down this road

they went, passing occasional cabins, until they came to a crossroad

where they found a man looking perplexedly about him, as if undecided

which road to take.

"Where's Farmer Robins' place?" he asked. "The place that used to belong

to Elijah Robins."

"We don't know," said Jack. "We're strangers here."

"There's a maple grove back of it," said the stranger, "that's all I

know about it. I was told to stick to this road, but they didn't say

nothing about any forks in it."

"This goes to Beaver Falls," said Sam, pointing to the one they had

taken, "and that," he added, indicating the crossroad to the right of

him, "would take you through thick woods to the river."

"I don't reckon it's either o' those roads then," said the man, and,

bobbing his head at Sam, he stalked off to the left.

The two boys watched until the man was almost hidden by the trees. Then

Jack turned to Sam. "You don't want to tell all you know to strangers,"

he said. "Make the other man tell you what he's up to first."

Sam's round face, not nearly so shrewd as the older boy's, looked

perplexed. "Why shouldn't I tell him about those other roads?" he asked.

"Because I think he may be one of the Yorkers, and the less we tell them

about the lay of the land round here the better."

"Do you really think he was?" exclaimed Sam, his tone of voice showing

that he had expected a Yorker to be a much more terrifying looking

creature than this stranger. "What did he want of Farmer Robins' place

then?"

"I don't know," answered Jack. "But I think we might be able to find out

something more about it if we follow his tracks."

They turned to the west, following the road where the prints of the

man's big hob-nailed boots could now and then be seen in the frozen

crust of snow. The sun was setting, and the wind was rising, and they

pulled their fur caps down over their ears and stuck their hands in

their pockets as they trudged along. It grew dark rapidly. They passed

two cabins where they looked closely for a clump of maples and then

scoured the road to find the prints of the hob-nails. The man's tracks

went on, and they followed, only speaking in whispers now lest they

should be overheard.

At the third log house they stopped. Jack, catching Sam by the sleeve,

pointed to the back of the house, where the starlight unmistakably

showed a grove of trees. Smoke came from the chimney, and the front

door, not quite plumb in its frame, showed there was a light inside.

Jack crept round the cabin, Sam following him, each as silent as if they

were stalking moose. There were four windows, but each was securely

shuttered from the inside, and though light came through the cracks, the

boys could see nothing of what was going on inside nor catch a sound of

voices.

Then Jack made the circuit of the house again, this time examining the

logs and the filling of clay between them with the greatest care. At

last he found a place that seemed to interest him, and he pulled out his

hunting knife from its sheath and began to pick at a knot-hole in the

wood. His knife was very sharp, and he dug into the circle round the

knot and then into the clay just below it. He worked swiftly and very

quietly. In a short time he had the wood loosened; pressing inward with

his blade he forced the knot out, and then scraped some of the plaster

away. Now he had a hole that enabled him by stooping a little to look

into the cabin.

He put his eye to the opening and saw about a dozen men in the room. He

could hear what they said. They were, as he had suspected, Yorkers,

planning to make an attack on the people at Beaver Falls. As Jack

listened he pieced one remark to another, and caught the gist of their

plans. They meant to march down to the Falls that night, stop at each

house, rout the people out, make them prisoners in the sawmill, and take

possession of houses and farms under orders from officers of the

province of New York.

Jack drew away from the hole, and let Sam have a chance to look into the

log-house room. When Sam had watched and listened for a few minutes he

nodded to Jack, and the two stole away from the cabin as noiselessly as

they had circled round it.

Out on the road, as they went hurrying back by the way they had come,

they whispered to each other, telling what each had overheard. Then they

went at a dog-trot to the path along the river and came to the sawmill

at Beaver Falls.

Peter, "Big Bill" Dutton, Snyder, and most of the other men were at the

mill, though some had been stationed on sentry-duty in the fields and

woods. Jack told his story without interruption, and then the men began

to plan how they should welcome the Yorkers. It was "Big Bill's" plan

they finally adopted, and set to work to carry it into effect at once.

All the people at the Falls had had their supper, the women were busy

cleaning up, most of the children were in bed. The men went to the

houses, and told the women that they and the children must spend the

night in the sawmill. Children were bundled into warm clothes, and,

wondering what was happening, were hurried to the mill by their mothers.

Half a dozen men under command of Snyder were stationed at the mill, the

others were allotted to the different houses in the village. Two were

told off to each house, and it happened that Peter and Jack stood on

guard at the house nearest the Falls.

Every house at that time had its store of firearms, its powder and

balls. Peter and Jack sat inside their cabin, muskets ready to hand.

From time to time they threw fresh wood on the fire, for the night was

cold. Jack stood at a window, looking out at the open space along the

river and the road on the opposite bank, both faintly lighted by the

stars. Midnight came, but there was no sign of the Yorkers; presently it

seemed to Jack that it must be nearly dawn.

Peter, standing at a window on the other side of the door from Jack,

suddenly said, "Look! There, coming through the trees to the left of the

mill!"

Jack looked and saw men coming into the road, a good many of them, more

than he thought he had seen at Farmer Robins' house. They came along the

road, crossed the wooden bridge below the Falls, passed by the mill,

evidently taking it for granted there would be no one there at this

hour, and marched into the clearing before the log houses. There they

divided into small parties, each party heading for a separate cabin.

"Ready now!" cautioned Peter. "We've got two to handle. I'll take the

first."

Jack stepped back from the window and laid his hand on the bolt of the

door.

"Wait till I give the word," whispered Peter.

From outside there came a loud voice. "Open your door in the name of the

Sheriff of New York!" There followed knocks on the door, and other

orders, all to the same intent.

Peter waited until the owner might be supposed to rouse and get to the

door. Then he whispered, "Now!" Jack drew back the bolt and opened the

door enough for the men to enter single file. One man stepped in, the

other followed at his heels.

Peter caught the first man in his arms, and, taking him altogether

unawares, threw him to the floor with a wrestler's trip. Jack, throwing

his arms round the second man's knees, brought him down with a crash.

Lithe and quick as an eel, Jack squirmed up to the man's chest and

gripped the Yorker's throat in his hands. In a minute or two the man

underneath was almost breathless. "Do you surrender?" panted Jack. The

Yorker tried to nod.

Peter had wrenched his man's gun away, and was copying Jack's tactics.

His man was partly stunned by the sharpness of the fall and made little

attempt to free himself from Peter's grasp. Finding himself attacked by

a thoroughly-prepared and resolute man, he had no notion as to how many

other such men there might be in the house. It was clearly a case where

it was best to save one's skin as whole as one could. So, when Peter

said, "Keep still there, will you!" the Yorker grunted, "I will," and

made no attempt, unarmed as he was, to try further conclusions with the

sinewy hunter.

Peter had a coil of rope ready. Now he cut two lengths of this, tossed

one over to Jack, who still kept his knee on the chest of his man, and

used the other to tie the arms of his own prisoner. Then he helped the

Yorker to his feet. Meantime Jack had followed his example with the

other, and shortly both prisoners were standing before the hearth while

their captors searched their pockets for firearms and knives.

"I must allow," said one of the Yorkers, "you two were mighty sharp! We

figured that when you people here heard we were acting under sheriff's

orders you'd do as you were told."

"We don't pay no more attention hereabouts to what a Yorker sheriff says

than if he was a catamount,--no, not so much as that!" returned Peter.

"What do you men mean by marching into a peaceful village an' trying to

turn people out o' their lawful homes?"

"Well, the village certainly looked peaceful enough," said the Yorker,

"but I don't see as how we've turned many folks out o' their homes

yet."

"And I don't think you will!" Peter assured him. "Jack, take a look

outside and see what's happened."

Jack went out, and going from house to house, found that wherever the

Yorkers had demanded admittance the Green Mountain Boys had worked their

trick beautifully. In two or three houses it had taken some time to make

the enemy prisoners, but in each case the elements of surprise and

determination had won the day. The Yorkers had expected to meet

frightened villagers; instead they had found themselves confronting

well-prepared Green Mountain Boys.

Under direction of "Big Bill" Dutton the prisoners, all with their arms

securely tied behind them, were marched out into the road. "You say you

came to Beaver Falls to carry out the law," said Dutton to the Yorkers;

"well, to-morrow we'll march you all down to Bennington, and see what

the law has to say about this business." Then he sent Sam to the sawmill

with word to Snyder to have the women and children return to their own

houses. When the sawmill was empty the Green Mountain Boys marched their

prisoners into it, and loosened their bonds so that they could be fairly

comfortable.

In spite of the high feeling between the two parties, there was

practically no bad blood, for no one had been wounded in the contest,

and the Yorkers could appreciate the clever way in which their

opponents had turned the tables on them. In most respects the men were

much alike; men of the New York Grants and the New Hampshire Grants had

both gone into the wilderness and met the same problems there. Men from

both provinces had fought against the French and Indians, and this

little fight as to which province owned the land of the Green Mountains

was in a way a family affair. So prisoners and captors swapped yarns,

told hunting stories, and exchanged the news of their own neighborhoods.

Jack and Sam and the boy from Dutton's sat in a corner of the mill and

listened to the men. Dawn began to break in the east. Some women brought

hot coffee and ham and bacon from the houses, and the men, both captors

and captives, ate and drank, and then some of them stretched out on the

floor and took short naps.

Day had come when one of the Green Mountain Boys, who had been stationed

as sentry on the road across the river, dashed into the mill with a new

alarm. He had seen some men, perhaps a dozen of them, coming down the

road toward the Falls. They might be friends or they might be enemies.

The men of the Falls must not be taken by surprise.

"Big Bill" quickly gave his orders. Three men, armed with muskets, were

left in charge of the prisoners in the sawmill, and the rest, their guns

ready for instant use if need be, marched out into the clearing between

the mill and the bridge, ready to defend Beaver Falls from the

newcomers in case they should be Yorkers.