THE AMBUSH
The house of James Breckenridge was built at the foot of a slight ridge
of land running east and west, which ridge was heavily wooded. It was
only a mile from the Twenty-Mile Line and therefore particularly open to
attack by the New York authorities. Once before had an attempt been made
by the grasping land speculators of the sister colony to oust its
rightful owner, but at that time naught but a wordy controversy had
ensued, whereas the present attack bade fair to be more serious.
Breckenridge had sent his family to the settlement in expectation of
this trouble, while he and his neighbors made ready to meet the sheriff
and his army. Some of the Bennington men had arrived at the farm the
evening before when news went forth that the invaders were only seven
miles away, at Sancock. But the greater number of the defenders came, as
did 'Siah Bolderwood and young Enoch Harding, soon after sun-up.
This gathering of Grants men was a memorable one. Heretofore, the
clashes with the Yorkers had been little more than skirmishes in which
half a dozen or a dozen men on both sides had taken part. Ethan Allen,
Seth Warner, Remember Baker, and others of the more venturesome spirits,
had seized some of the land-grabbers and their tools, and delivered upon
their bared backs more strokes of "the twigs of the wilderness," as
Allen called the blue beech rods, than the unhappy Yorkers thus treated
would forget in many a day.
Ethan Allen was not as long in the settlement as many of the other men
about him; but he was a born leader, and entering heart and soul into
the cause of the Grants was soon acknowledged the most fiery spirit
among the settlers. He was born in Litchfield, Conn., January 10, 1737,
and probably came to the Hampshire Grants some time in '69. Although but
thirty-four years old at this time he carried his point in most
arguments regarding the well-being of the settlers, and the Green
Mountain boys, as his followers came to be called, fairly worshipped
him. He was singularly handsome, with ruddy face, a ready wit, bold,
unpolished, brave and almost a giant in size, for though not so tall as
Seth Warner he was a much heavier and broader man.
With this company of armed men, too, was Remember Baker and his
flint-lock musket, which seldom left his side waking or sleeping. Baker
was the best shot on the northern border and performed feats of
marksmanship with this musket that could scarce be equaled by any of our
famous marksmen to-day with their improved weapons. Like the stories
told of Robin Hood and his cloth-yard shafts, Baker could split a wand
with a bullet and always filed the flint on his musket to a sharp point.
Other men there were in this early morning assembly destined to be heard
from later in the affairs of the struggling community, but none so
filled young Enoch Harding's eye as did these two. Remember Baker lived
not far from the Harding farm and Enoch often went there to visit young
Robert Baker, or had Robert to stay all night with him at his home. But
Enoch's closest boy friend was James Breckenridge's nephew, Lot, who was
two years young Harding's senior and bore arms on this morning with the
older youths and men. At once when the two spied each other they found
opportunity to step aside and hold such confidences as boys are wont.
Yet they were so excited by the prospect of the forthcoming battle with
the Yorkers that even Nuck's adventure with the catamount was lightly
passed over.
Meanwhile the settlers were divided into several bands, each captained
by an efficient officer who, as 'Siah Bolderwood expressed it, "had
snuffed powder." Bolderwood himself was given command of the larger
number and arranged his men along the top of the ridge behind the house,
where they would be concealed by the brush but could draw bead upon any
person passing along the road or approaching the farmhouse. One hundred
and twenty under a second leader were hidden beside the road while
eighteen and an officer were stationed inside the house itself.
These arrangements had scarce been made when a figure was descried
approaching at top speed. It was a messenger to warn the settlers of the
coming of the enemy. "Run down to the house, Nuck," commanded 'Siah,
"and get the news for me. Keep your heads down, lads! Let them Yorkers
when they come, think there ain't nobody to home!"
Enoch crept through the brush and descended the slope, appearing before
the house just as the runner reached it. Coming so suddenly from behind
the dwelling Enoch startled the newcomer, who sprang back and placed his
hand on the hunting knife at his belt. Then, with a contemptuous grunt,
the messenger passed Enoch by and lifted the latch-string which had been
left hanging out. Enoch followed him into the Breckenridge house.
The runner was a tall Indian lad with a keen face and coal-black eyes
and hair. Enoch knew him, for his people had camped for several years
near the Harding place. But Jonas Harding had had that contempt for the
red race which characterized many of the pioneer people and was the
foundation for more than half the trouble between the whites and reds;
and he had often expressed this contempt before young Crow Wing, who was
a chief's son although his tribe was scattered and decimated by disease.
Crow Wing had hated Enoch's father for his taunts and unkind words, and
now that the elder Harding was dead the young Indian considered his son
cast in the same mould and worthy of the same hatred which he had borne
Jonas. Naturally Enoch would have shared his parent's contempt for the
Indians; but 'Siah Bolderwood, although he had camped, hunted and fought
with Enoch's father for so many years, did not share the latter's
opinion of the Indian character, and from him Enoch had imbibed many
ideas of late which changed his opinion of the red men. There was a
time, however, when the white boy had ridiculed Crow Wing and the latter
had not forgotten.
Enoch watched him now with admiration. The young brave had run for
several miles, having been sent out toward Sancock by one of the
settlers for whom he sometimes worked, but he breathed as easily as
though he had walked instead of run. When one of the men in the
Breckenridge kitchen spoke to him he answered in a perfectly even voice
which showed no tremor of fatigue.
"Him sheriff march now," he said. "Mebbe t'ink um t'ree mile off."
"Where did you leave them?" asked the man in command of the house. The
Indian youth told him. "And how many are there, Crow Wing?" asked
another.
"Many--many!" cried the Indian, his eyes flashing. He held up both hands
and spread all his ten fingers rapidly seven times. "Seventy!" cried one
of the white men. "He means seven hundred," declared the leader. "That
so, Crow Wing, eh?"
The Indian nodded. "Many white men--many guns," he said.
"It's not true," growled one man. "You can't believe anything an Injin
says. Where would the New York sheriff get seven hundred men?"
Crow Wing's eyes flashed and he drew himself up proudly. "Me no lie--me
speak true. Injin not two-tongue like white man!" he declared, with
scorn, and turning his back on his traducer, stalked out of the house.
The settlers, however, paid little attention to his departure. Enoch
scuttled back to the ridge where 'Siah was waiting to hear the news.
There he lay down beside Lot Breckenridge and the two boys talked
earnestly as the men about them smoked or chatted while waiting for the
coming of the Yorkers. Seven hundred seemed a great number to oppose.
The odds would be more than two to one. Despite the ambush which had
been so carefully laid for them, the sheriff and his men might fight as
desperately as the settlers themselves.
"Tell ye what!" whispered Lot to Enoch, "I ain't fixin' to git shot.
Marm didn't want Uncle Jim to let me come, but he said ev'ry gun'd count
this mornin', so she 'lowed I'd hafter. But she says if I git shot
she'll larrup me well."
Enoch chuckled. Although Lot was his senior he was more of a child than
young Harding. The experiences of the last few months had aged Enoch a
good deal. "My mother won't whip me if I git shot; but I mustn't run
into danger, for she wouldn't know what to do without me," he said,
proudly. "Bryce ain't much use yet, you know."
"Zuckers!" exclaimed Lot, "I wisht my marm was like yourn. I ain't got
no father neither; but Uncle Jim don't let me do nothin', an' marm's
allus wearin' out a beech twig on me."
"Guess you do somethin' for it," said Enoch, wisely.
"She'd do it jest th' same if I didn't," declared Lot, yet with perfect
good-nature, as though the Widow Breckenridge's vigorous applications of
the beech wand was a part of existence not to be escaped. "Gran'pap says
I might's well be hung for an ole sheep as a lamb, so in course I do
somethin' for it--mostly."
"If the Yorkers fight we'll hafter stay right here and shoot like the
men," said Nuck, reflectively. "It'll be like the Injin fights my father
and 'Siah were in. I s'pose we'll take trees, an' scatter out so't the
Yorkers can't git up around us here----"
"An' we'll raise the warwhoop an' shoot jest as fast as we kin!"
exclaimed Lot, excitedly. "Crow Wing taught me the warwhoop last year.
An' I know how to scalp, too."
"Oh, I wouldn't do that!" exclaimed Enoch, in horror.
"Umph! Yorkers ain't no better'n Injins, an' I'd scalp an Injin,"
declared Lot, blood-thirstily.
"I wouldn't. My father never did that, an' he was in the war. He said
that was why the Injins warn't no better'n brute-beasts, an' didn't have
no souls--'cause they scalped their enemies."
"Be still there, you youngsters!" growled 'Siah, coming down the line.
"If you want to be men, l'arn to keep yer tongues quiet. Voices carry
far on a day like this. What'd they say down ter the house, Nuck, 'bout
the signal?"
"When they want help, or want us to sail into 'em, they're goin' to
raise a red flag through the chimbley," replied the boy.
"Wal, I'm hopin' they won't fight," said the ranger, squinting along the
road below the ridge.
"Oh, I wanter see a fight--zuckers, I do!" exclaimed Lot.
"Be still, you bloodthirsty young savage!" commanded 'Siah. "You wanter
shoot down men of your own color, do ye? Beech-sealin' an' duckin' is
all right; but it's an awful thing to draw bead on another white man, as
ye'll l'arn some day."
"But you fought the Frenchmen with the Injins," declared Lot.
"Huh! Them's only half-bred. Frenchmen ain't no more'n savages," said
'Siah, gloomily.
An hour passed--a long, long time to the excited boys. Then, far down
the winding road quite a piece of which they could observe from the
summit of the wooded ridge, was seen the sudden glint of sunlight on
metal. "They're coming!" the message went round and the settlers in
ambush crouched more closely behind their screens and even the hearts of
old Indian fighters beat faster at the nearing prospect of an
engagement. James Breckenridge, Ethan Allen, and several others advanced
slowly from the direction of the house to the bridge across which the
Yorkers must pass. Sheriff Ten Eyck spurred forward with his personal
staff to meet them. With him came the infamous John Munro who, as a
justice of the peace under commission from New York, was such a thorn in
the flesh of the settlers. The sheriff was a very pompous Dutchman who
believed without question in the validity of New York's jurisdiction
over the Grants, and who, despite his bombastic manner, was personally
no coward.
"Master Breckenridge," he said to the man whom he had come to evict from
his home, "we have heard that you and your neighbors are armed to oppose
the authority vested in me by His Most Gracious Majesty's colony of New
York. If there be blood shed this day, it will be upon your head, for I
here command you to leave this neighborhood and give over the possession
of this land to its rightful owners."
[Illustration: "I COMMAND YOU TO LEAVE THIS NEIGHBORHOOD"]
"I cannot do that, Master Sheriff," said Breckenridge, quietly. "As for
blood being upon my head for this day's work, you can see that I am
unarmed," and he spread his hands widely. "Besides, I have nothing to do
with this grant at the present time. The township of Bennington has
taken the farm upon its own hands, and it will oppose your entrance with
armed resistance. I have nothing to do with it."
"What is the township of Bennington?" demanded Ten Eyck. "This land
belongs to the colony of New York under the crown. There is no town of
Bennington. What legal rights have a parcel of squatters to this
territory?"
Then Allen spoke. "The gods of the valleys are not the gods of the
hills, Sir Sheriff. You on the other side of the Twenty-Mile Line may
acknowledge the Governor of New York as your master; we on this side are
a free people. We have bought our lands from the government to which
they were granted by the King, and you shall not drive us from them!"
The colloquy ended and the settlers went back toward the house. After
the main body of his army came up, and their numbers seemed quite as
formidable as Crow Wing had reported, the sheriff pressed forward across
the bridge and approached the Breckenridge dwelling. Every settler had
disappeared by now and even those inside the house were still. Neither
the sheriff nor his men suspected that quite three hundred guns were
turned upon them and that, at the first fire, the carnage would be
terrible.
"Open in the name of the law!" exclaimed Ten Eyck, thundering at the
stout oak door of the house. "I demand admittance and that all within
come peaceably forth. Open, or I shall break down the door!"
There was silence for a moment, and then a voice said clearly from
within: "Attempt it and you are a dead man!"
The reply angered the doughty sheriff. He was being flouted and the
majesty of the law scorned. That was more than he could quietly bear.
"Come out and deliver up your arms in the name o' the King!" he cried.
"Ye rebels! I'll take the last of ye to Albany jail if ye do not
surrender!"
At this a chorus of derisive groans issued from behind the barred door
and shutters, and these sounds were echoed by other groans from the men
in ambush, until the very forest itself seemed deriding the Yorkers. The
knowledge that he and his men had fallen into a trap did not balk the
sheriff; his rage rose to white heat and calling for an axe he advanced
to the attack. The moment was freighted with peril. If the Yorkers
attacked the house a withering fire would spring from the guns in the
bushes and on the ridge and blood would flow in plenty in that
heretofore peaceful vale of the northern forest.