"THE CROSS OF FIRE"
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.