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THE LITTLE RED FOOT
BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
AUTHOR OF "THE SLAYER OF SOULS," "THE COMMON LAW," "IN SECRET,"
"LORRAINE," ETC.
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1921,
BY ROBERT W. CHAMBERS
COPYRIGHT, 1920, 1921. BY THE INTERNATIONAL
MAGAZINE COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
MY SON
ROBERT H. CHAMBERS
CONTENTS
I SIR WILLIAM PASSES 11
II TWO PEERS SANS PEERAGE 13
III THE POT BOILS 23
IV TWO COUNTRY MICE 32
V A SUPPER 40
VI RUSTIC GALLANTRY 51
VII BEFORE THE STORM 60
VIII SHEEP AND GOATS 68
IX STOLE AWAY 81
X A NIGHT MARCH 86
XI SUMMER HOUSE POINT 94
XII THE SHAPE IN WHITE 102
XIII THE DROWNED LANDS 113
XIV THE LITTLE RED FOOT 124
XV WEST RIVER 132
XVI A TROUBLED MIND 141
XVII DEEPER TROUBLE 151
XVIII FIRELIGHT 169
XIX OUT OF THE NORTH 177
XX IN SHADOW-LAND 189
XXI THE DEMON 197
XXII HAG-RIDDEN 207
XXIII WINTER AND SPRING 220
XXIV GREEN-COATS 235
XXV BURKE'S TAVERN 253
XXVI ORDERS 267
XXVII FIRE-FLIES 283
XXVIII OYANEH! 292
XXIX THE WOOD OF BRAKABEEN 309
XXX A LONG GOOD-BYE 322
XXXI "IN THE VALLEY" 333
AFTERMATH 350
THE LITTLE RED FOOT
CHAPTER I
SIR WILLIAM PASSES
The day Sir William died there died the greatest American of his day.
Because, on that mid-summer evening, His Excellency was still only a
Virginia gentleman not yet famous, and best known because of courage and
sagacity displayed in that bloody business of Braddock.
Indeed, all Americans then living, and who since have become famous,
were little celebrated, excepting locally, on the day Sir William
Johnson died. Few were known outside a single province; scarcely one
among them had been heard of abroad. But Sir William was a world figure;
a great constructive genius; the greatest land-owner in North America; a
wise magistrate, a victorious soldier, a builder of cities amid a
wilderness; a redeemer of men.
He was a Baronet of the British Realm; His Majesty's Superintendent of
Indian Affairs for all North America. He was the only living white man
implicitly trusted by the savages of this continent, because he never
broke his word to them. He was, perhaps, the only representative of
royal authority in the Western Hemisphere utterly believed in by the
dishonest, tyrannical, and stupid pack of Royal Governors, Magistrates
and lesser vermin that afflicted the colonies with the British plague.
He was kind and great. All loved him. All mourned him. For he was a very
perfect gentleman who practiced truth and honour and mercy; an
unassuming and respectable man who loved laughter and gaiety and plain
people.
He saw the conflict coming which must drench the land in blood and dry
with fire the blackened cinders.
Torn betwixt loyalty to his King whom he had so tirelessly served, and
loyalty to his country which he so passionately loved, it has been said
that, rather than choose between King and Colony, he died by his own
hand.
But those who knew him best know otherwise. Sir William died of a broken
heart, in his great Hall at Johnstown, all alone.
* * * * *
His son, Sir John, killed a fine horse riding from Fort Johnson to the
Hall. And arrived too late and all of a lather in the starlight.
And I have never ceased marvelling how such a man could have been the
son of the great Sir William.
At the Hall the numerous household was all in a turmoil; and, besides
Sir William's immediate family, there were a thousand guests--a thousand
Iroquois Indians encamped around the Hall, with whom Sir William had
been holding fire-council.
For he had determined to restrain his Mohawks, and to maintain
tranquillity among all the fierce warriors of the Six Nations, and so
pledge the entire Iroquois Confederacy to an absolute neutrality in the
imminence of this war betwixt King and Colony, which now seemed to be
coming so rapidly upon us that already its furnace breath was heating
restless savages to a fever.
All that hot June day, though physically ill and mentally unhappy,--and
under a vertical sun and with head uncovered,--Sir William had spoken to
the Iroquois with belts.
The day's labour of that accursed council-fire ended at sunset; sachem
and chief departed--tall spectres in the flaming west; there was a clash
of steel at the guard-house as the guard presented arms; Mr. Duncan
saluted the Confederacy with lifted claymore.
Then an old man, bareheaded, alone, turned away from the covered
council-fire; and an officer, seeing how feebly he moved, flung an arm
about his shoulders.
So Sir William came slowly to his great Hall, and slowly entered. And
laid him down in his library on a sofa.
And slowly died there while the sun was going down.
Then the first star came out where, in the ashes of the June sunset, a
pale rose tint still lingered.
But Sir William lay dead in his great Hall, all alone.