THE FERMENT
On his voyage to New York, Jack wrote long letters to Margaret and to
Doctor Franklin, which were deposited in the Post-Office on his
arrival, the tenth of March. He observed a great change in the spirit
of the people. They were no longer content with words. The ferment
was showing itself in acts of open and violent disorder. The statue of
George III, near the Battery, was treated to a volley of decayed eggs,
in the evening of his arrival. This hot blood was due to the effort to
prevent free speech in the colonies and the proposal to send political
prisoners to England for trial.
Jack took the first boat to Albany and found Solomon working on the
Irons farm. In his diary he tells of the delightful days of rest he
enjoyed with his family. Solomon had told them of the great adventure
but Jack would have little to say of it, having no pride in that
achievement.
Soon the scout left on a mission for the Committee of Safety to distant
settlements in the great north bush.
"I'll be spendin' the hull moon in the wilderness," he said to Jack.
"Goin' to Virginny when I get back, an' I'll look fer ye on the way
down."
Jack set out for Philadelphia the day after Solomon left. He stopped
at Kinderhook on his way down the river and addressed its people on
conditions in England. A young Tory interrupted his remarks. At the
barbecue, which followed, this young man was seized and punished by a
number of stalwart girls who removed his collar and jacket by force and
covered his head and neck with molasses and the fuzz of cat tails.
Jack interceded for the Tory and stopped the proceeding.
"My friends, we must control our anger," he said. "Let us not try to
subdue tyranny by using it ourselves."
Everywhere he found the people in such a temper that Tories had to hold
their peace or suffer punishment. At the office he learned that his
most important letters had failed to pass the hidden censorship of mail
in England. He began, at once, to write a series of articles which
hastened the crisis. The first of them was a talk with Franklin, which
told how his mail had been tampered with; that no letter had come to
his hand through the Post-Office which had not been opened with
apparent indifference as to the evidence of its violation. The
Doctor's words regarding free speech in America and the proposal to try
the bolder critics for treason were read and discussed in every
household from the sea to the mountains and from Maine to Florida.
"Grievances can not be redressed unless they are known and they can not
be known save through complaints and petitions," the philosopher had
said. "If these are taken as affronts and the messengers punished, the
vent of grief is stopped up--a dangerous thing in any state. It is
sure to produce an explosion.
"An evil magistrate with the power to punish for words would be armed
with a terrible weapon.
"Augustus Caesar, with the avowed purpose of preserving Romans from
defamation, made libel subject to the penalties of treason.
Thenceforward every man's life hung by a thread easily severed by some
lying informer.
"Soon it was resolved by all good judges of law that whoever should
insinuate the least doubt of Nero's preeminence in the noble art of
fiddling should be deemed a traitor. Grief became treason and one lady
was put to death for bewailing the fate of her murdered son. In time,
silence became treason, and even a look was considered an overt act."
These words of the wise philosopher strengthened the spirit of the land
for its great ordeal.
Jack described the prejudice of the Lords who, content with their
ignorance, spurned every effort to inform them of the conditions in
America.
"And this little tail is wagging the great dog of England, most of
whose people believe in the justice of our complaints," he wrote.
The young man's work had set the bells ringing and they were the bells
of revolt. The arrival of General Gage at Boston in May, to be civil
governor and commander-in-chief for the continent, and the blockade of
the port twenty days later, compelling its population who had been fed
by the sea to starve or subsist on the bounty of others, drove the most
conservative citizens into the open. Parties went out Tory hunting.
Every suspected man was compelled to declare himself and if
incorrigible, was sent away. Town meetings were held even under the
eyes of the King's soldiers and no tribunal was allowed to sit in any
court-house. At Salem, a meeting was held behind locked doors with the
Governor and his Secretary shouting a proclamation through its keyhole,
declaring it to be dissolved. The meeting proceeded to its end, and
when the citizens filed out, they had invited the thirteen colonies to
a General Congress in Philadelphia.
It was Solomon Binkus who conveyed the invitation to Pennsylvania and
Virginia. He had gone on a second mission to Springfield and Boston
and had been in the meeting at Salem with General Ward. Another man
carried that historic call to the colonies farther south. In five
weeks, delegates were chosen, and early in August, they were traveling
on many different roads toward the Quaker City. Crowds gathered in
every town and village they passed. Solomon, who rode with the
Virginia delegation, told Jack that he hadn't heard so much noise since
the Injun war.
"They was poundin' the bells, an shootin' cannons everywhere," he
declared. "Men, women and childern crowded 'round us an' split their
lungs yellin'. They's a streak o' sore throats all the way from
Alexandry to here."
Solomon and his young friend met John Adams on the street. The
distinguished Massachusetts lawyer said to Jack when the greetings were
over:
"Young man, your pen has been not writing, but making history."
"Does it mean war?" Jack queried.
Mr. Adams wiped his brow with his handkerchief and said; "People in our
circumstances have seldom grown old or died in their beds."
"We ought to be getting ready," said Jack.
"And we are doing little but eat and drink and shout and bluster," Mr.
Adams answered. "We are being entertained here with meats and curds
and custards and jellies and tarts and floating islands and Madeira
wine. It is for you to induce the people of Philadelphia to begin to
save. We need to learn Franklin's philosophy of thrift."
Colonel Washington was a member of the Virginia delegation. Jack wrote
that he was in uniform, blue coat and red waistcoat and breeches; that
he was a big man standing very erect and about six feet, two inches in
height; that his eyes were blue, his complexion light and rather
florid, his face slightly pock-marked, his brown hair tinged with gray;
that he had the largest hands, save those of Solomon Binkus, that he
had ever seen. His letter contains these informing words:
"I never quite realized the full meaning of the word 'dignity' until I
saw this man and heard his deep rich voice. There was a kind of
magnificence in his manner and person when he said:
"'I will raise one thousand men toward the relief of Boston and subsist
them at my own expense.'
"That was all he said and it was the most eloquent speech made in the
convention. It won the hearts of the New Englanders. Thereafter, he
was the central figure in that Congress of trusted men. It is also
evident that he will be the central figure on this side of the ocean
when the storm breaks. Next day, he announced that he was, as yet,
opposed to any definite move toward independence. So the delegates
contented themselves with a declaration of rights opposing importations
and especially slaves."
When the Congress adjourned October twenty-sixth to meet again on the
tenth of May, there was little hope of peace among those who had had a
part in its proceedings.
Jack, who knew the conditions in England, knew also that war would come
soon, and freely expressed his views.
2
Letters had come from Margaret giving him the welcome news that Lionel
Clarke had recovered and announcing that her own little revolution had
achieved success. She and her father would be taking ship for Boston
in December. Jack had urged that she try to induce him to start at
once, fearing that December would be too late, and so it fell out.
When the news of the Congress reached London, the King made new plans.
He began to prepare for war. Sir Benjamin Hare, who was to be the
first deputy of General Gage, was assigned to a brigade and immediately
put his regiments in training for service overseas. He had spent six
months in America and was supposed, in England, to have learned the art
of bush fighting. Such was the easy optimism of the cheerful young
Minister of War, and his confrères, in the House of Lords. After the
arrival of the _King William_ at Gravesend on the eighth of December,
no English women went down to the sea in ships for a long time.
Thereafter the water roads were thought to be only for fighting men.
Jack's hope was that armed resistance would convince the British of
their folly.
"A change of front in the Parliament would quickly end the war," he was
wont to say. Not that he quite believed it. But young men in love are
apt to say things which they do not quite believe. In February, 1775,
he gave up his work on _The Gazette_ to aid in the problem of defense.
Solomon, then in Albany, had written that he was going the twentieth of
that month on a mission to the Six Nations of The Long House.
It was unusual for the northern tribes to hold a council in
winter--especially during the moon of the hard snow, but the growing
bitterness of the white men had alarmed them. They had learned that
another and greater war was at hand and they were restless for fear of
it. The quarrel was of no concern to the red man, but he foresaw the
deadly peril of choosing the wrong side. So the wise men of the tribes
were coming into council.
"If we fight England, we got to have the Injuns on our side er else
Tryon County won't be no healthy place fer white folks," Solomon wrote.
"I wished you could go 'long with me an' show 'em the kind o' shootin'
we'll do ag'in' the English an' tell 'em they could count the leaves in
the bush easier than the men in the home o' the south wind, an' all
good shooters. Put on a big, two-story bearskin cap with a red ribband
tied around it an' bring plenty o' gewgaws. I don't care what they be
so long as they shine an' rattle. I cocalate you an' me could do good
work."
Immediately the young man packed his box and set out by stage on his
way to the North. Near West Point, he left the sleigh, which had
stopped for repairs, and put on his skates and with the wind mostly at
his back, made Albany early that evening on the river roof. He found
the family and Solomon eating supper, with the table drawn close to the
fireside, it being a cold night.
"I think that St. Nicholas was never more welcome in any home or the
creator of more happiness than I was that night," he wrote in a letter
to Margaret, sent through his friend Doctor Franklin. "What a glow was
in the faces of my mother and father and Solomon Binkus--the man who
was so liked in London! What cries of joy came from the children!
They clung to me and my little brother, Josiah, sat on my knee while I
ate my sausage and flapjacks and maple molasses. I shall never forget
that supper hour for, belike, I was hungry enough to eat an ox. You
would never see a homecoming like that in England, I fancy. Here the
family ties are very strong. We have no opera, no theater, no balls
and only now and then a simple party of neighborhood folk. We work
hard and are weary at night. So our pleasures are few and mostly those
shared in the family circles. A little thing, such as a homecoming, or
a new book, brings a joy that we remember as long as we live. I hope
that you will not be appalled by the simplicity of my father's home and
neighborhood. There is something very sweet and beautiful in it,
which, I am sure, you would not fail to discover.
"Philadelphia and Boston are more like the cities you know. They are
getting ambitious and are beginning to ape the manners of England but,
even there, you would, find most people like my own. The attempts at
grandeur are often ludicrous. In Philadelphia, I have seen men sitting
at public banquets without coat or collar and drinking out of bottles."
Next day, Jack and Solomon set out with packs and snow-shoes for The
Long House, which was the great highway of the Indians. It cut the
province from the Hudson to Lake Erie. In summer it was roofed by the
leaves of the forest. The chief villages of the Six Tribes were on or
near it. This trail was probably the ancient route of the cloven hoof
on its way to the prairies--the thoroughfare of the elk and the
buffalo. How wisely it was chosen time has shown, for now it is
covered with iron rails, the surveyors having tried in vain to find a
better one.
Late in the second day out, they came suddenly on a young moose. Jack
presented his piece and brought the animal down. They skinned him and
cut out the loins and a part of each hind quarter. When Solomon
wrapped the meat in a part of the hide and slung it over his shoulder,
night was falling.
"Cat's blood an' gunpowder! The ol' night has a sly foot," said
Solomon. "We won't see no Crow Hill tavern. We got t' make a snow
house."
On the south side of a steep hill near them was a deep, hard frozen
drift. Solomon cut the crust with his hatchet and began moving big
blocks of snow. Soon he had made a cavern in the great white pile, a
fathom deep and high, and as long as a full grown man. They put in a
floor of balsam boughs and spread their blankets on it. Then they cut
a small dead pine and built a fire a few feet in front of their house
and fried some bacon and a steak and made snow water and a pot of tea.
The steak and bacon were eaten on slices of bread without knife or
fork. Their repast over, Solomon made a rack and began jerking the
meat with a slow fire of green hardwood smoldering some three feet
below it. The "jerk" under way, they reclined on their blankets in
the snow house secure from the touch of a cold wind that swept down the
hillside, looking out at the dying firelight while Solomon told of his
adventures in the Ohio country.
Jack was a bit afflicted with "snow-shoe evil," being unaccustomed to
that kind of travel, and he never forgot the sense of relief and
comfort which he found in the snow house, or the droll talk of Solomon.
"You're havin' more trouble to git married than a Mingo brave," Solomon
said to Jack. "'Mongst them, when a boy an' gal want to git married,
both fam'lies have to go an' take a sweat together. They heat a lot o'
rocks an' roll 'em into a pen made o' sticks put in crotches an'
covered over with skins an' blankets. The hot rocks turn it into a
kind o' oven. They all crawl in thar an' begin to sweat an' hoot an'
holler. You kin hear 'em a mile off. It's a reg'lar hootin' match.
I'd call it a kind o' camp meetin'. When they holler it means that the
devil is lettin' go. They're bein' purified. It kind o' seasons 'em
so they kin stan' the heat o' a family quarrel. When Injuns have had
the grease sweat out of 'em, they know suthin' has happened. The
women'll talk fer years 'bout the weddin' sweat."
Now and then, as he talked, Solomon arose to put more wood on the fire
and keep "the jerk sizzling." Just before he lay down for the night,
he took some hard wood coals and stored them in a griddle full of hot
ashes so as to save tinder in the morning.
They were awakened in the night by the ravening of a pack of wolves at
the carcass of the slain moose, which lay within twenty rods of the
snow camp. They were growling and snapping as they tore the meat from
the bones. Solomon rose and drew on his boots.
"Cat's blood an' gunpowder! I thought the smell o' the jerk would
bring 'em," Solomon whispered. "Say, they's quite a passel o' wolves
thar--you hear to me. No, I ain't skeered o' them thar whelps, but
it's ag'in' my principles to go to sleep if they's nuthin' but air
'twixt me an' them. They might be jest fools 'nough to think I were
good eatin'; which I ain't. I guess it's 'bout time to take keer o'
this 'ere jerk an' start up a fire. I won't give them loafers nothin'
but hell, if they come 'round here--not a crumb."
Solomon went to work with his ax in the moonlight, while Jack kindled
up the fire.
"We don't need to tear off our buttons hurryin'," said the former, as
he flung down a dead spruce by the fireside and began chopping it into
sticks. "They won't be lookin' for more fodder till they've picked the
bones o' that 'ere moose. Don't make it a big fire er you'll melt our
roof. We jest need a little belt o' blaze eround our front. Our rear
is safe. Chain lightnin' couldn't slide down this 'ere hill without
puttin' on the brakes."
Soon they had a good stack of wood inside the fire line and in the pile
were some straight young birches. Solomon made stakes of these and
drove them deep in the snow close up to the entrance of their refuge,
making a stockade with an opening in the middle large enough for a man
to pass through. Then they sat down on their blankets, going out often
to put wood on the fire. While sitting quietly with their rifles in
hand, they observed that the growling and yelping had ceased.
"They've got that 'ere moose in their packs," Solomon whispered. "Now
keep yer eye peeled. They'll be snoopin' eround here to git our share.
You see."
In half a moment, Jack's rifle spoke, followed by the loud yelp of a
wolf well away from the firelight.
"Uh, huh! You warmed the wax in his ear, that's sart'in;" said Solomon
as Jack was reloading. "Did ye hear him say 'Don't'?"
The scout's rifle spoke and another wolf yelped.
"Yer welcome," Solomon shouted. "I slammed that 'er hunk o' lead into
the pack leader--a whale of a wolf. The ol' Cap'n stepped right up
clus. Seen 'im plain--gray, long legged ol' whelp. He were walkin'
towards the fire when he stubbed his toe. It's all over now. They'll
snook erway. The army has lost its Gin'ral."
They saw nothing more of the wolf pack and after an hour or so of
watching, they put more wood on the fire, filled the opening in their
stockade and lay down to rest. Solomon called it a night of "one-eyed
sleep" when they got up at daylight and rekindled the fire and washed
their hands and faces in the snow. The two dead wolves lay within
fifty feet of the fire and Solomon cut off the tail of the larger one
for a souvenir.
They had more steak and bread, moistened with tea, for breakfast and
set out again with a good store of jerked meat in their packs. So they
proceeded on their journey, as sundry faded clippings inform us,
spending their nights thereafter at rude inns or in the cabins of
settlers until they had passed the village of the Mohawks, where they
found only a few old Indians and their squaws and many dogs and young
children. The chief and his sachems and warriors and their wives had
gone on to the great council fire in the land of Kiodote, the Thorny
Tree.
They spent a night in the little cabin tavern of Bill Scott on the
upper waters of the Mohawk. Mrs. Scott, a comely woman of twenty-six,
had been a sister of Solomon's wife. She and the scout had a pleasant
visit about old times in Cherry Valley where they had spent a part of
their childhood, and she was most thoughtful and generous in providing
for their comfort. The Scotts had lost two children and another, a
baby, was lying asleep in the cradle. Scott was a hard working, sullen
sort of a man who made his living chiefly by selling rum to the
Indians. Solomon used to say that he had been "hooked by the love o'
money an' et up by land hunger."
"You'll have to git away from The Long House," Solomon said to Scott.
"One reason I come here was to tell ye."
"What makes ye think so?" Scott asked.
"The Injuns'll hug ye when they're drunk but they'll hate ye when
they're sober," Solomon answered. "They lay all their trouble to
fire-water an' they're right. If the cat jumps the wrong way an' they
go on the war-path, ye got to look out."
"I ain't no way skeered," was Scott's answer. He had a hoarse, damp
voice that suggested the sound of rum gurgling out of a jug. His red
face indicated that he was himself too fond of the look and taste of
fire-water.
"Ye got to git erway from here I tell ye," Solomon insisted.
Scott stroked his sandy beard and answered: "I guess I know my business
'bout as well as you do."
"Le's go back to Cherry Valley, Bill," the woman urged.
"Oh, keep yer trap shet," Scott said to her.
"He's as selfish as a he-bear," said Solomon as he and Jack were
leaving soon after daylight. "Don't think o' nuthin' but gittin' rich.
Keeps swappin' firewater fer land an' no idee o' the danger."
They left the woman in tears.
"It's awful lonesome here. I'll never see ye ag'in," she declared as
she stood wiping her eyes with her apron.
"Here now--you behave!" Solomon exclaimed. "I'll toddle up to your
door some time next summer."
"Mirandy is a likely womern--I tell ye," Solomon whispered as they went
away. "He is a mean devil! Ain't the kind of a man fer her--nary bit.
A rum bottle is the only comp'ny he keers fer."
They often spoke of the pathetic loneliness of this good-looking,
kindly, mismated woman. Jack and Solomon reached the council on the
fifth day of their travel. There, a level plain in the forest was
covered with Indians and the snow trodden smooth. Around it were their
tents and huts and houses. There were males and females, many of the
latter in rich silks and scarlet cloths bordered with gold fringe.
Some wore brooches and rings in their noses. Among them were handsome
faces and erect and noble forms.
In the center of the plain stood a great stack of wood and green boughs
of spruce and balsam built up in layers for the evening council fire.
Old Kiodote knew Solomon and remembered Jack, whom he had seen in the
great council at Albany in 1761.
"He says your name was 'Boiling Water,'" Solomon said to Jack after a
moment's talk with the chief.
"He has a good memory," the young man answered.
The two white men were invited to take part in the games. All the
warriors had heard of Solomon's skill with a rifle. "Son of the
Thunder," they called him in the League of the Iroquois. The red men
gathered in great numbers to see him shoot. Again, as of old, they
were thrilled by his feats with the rifle, but when Jack began his
quick and deadly firing, crushing butternuts thrown into the air, with
rifle and pistol, a kind of awe possessed the crowd. Many came and
touched him and stared into his face and called him "The Brother of
Death."
3
Solomon's speech that evening before the council fire impressed the
Indians. He had given much thought to its composition and Jack had
helped him in the invention of vivid phrases loved by the red men. He
addressed them in the dialect of the Senecas, that being the one with
which he was most familiar. He spoke of the thunder cloud of war
coming up in the east and the cause of it and begged them to fight with
their white neighbors, under the leadership of The Great Spirit for the
justice which He loved. Solomon had brought them many gifts in token
of the friendship of himself and his people.
Old Theandenaga, of the Mohawks, answered him in a speech distinguished
by its noble expressions of good will and by an eloquent, but not
ill-tempered, account of the wrongs of the red men. He laid particular
stress on the corrupting of the young braves with fire-water.
"Let all bad feeling be buried in a deep pool," Solomon answered.
"There are bad white men and there are bad Indians but they are not
many. The good men are like the leaves of the forest--you can not
count them--but the bad man is like the scent pedlar [the skunk].
Though he is but one, he can make much trouble."
Every judgment of the league in council had to be unanimous. They
voted in sections, whereupon each section sent its representative into
the higher council and no verdict was announced until its members were
of one mind. The deliberations were proceeding toward a favorable
judgment as Solomon thought, when Guy Johnson arrived from Johnson
Castle with a train of pack bearers. A wild night of drunken revelry
followed his arrival. Jack and Solomon were lodging at a log inn, kept
by a Dutch trader, half a mile or so from the scene of the council. A
little past midnight, the trader came up into the loft where they were
sleeping on a heap of straw and awakened Solomon.
"Come down the ladder," said the Dutchman. "A young squaw has come out
from the council. She will speak to you."
Solomon slipped on his trousers, coat and boots, and went below. The
squaw was sitting on the floor against the wall. A blanket was drawn
over the back of her head. Her handsome face had a familiar look.
"Put out the light," she whispered in English.
The candle was quickly snuffed and then:
"I am the Little White Birch," she said. "You and my beautiful young
brave were good to me. You took me to the school and he kissed my
cheek and spoke words like the song of the little brown bird of the
forest. I have come here to warn you. Turn away from the great camp
of the red man. Make your feet go fast. The young warriors are drunk.
They will come here to slay you. I say go like the rabbit when he is
scared. Before daylight, put half a sleep between you and them."
Solomon called Jack and in the darkness they quickly got ready to go.
The Dutchman could give them only a loaf of bread, some salt and a slab
of bacon. The squaw stood on the door-step watching while they were
getting ready. Snow was falling.
"They are near," she whispered when the men came out. "I have heard
them."
She held Jack's hand to her lips and said:
"Let me feel your face. I can not see it. I shall see it not again
this side of the Happy Hunting-Grounds."
For a second she touched the face of the young man and he kissed her
forehead.
"This way," she whispered. "Now go like the snow in the wind, my
beautiful pale face."
"Can we help you?" Jack queried. "Will you go with us back to the
white man's school?"
"No, I am old woman now. I have taken the yoke of the red man. In the
Happy Hunting-Grounds maybe the Great Spirit will give me a pale face.
Then I will go with my father and his people and my beautiful young
brave will take me to his house and not be ashamed. Go now. Good-by."
"Little White Birch, I give you this," said Jack, as he put in her hand
the tail of the great gray wolf, beautifully adorned with silver braid
and blue ribbands.
It was snowing hard. Jack and Solomon started toward a belt of timber
east of the log inn. Before they reached it, their clothes were white
with snow--a fact which probably saved their lives. They were shot at
from the edge of the bush. Solomon shouted to Jack to come on and
wisely ran straight toward the spot from which the rifle flashes had
proceeded. In the edge of the woods, Jack shot an Indian with his
pistol. The red man was loading. So they got through what appeared to
be a cordon around the house and cut into the bush.
"They won't foller us," said Solomon, as the two stopped presently to
put on their snow-shoes.
"What makes you think so ?"
"They don't keer to see us lessen they're hid. We are the Son o' the
Thunder an' the Brother o' Death. It would hurt to see us. The second
our eyes drop on an Injun, he's got a hole in his guts an' they know
it. They'd ruther go an' set down with a jug o' rum."
"It was a low and devilish trick to bring fire-water into that camp,"
said Jack.
"Guy Johnson is mean enough to steal acorns from a blind hog," Solomon
answered.
Suddenly they heard a loud whooping in the distance and looking back
into the valley they saw a great flare of light.
"They've put the torch to the tavern and will have a dance," said
Solomon. "We got out jest in time."
"I am afraid for the Little White Birch," said Jack.
"They'll let her alone. She is one of the wives of ol' Theandenaga.
She will lead the Dutchman an' his family to the house o' the great
chief. She won't let 'em be hurt if she kin help it. She knowed they
was a'ter us."
"Why do they want to kill us?" Jack queried.
"'Cause they're goin' to fight with the British an' we shoot so damn
well they want to git us out o' the way an' do it sly an' without
gittin' hurt. But fer the squaw, we'd be hoppin' eround in that 'ere
loft like a pair o' rats. They'd 'a' sneaked the Dutchman an' his
folks outdoors with tommyhawks over their heads and scattered grease
an' gunpowder an' boughs on the floor, an' set 'er goin' an' me an' you
asleep above the ladder. I reckon we'd had to do some climbin' an'
they's no tellin' where we'd 'a' landed, which there ain't do doubt
'bout that."
Solomon seemed to know his way by an instinct like that of a dog. They
were in the deep woods, traveling by snow light without a trail. Jack
felt sure they were going wrong, but he said nothing. By and by there
was a glow in the sky ahead. The snow had ceased falling and the
heavens were clear.
"Ye see we're goin' right," said Solomon. "The sun'll be up in half an
hour, but afore we swing to the trail we better git a bite. Gulf Brook
is down yender in the valley an' I'd kind o' like to taste of it."
They proceeded down a long, wooded slope and came presently to the
brook whose white floored aisle was walled with evergreen thickets
heavy with snow. Beneath its crystal vault they could hear the song of
the water. It was a grateful sound for they were warm and thirsty.
Near the point where they deposited their packs was a big beaver dam.
Solomon took his ax and teapot and started up stream.
"Want to git cl'ar 'bove," said he.
"Why?" Jack inquired.
"This 'ere is a beaver nest," said Solomon.
He returned in a moment with his pot full of beautiful clear water of
which they drank deeply.
"Ye see the beavers make a dam an' raise the water," Solomon explained.
"When it gits a good ice roof so thick the sun won't burn a hole in it
afore spring, they tap the dam an' let the water out. Then they've got
a purty house to live in with a floor o' clean water an' a glass roof
an' plenty o' green popple sticks stored in the corners to feed on.
They have stiddy weather down thar--no cold winds 'er deep snow to
bother 'em. When the roof rots an' breaks in the sunlight an' slides
off they patch up the dam with mud an' sticks an' they've got a
swimmin' hole to play in."
They built a fire and spread their blankets on a bed of boughs and had
some hot tea and jerked meat and slices of bread soaked in bacon fat.
"Ye see them Injuns is doomed," said Solomon. "Some on 'em has got
good sense, but rum kind o' kills all argeyment. Rum is now the great
chief o' the red man. Rum an' Johnson 'll win 'em over. Sir William
was their Great White Father. They trusted him. Guy an' John have got
his name behind 'em. The right an' wrong o' the matter ain't able to
git under the Injun's hide. They'll go with the British an' burn, an'
rob, an' kill. The settlers 'll give hot blood to their childern. The
Injun 'll be forever a brother to the snake. We an' our childern an'
gran'childern 'll curse him an' meller his head. The League o' the
Iroquois 'll be scattered like dust in the wind, an' we'll wonder where
it has gone. But 'fore then, they's goin' to be great trouble. The
white settlers has got to give up their land an' move, 'er turn Tory,
'er be tommy-hawked."
With a sense of failure, they slowly made their way back to Albany,
riding the last half of it on the sled of a settler who was going to
the river city with a grist and a load of furs.