Chambers Robert William
The Hidden Children
CHAPTER XXI
CHINISEE CASTLE
For twelve days our army, marching west by north, tore its terrible way straight through the smoking vitals of the Iroquois Empire, leaving behind it nearly forty towns and villages and more than two hundred cabins on fire; thousands and thousands of bushels of grain burning, thousands of apple, peach, pear, and plum trees destroyed, thousands of acres of pumpkins, beans, peas, corn, potatoes, beets, turnips, carrots, watermelons, muskmelons, strawberry, black-berry, raspberry shrubs crushed and rotting in the trampled gardens under the hot September sun.
In the Susquehanna and Chinisee Valleys, not a roof survived unburnt, not a fruit tree or an ear of corn remained standing, not a domestic animal, not a fowl, was left. And, save for the aged squaw we left at Chiquaha in a new hut of bark, with provisions sufficient for her needs, not one living soul now inhabited the charred ruins of the Long House behind us, except our fierce soldiery. And they, tramping doggedly forward, voluntarily and cheerfully placing themselves on half rations, were now terribly resolved to make an end for all time of the secret and fruitful Empire which had nourished so long the merciless marauders, red and white, who had made of our frontiers but one vast slaughter-house and bloody desolation.
Town after town fell in ashes as our torches flared; Kendaia, Kanadesaga, Gothsunquin, Skoi-yase, Kanandaigua, Haniai, Kanasa; acre after acre was annihilated. So vast was one field of corn that it took two thousand men more than six hours to destroy it. And the end was not yet, nor our stern business with our enemies ended.
As always on the march, the division of light troops led; the advance was piloted by my guides, reinforced by Boyd with four riflemen of Morgan's—Tim Murphy, David Elerson, and Garrett Putnam, privates, and Michael Parker, sergeant.
Close behind us, and pretty well ahead of the rifle battalion, under Major Parr, and the pioneers, followed Mr. Lodge, the surveyor, and his party—Thomas Grant with the Jacob-staff, four chain-carriers, and Corporal Calhawn. Usually we remained in touch with them while they ran their lines through the wilderness, but sometimes we were stealing forward, far ahead and in touch with the retreating Tory army, patiently and persistently contriving plans to get at Amochol. But the painted hordes of Senecas enveloped the Sorcerer and his acolytes as with a living blanket; and, prowling outside their picket fires at night, not one ridged-crest did we see during those twelve days of swift pursuit.
Boyd, during the last few days, had become very silent and morose; and his men and my Indians believed that he was brooding over his failure to take the Red Priest at Catharines-town. But my own heavy heart told me a different story; and the burden of depression which this young officer bore so silently seemed to weight me also with vague and sinister apprehensions.
I remember, just before sunset, that our small scout of ten were halted by a burnt log bridge over a sluggish inlet to a lake. The miry trail to the Chinisee Castle led over it, swung westward along the lake, rising to a steep bluff which was gashed with a number of deep and rocky ravines.
It was plain that the retreating Tory army had passed over this bridge, and that their rearguard had set it afire.
I said to Boyd, pointing across the southern end of the lake:
"From what I have read of Braddock's Field, yonder terrain most astonishingly resembles it. What an ambuscade could Butler lay for our army yonder, within shot of this crossing!"
"Pray God he lays it," said Boyd between his teeth.
"Yet, we could get at him better beyond those rocky gashes," I muttered, using my spyglass.
"Butler is there," said the Mohican, calmly.
Both Boyd and I searched the wooded bluffs in vain for any sign of life, but the Sagamore and the other Indians quietly maintained their opinion, because, they explained, though patches of wild rice grew along the shore, the wild ducks and geese had left their feeding coves and were lying half a mile out in open water. Also, the blue-jays had set up a screaming in the yellowing woods along the western shore, and the tall, blue herons had left their shoreward sentry posts, and now mounted guard far to the northward among the reeds, where solitary black ducks dropped in at intervals, quacking loudly.
Boyd nodded; the Oneidas drew their hatchets and blazed the trees; and we all sat down in the woods to await the coming of our advanced guard.
After a little while, our pioneers appeared, rifles slung, axes glittering on their shoulders, and immediately began to fell trees and rebuild the log bridge. Hard on their heels came my rifle battalion; and in the red sunshine we watched the setting of the string of outposts.
Far back along the trail behind us we could hear the halted army making camp; flurries of cheery music from the light infantry bugle-horns, the distant rolling of drums, the rangers penetrating whistle, lashes of wagoners cracking, the melancholy bellow of the beef herd.
Major Parr came and talked with us for a few minutes, and went away convinced that Butler's people lay watching us across the creek. Ensign Chambers came a-mincing through the woods, a-whisking the snuff from his nose with the only laced hanker in the army; and:
"Dear me!" says he. "Do you really think we shall have a battle, Loskiel? How very interesting and enjoyable it will be."
"Who drilled your pretty hide, Benjamin?" said I bluntly, noting that he wore his left arm in a splint.
"Lord!" says he. "'Twas a scratch from a half-ounce ball at the Chemung. Dear, dear, how very disappointing was that affair, Loskiel! Most annoying of them not to stand our charge!" And, "Dear, dear, dear," he murmured, mincing off again with all the air of a Wall Street beau ogling the pretty dames on Hanover Square.
"Where is this damned Castle?" growled Boyd. "Chinisee, Chenussio, Genesee—whatever it is called? The name keeps buzzing in my head—nay, for the last three days I have dreamed of it and awakened to hear it sounding in my ears, as though beside me some one stooped and whispered it."
I pulled out our small map, which we had long since learned to distrust, yet even our General had no better one.
Here was marked the Chinisee Castle, near the confluence of Canaseraga Creek and the Chinisee River; and I showed the place to Boyd, who looked at it curiously.
Mayaro, however, shook his crested head:
"No, Loskiel," he said. "The Chinisee Castle stands now on the western shore. The Great Town should stand here!"—placing his finger on an empty spot on the map. "And here, two miles above, is another town."
"And you had better tell that to the General when he comes," remarked Boyd. And to me he said: "If we are to take Amochol at all, it will be this night or at dawn at the Chinisee Castle."
"I am also of that opinion," said I.
"I shall want twenty riflemen," he said.
"If it can not be done with four, and my Indians, we need not attempt it."
"Why?" he asked sullenly.
"The General has so ordered."
"Yes, but if I am to catch Amochol I must do it in my own way. I know how to do it. And if I risk taking my twenty riflemen, and am successful, the General will not care how it was accomplished."
I said nothing, because Boyd ranked me, but what he proposed made me very uneasy. More than once he had interpreted orders after his own fashion, and, being always successful in his enterprises, nothing was said to him in reproof.
My Indians had made a fire, I desiring to let the enemy suppose that we suspected nothing of his ambuscade so close at hand; and around this we lay, munching our meagre meal of green corn roasted on the coals, and ripe apples to finish.
As we ended, the sun set behind the western bluffs, and our evening gun boomed good-night in the forest south of us. And presently came, picking their way through the trail-mire, our General, handsomely horsed as usual, attended by Major Adam Hoops, of his staff, and several others.
We instantly waited on him and told him what we knew and suspected; and I showed him my map and warned him of the discrepancy between its marked places and the report of the Mohican Sagamore.
"Damnation!" he said. "Every map I have had lies in detail, misleading and delaying me when every hour empties our wagons of provisions. Were it not for your Indians, Mr. Loskiel, and that Sagamore in particular, we had missed half the game as it lies."
He sat his saddle in silence for a while, looking at the unfinished log bridge and up at the bluffs opposite.
"I feel confident that Butler is there," he said bluntly. "But what I wish to know is where this accursed Chinisee Castle stands. Boyd, take four men, move rapidly just before midnight, find out where this castle stands, and report to me at sunrise."
Boyd saluted, hesitated, then asked permission to speak. And when the General accorded it, he explained his plan to take Amochol at the Chinisee Castle, and that this matter would neither delay nor interfere with a prompt execution of his present orders.
"Very well," nodded the General, "but take no more than four men, and Mr. Loskiel and his Indians with you; and report to me at sunrise."
I heard him say this; Major Hoops heard him also. So I supposed that Boyd would obey these orders to the letter.
When the mounted party had moved away, Boyd and I went back to the fire and lay down on our blankets. We were on the edge of the trees; it was still daylight; the pioneers were still at work; and my Indians were freshening their paint, rebraiding their scalp-locks, and shining up hatchet, rifle, and knife.
"Look at those bloodhounds," muttered Boyd. "They did not hear what we were talking about, but they know by premonition."
"I do not have any faith in premonitions," said I.
"Why?"
"I have dreamed I was scalped, and my hair still grows."
"You are not out of the woods yet," he said, sombrely.
"That does not worry me."
"Nor me. Yet, I do believe in premonition."
"That is old wives' babble."
"Maybe, Loskiel. Yet, I know I shall not leave this wilderness alive."
"Lord!" said I, attempting to jest. "You should set up as a rival to Amochol and tell us all our fortunes."
He smiled—and the effort distorted his pale, handsome face.
"I think it will happen at Chinisee," he said quietly.
"What will happen?"
"The end of the world for me, Loskiel."
"It is not like you, Boyd, to speak in such a manner. Only lately have I ever heard from you a single note of such foreboding."
"Only lately have I been dowered with the ominous clairvoyance. I am changed, Loskiel."
"Not in courage."
"No," he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders that set ruffles and thrums a-dancing on his rifle-dress.
We were silent for a while, watching the Indians at their polishing. Then he said in a low but pleasant voice:
"How proud and happy must you be with your affianced. What a splendour of happiness lies before you both! An unblemished past, an innocent passion, a future stretching out unstained before you—what more can God bestow on man and maid?… May bright angels guard you both, Loskiel."
I made to thank him for the wish, but suddenly found I could not control my voice, so lay there in silence and with throat contracted, looking at this man whose marred young life lay all behind him, and whose future, even to me, lowered strangely and ominously veiled.
And as we lay there, into our fire-circle came a dusty, mud-splashed, and naked runner, plucking from his light skin-pouch two letters, one for Boyd and one for me.
I read mine by the flickering fire; it was dated from Tioga Point:
"Euan Loskiel, my honoured and affianced husband, and my lover, worshipped and adored, I send you by this runner my dearest affections, my duties, and my most sacred sentiments.
"You must know that this day we have arrived at the Fort at Tioga Point without any accident or mischance of any description, and, indeed, not encountering one living creature between Catharines-town and this post.
"My beloved mother desires her particular and tender remembrances to be conveyed to you, her honoured son-in-law to be, and further commands that I express to you, as befittingly as I know how, her deep and ever-living gratitude and thanks for your past conduct in regard to me, and your present and noble-minded generosity concerning the dispositions you have made for us to remain under the amiable protection of Mr. Hake in Albany.
"Dear lad, what can I say for myself? You are so glorious, so wonderful—and in you it does seem that all the virtues, graces, and accomplishments are so perfectly embodied, that at moments, thinking of you, I become afraid, wondering what it is in me that you can accept in exchange for the so perfect love you give me.
"I fear that you may smile on perusing this epistle, deeming it, perhaps, a trifle flowery in expression—but, Euan, I am so torn between the wild passion I entertain for you, and a desire to address you modestly and politely in terms of correspondence, as taught in the best schools, that I know not entirely how to conduct. I would not have you think me cold, or too stiffly laced in the formalities of polite usage, so that you might not divine my heart a-beating under the dress that covers me, be it rifle-frock or silken caushet. I would not have you consider me over-bold, light-minded, or insensible to the deep and sacred tie that already binds me to you evermore—which even, I think, the other and tender tie which priest and church shall one day impose, could not make more perfect or more secure.
"So I must strive to please you by writing with elegance befitting, yet permitting you to perceive the ardent heart of her who thinks of you through every blessed moment of the day.
"I pray, as my dear mother prays, that God, all armoured, and with His bright sword drawn, stand sentinel on your right hand throughout the dangers and the trials of this most just and bloody war. For your return I pray and wait.
"Your humble and dutiful and obedient and adoring wife to be,
"Lois de Contrecoeur.
"Post scriptum: The memory of our kiss fades not from my lips. I will be content when circumstances permit us the liberty to repeat it."
When I had read the letter again and again, I folded it and laid it in the bosom of my rifle-shirt. Boyd still brooded over his letter, the red firelight bathing his face to the temples.
After a long while he raised his eyes, saw me looking at him, stared at me for a moment, then quietly extended the letter toward me.
"You wish me to read it?" I asked.
"Yes, read it, Loskiel, before I burn it," he said drearily. "I do not desire to have it discovered on my body after death."
I took the single sheet of paper and read:
"Lieutenant Thomas Boyd,
"Rifle Corps,
"Sir:
"For the last time, I venture to importune you in behalf of one for whose present despair you are entirely responsible. Pitying her unhappy condition, I have taken her as companion to me since we are arrived at Easton, and shall do what lies within my power to make her young life as endurable as may be.
"You, sir, on your return from the present campaign, have it in your power to make the only reparation possible. I trust that your heart and your sense of honour will so incline you.
"As for me, Mr. Boyd, I make no complaint, desire no sympathy, expect none. What I did was my fault alone. Knowing that I was falling in love with you, and at the same time aware what kind of man you had been and must still be, I permitted myself to drift into deeper waters, too weak of will to make an end, too miserable to put myself beyond the persuasion of your voice and manner. And perhaps I might never have found courage to give you up entirely had I not been startled into comprehension by what I learned concerning the poor child in whose behalf I now am writing.
"That instantly sobered me, ending any slightest spark of hope that I might have in my secret heart still guarded. For, with my new and terrible knowledge, I understood that I must pass instantly and completely out of your life; and you out of mine. Only your duty remained—not to me, but to this other and more unhappy one. And that path I pray that you will follow when a convenient opportunity arises.
"I am, sir y' ob't, etc., etc.
"Magdalene Helmer.
"P. S. If you love me, Tom, do your full duty in the name of God!
"Lana."
I handed the letter back to him in silence. He stared at it, not seeing the written lines, I think, save as a blurr; and after a long while he leaned forward and laid it on the coals.
"If I am not already foredoomed," he said to me, "what Lana bids me do that I shall do. It is best, is it not, Loskiel?"
"A clergyman is fitter to reply to you than I."
"Do you not think it best that I marry Dolly Glenn?"
"God knows. It is all too melancholy and too terrible for me to comprehend the right and wrong of it, or how a penitence is best made. Yet, as you ask me, it seems to me that what she will one day become should claim your duty and your future. The weakest ever has the strongest claim."
"Yes, it-is true. I stand tonight so fettered to an unborn soul that nothing can unloose me.... I wish that I might live."
"You will live! You must live!"
"Aye, 'must' and 'will' are twins of different complexions, Loskiel.... Yet, if I live, I shall live decently and honestly hereafter in the sight of God and—Lana Helmer."
We said nothing more. About ten o'clock Boyd rose and went away all alone. Half an hour later he came back, followed by some score and more of men, a dozen of our own battalion, half a dozen musket-men of the 4th Pennsylvania Regiment, three others, two Indians, Hanierri, the headquarters Oneida guide, and Yoiakim, a Stockbridge.
"Volunteers," he said, looking sideways at me. "I know how to take Amochol; but I must take him in my own manner."
I ventured to remind him of the General's instructions that we find the Chinisee Castle and report at sunrise.
"Damn it, I know it," he retorted impatiently, "but I have my own plans; and the General will bear me out when I fling Amochol's scalp at his feet."
The Grey-Feather drew me aside and said in a low, earnest voice:
"We are too many to surprise Amochol. Before Wyoming, with only three others I went to Thenondiago, the Castle of the Three Clans—The Bear, The Wolf, and The Turtle—and there we took and slew Skull-Face, brother of Amochol, and wounded Telenemut, the husband of Catrine Montour. By Waiandaia we stretched the scalp of Skull-Face; at Thaowethon we painted it with Huron and Seneca tear-drops; at Yaowania we peeled three trees and wrote on each the story so that the Three Clans might read and howl their anguish. Thus should it be done tonight if we are to deal with Amochol!"
Once more I ventured to protest to Boyd.
"Leave it to me, Loskiel," he said pleasantly. And I could say no more.
At eleven our party of twenty-nine set out, Hanierri, the Oneida, from headquarters, guiding us; and I could not understand why Boyd had chosen him, for I was certain he knew less about this region than did Mayaro, However, when I spoke to Boyd, he replied that the General had so ordered, and that Hanierri had full instructions concerning the route from the commander himself.
As General Sullivan was often misinformed by his maps and his scouts, I was nothing reassured by Boyd's reply, and marched with my Indians, feeling in my heart afraid. And, without vaunting myself, nor meaning to claim any general immunity from fear, I can truly say that for the first time in my life I set forth upon an expedition with the most melancholy forebodings possible to a man of ordinary courage and self-respect.
We followed the hard-travelled war-trail in single file; and Hanierri did not lose his way, but instead of taking, as he should have done, the unused path which led to the Chinisee Castle, he passed it and continued on.
I protested most earnestly to Boyd; the Sagamore corroborated my opinion when summoned. But Hanierri remained obstinate, declaring that he had positive information that the Chinisee Castle lay in the direction we were taking.
Boyd seemed strangely indifferent and dull, making apparently no effort to sift the matter further. So strange and apathetic had his manner become, so unlike himself was he, that I could make nothing of him, and stood in uneasy wonderment while the Mohican and the Oneida, Hanierri, were gravely disputing.
"Come," he said, in his husky and altered voice, "let us have done with this difference in opinion. Let the Oneida guide us—as we cannot have two guides' opinions. March!"
In the darkness we crept past Butler's right flank, silently and undiscovered; nor could we discover any sign of the enemy, though now not one among us doubted that he lay hidden along the bluffs, waiting for our army to move at sunrise into the deadly trap that the nature of the place had so perfectly provided.
All night long we moved on the hard and trodden trail; and toward dawn we reached a town. Reconnoitering the place, we found it utterly abandoned. If the Chinisee Castle lay beyond it, we could not determine, but Hanierri insisted that it was there. So Boyd sent back four men to Sullivan to report on what we had done; and we lay in the woods on the outskirts of the village, to wait for daylight.
When dawn whitened the east, it became plain to us all that we had taken the wrong direction. The Chinisee Castle was not here. Nothing lay before us but a deserted village.
I knew not what to make of Boyd, for the discovery of our mistake seemed to produce no impression on him. He stood at the edge of the woods, gazing vacantly across the little clearing where the Indian houses straggled on either side of the trail.
"We have made a bad mistake," I said in a low voice.
"Yes, a bad one," he said listlessly.
"Shall we not start on our return?" I asked.
"There is no hurry."
"I beg your pardon, but I have to remind you that you are to report at sunrise."
"Aye—if that were possible, Loskiel."
"Possible!" I repeated, blankly. "Why not?"
"Because," he said in a dull voice, "I shall never see another sunrise save this one that is coming presently. Let me have my fill of it unvexed by Generals and orders."
"You are not well, Boyd," I said, troubled.
"As well as I shall ever be—but not as ill, Loskiel."
At that moment the Sagamore laid his hand on my shoulder and pointed. I saw nothing for a moment; then Boyd and Murphy sprang forward, rifles in hand, and Mayaro after them, and I after them, running into the village at top speed. For I had caught a glimpse of a most unusual sight; four Iroquois Indians on horseback, riding into the northern edge of the town. Never before, save on two or three occasions, had I ever seen an Iroquois mounted on a horse.
We ran hard to get a shot at them, and beyond the second house came in full view of our enemies. Murphy fired immediately, knocking the leading Indian from his horse; I fired, breaking the arm of the next rider; both my Indians fired and missed; and the Iroquois were off at full speed. Boyd had not fired.
We ran to where the dead man was lying, and the Mohican recognized him as an Erie named Sanadaya. Murphy coolly took his scalp, with an impudent wink at the Sagamore and a grin at Boyd and me.
In the meanwhile, our riflemen and Indians had rushed the town and were busy tearing open the doors of the houses and setting fire to them. In vain I urged Boyd to start back, pointing out that this was no place for us to linger in, and that our army would burn this village in due time.
But he merely shrugged his shoulders and loitered about, watching his men at their destruction; and I stood by, a witness to his strange and inexplicable delay, a prey to the most poignant anxiety because the entire Tory army lay between us and our own army, and this smoke signal must draw upon us a very swarm of savages to our inevitable destruction.
At last Boyd sounded the recall on his ranger's whistle, and ordered me to take my Indians and reconnoiter our back trail. And no sooner had I entered the woods than I saw an Indian standing about a hundred yards to the right of the trail, and looking up at the smoke which was blowing southward through the tree-tops.
His scarlet cloak was thrown back; he was a magnificent warrior, in his brilliant paint, matching the flaming autumn leaves in colour. My Indians had not noticed him where he stood against a crimson and yellow maple bush. I laid my rifle level and fired. He staggered, stood a moment, turning his crested head with a bewildered air, then swayed, sank at the knee joints, dropped to them, and very slowly laid his stately length upon the moss, extending himself like one who prepared for slumber.
We ran up to where he lay with his eyes closed; he was still breathing. A great pity for him seized me; and I seated myself on the moss beside him, staring into his pallid face.
And as I sat beside him while he was dying, he opened his eyes, and looked at me. And I knew that he knew I had killed him. After a few moments he died.
"Amochol!" I said under my breath. "God alone knows why I am sorry for this dead priest." And as I rose and stared about me, I caught sight of two pointed ears behind a bush; then two more pricked up sharply; then the head of a wolf popped up over a fallen log. But as I began to reload my rifle, there came a great scurrying and scattering in the thickets, and I heard the Andastes running off, leaving their dead master to me and to my people, who were now arriving.
I do not know who took his scalp; but it was taken by some Indian or Ranger who came crowding around to look down upon this painted dead man in his scarlet cloak.
"Amochol is dead," I said to Boyd.
He looked at me with lack-lustre eyes, nodding. We marched on along the trail by which we had arrived.
For five miles we proceeded in silence, my Indians flanking the file of riflemen. Then Boyd gave the signal to halt, and sent forward the Sagamore, the Grey-Feather, and Tahoontowhee to inform the General that we would await the army in this place.
The Indians, so coolly taken from my command, had gone ere I came up from the rear to find what Boyd had done.
"Are you mad?" I exclaimed, losing my temper, "Do you propose to halt here at the very mouth of the hornet's nest?"
He did not rebuke me for such gross lack of discipline and respect—in fact, he seemed scarcely to heed at all what I said, but seated himself at the foot of a pine tree and lit his pipe. As I stood biting my lip and looking around at the woods encircling us, he beckoned two of his men, gave them some orders in a low voice, crossed one leg over the other, and continued to smoke the carved and painted Oneida pipe he carried in his shot-pouch.
I saw the two riflemen shoulder their long weapons and go forward in obedience to his orders; and when again I approached him he said:
"They will make plain to Sullivan what your Indians may garble in repeating—that I mean to await the army in this place and save my party these useless miles of travelling. Do you object?"
"Our men are not tired," I said, astonished, "and our advanced guard can not be very far away. Do you not think it more prudent for us to continue the movement toward our own people?"
"Very well—if you like," he said indifferently.
After a few minutes' inaction, he rose, sounded his whistle; the men got to their feet, fell in, and started, rifles a-trail. But we had proceeded scarcely a dozen rods into the big timber when we discovered our two riflemen, who had so recently left us, running back toward us and looking over their shoulders as they ran. When they saw us, they halted and shouted for us to hasten, as there were several Seneca Indians standing beside the trail ahead.
In a flash of intuition it came to me that here was a cleared runway to some trap.
"Don't leave the trail!" I said to Boyd. "Don't be drawn out of it now. For God's sake hold your men and don't give chase to those Indians."
"Press on!" said Boyd curtly; and our little column trotted forward.
Something crashed in a near thicket and went off like a deer. The men, greatly excited, strove to catch a glimpse of the running creature, but the bush was too dense.
Suddenly a rifleman, who was leading our rapid advance, caught sight of the same Senecas who had alarmed him and his companion; and he started toward them with a savage shout, followed by a dozen others.
Hanierri turned to Boyd and begged him earnestly not to permit any pursuit. But Boyd pushed him aside impatiently, and blew the view-halloo on his ranger's whistle; and in a moment we all were scattering in full pursuit of five lithe and agile Senecas, all in full war-paint, who appeared to be in a panic, for they ran through the thickets like terrified sheep, huddling and crowding on one another's heels.
"Boyd!" I panted, catching up with him. "This whole business looks like a trap to me. Whistle your men back to the trail, for I am certain that these Senecas are drawing us toward their main body."
"We'll catch one of them first," he said; and shouted to Murphy to fire and cripple the nearest. But the flying Senecas had now vanished into a heavily-wooded gully, and there was nothing for Murphy to fire at.
I swung in my tracks, confronting Boyd.
"Will you halt your people before it is too late?" I demanded. "Where are your proper senses? You behave like a man who has lost his mental balance!"
He gave me a dazed look, where he had been within his rights had he cut me down with his hatchet.
"What did you say?" he stammered, passing his hand over his eyes as though something had obscured his sight.
"I asked you to sound the recall. Those Indians we chase are leading us whither they will. What in God's name ails you, Boyd? Have you never before seen an ambush?"
He stood motionless, as though stupefied, staring straight ahead of him. Then he said, hesitatingly, that he desired Tim Murphy to cripple one of the Senecas and fetch him in so that we might interrogate him.
