Part 77 (2/2)
Lana stopped, bent low over a forest blossom, and touched her face to it. Her cheeks were burning. All about us these frail, snowy blossoms grew, and Lois gathered one here and yonder while Boyd and I threw ourselves down on a vast, deep bed of moss, under which a thread of icy water trickled.
Ahead of us, in plain view, stood one of our outer picket guards, and below in a wide and bowl-shaped hollow, running south to the river, we could see cattle moving amid the trees, and the rifle-barrel of a herd guard s.h.i.+ning here and there.
My Indians on either flank advanced to the picket line, and squatted there, paying no heed to the challenge of the sentinels, until Boyd was obliged to go forward and satisfy the sullen Pennsylvania soldiery on duty there.
He came back in his graceful, swinging stride, chewing a twig of black-birch, his thumbs hooked in his belt, d.a.m.ning all Pennsylvanians for surly dogs.
I pointed out that many of them were as loyal as any man among us; and he said he meant the Quakers only, and cursed them for rascals, every one. Again I reminded him that Alsop Hunt was a Quaker; and he said that he meant not the Westchester folk, but John Penn's people, Tories, every one, who would have hired ruffians to do to the Connecticut people in Forty Fort what later was done to them by Indians and Tory rangers.
Lana protested in behalf of the s.h.i.+ppens in Philadelphia, but Boyd said they were all tarred with the same brush, and all were selfish and murderous, lacking only the courage to bite--yes, every Quaker in Penn's Proprietary--the s.h.i.+ppens, Griscoms, Pembertons, Norrises, Whartons, Baileys, Barkers, Storys--”'Every d.a.m.ned one o' them!” he said, ”devised that scheme for the wanton and cruel ma.s.sacre of the Wyoming settlers, and meant to turn it to their own pecuniary profit!”
He was more than partly right; yet, knowing many of these to be friends and kinsmen to Lana Helmer, he might have more gracefully remained silent. But Boyd had not that instinctive dread of hurting others with ill-considered facts; he blurted out all truths, whether timely or untimely, wherever and whenever it suited him.
For the Tory Quakers he mentioned I had no more respect than had he, they being neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but a smooth, sanctimonious and treacherous lot, more calculated to work us mischief because of their superior education and financial means. Indeed, they generally remained undisturbed by the ferocious Iroquois allies of our late and gentle King; secure in their property and lives while all around them men, women, and little children fell under the dripping hatchets.
”Had I my say,” remarked Boyd loudly, ”I'd take a regiment and scour me out these rattlesnakes from the Proprietary, and pack 'em off to prison, bag and baggage!”
Lana had knelt, making a cup of her hand, and was drinking from the silvery thread of water at our feet. Now, as Boyd spoke, she straightened up and cast a shower of sparkling drops in his face, saying calmly that she prayed G.o.d he might have the like done for him when next he needed a cooling off.
”Lanette,” said he, disconcerted but laughing, ”do you mean in h.e.l.l or at the Iroquois stake?”
Whereupon Lana flushed and said somewhat violently that he should not make a jest of either h.e.l.l or stake; and that she for one marvelled at his ill-timed pleasantries and unbecoming jests.
So here was a pretty quarrel already sur le tapis; but neither I nor Lois interposed, and Lana, pink and angry, seated herself on the moss and gazed steadily at our watchful Indians. But in her fixed gaze I saw the faint glimmer of tears.
After a moment Boyd got up, went down to her, and asked her pardon. She made no answer; they remained looking at each other for another second, then both smiled, and Boyd lay down at her feet, resting his elbow on the moss and his cheek on his hand, so that he could converse with me across her shoulder.
And first he cautioned both Lana and Lois to keep secret whatever was to be said between us two, then, nodding gaily at me:
”You were quite right, Loskiel, in speaking to the General about the proper trap for this Wizard-Sachem Amochol, who is inflaming the entire Seneca nation to such a fury.”
”I know no other way to take and destroy him,” said I.
”There is no other way. It must be done secretly, and by a small party manoeuvring ahead and independently of our main force.”
”Are you to command?” I asked.
”I am to have that honour,” he said eagerly, ”and I take you, your savages, and twenty riflemen----”
”What is this?” said Lana sharply; but he lifted an impatient hand and went on in his quick, interested manner, to detail to me the plan he had conceived for striking Amochol at Catharines-town, in the very midst of the Onon-hou-aroria.
”Last night,” he said, ”I sent out Hanierri and Iaowania, the headquarters scouts; and I'm sorry I did, for they came in this morning with their tails between their legs, saying the forest swarmed with the Seneca scouts, and it was death to stir.
”And I was that disgusted--what with their cowardice and the aftermath of that headquarters punch--that I bade them go paint and sing their death-songs----”
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