[Ill.u.s.tration: "NOW LOOSE ME--FOR THE FOREST ENDS!".]
A faint red light grew in the woodland gloom; a rushing noise like swiftly flowing water filled my ears--or was it the blood that surged singing through my heart?
"Broadalbin Bush," she murmured, clearing her eyes of the clouded hair and feeling for her stirrups with small, moccasined toes. "Hark! Now we hear the Kennyetto roaring below the hill. See, cousin, it is sunset, the west blazes, all heaven is afire! Ah! what sorcery has turned the world to paradise--riding this day with you?"
She turned in her saddle with an exquisite gesture, pressed her outstretched hand against my lips, then, gathering bridle, launched her horse straight through the underbrush, out into a pasture where, across a naked hill, a few log-houses reddened in the sunset.
There hung in the air a smell of sweetbrier as we drew bridle before a cabin under the hill. I leaned over and plucked a handful of the leaves, bruising them in my palm to savor the spicy perfume.
A man came to the door of the cabin and stared at us; a tap-room sluggard, a-sunning on the west fence-rail, chewed his cud solemnly and watched us with watery eyes.
"Andrew Bowman, have you seen aught to fright folk on the mountain?"
asked Dorothy, gravely.
The man in the doorway shook his head. From the cabins near by a few men and women trooped out into the road and hastened towards us. One of the houses bore a bush, and I saw two men peering at us through the open window, pewters in hand.
"Good people," said Dorothy, quietly, "the patroon sends you word of a strange smoke seen this day in the hills."
"There"s smoke there now," I said, pointing into the sunset.
At that moment Peter Van Horn galloped up, halted, and turned his head, following the direction of my outstretched arm. Others came, blinking into the ruddy evening glow, craning their necks to see, and from the wretched tavern a lank lout stumbled forth, rifle shouldered, pewter a-slop, to learn the news that had brought us. .h.i.ther at that hour.
"It is mist," said a woman; but her voice trembled as she said it.
"It is smoke," growled Van Horn. "Read it, you who can."
Whereat the fellow in the tavern window fell a-laughing and called down to his companion: "Francy McCraw! Francy McCraw! The Brandt-Meester says a Mohawk fire burns in the north!"
"I hear him," cried McCraw, draining his pewter.
Dorothy turned sharply. "Oh, is that you, McCraw? What brings you to the Bush?"
The lank fellow turned his wild, blue eyes on her, then gazed at the smoke. Some of the men scowled at him.
"Is that smoke?" I asked, sharply. "Answer me, McCraw!"
"A canna" deny it," he said, with a mad chuckle.
"Is it Indian smoke?" demanded Van Horn.
"Aweel," he replied, craning his skinny neck and c.o.c.king his head impudently--"aweel, a"ll admit that, too. It"s Indian smoke; a canna deny it, no."
"Is it a Mohawk signal?" I asked, bluntly.
At which he burst out into a crowing laugh.
"What does he say?" called out the man from the tavern. "What does he say, Francy McCraw?"
"He says it maun be Mohawk smoke, Danny Redstock."
"And what if it is?" bl.u.s.tered Redstock, shouldering his way to McCraw, rifle in hand. "Keep your black looks for your neighbors, Andrew Bowman.
What have we to do with your Mohawk fires?"
"Herman Salisbury!" cried Bowman to a neighbor, "do you hear what this Tory renegade says?"
"Quiet! Quiet, there," said Redstock, swaggering out into the road.
"Francy McCraw, our good neighbors are woful perplexed by that thread o"
birch smoke yonder."
"Then tell the f.e.c.kless fools tae watch it!" screamed McCraw, seizing his rifle and menacing the little throng of men and women who had closed swiftly in on him. "Hands off me, Johnny Putnam--back, for your life, Charley Cady! Ay, stare at the smoke till ye"re eyes drop frae th"
sockets! But no; there"s some foulk "ill tak" nae warnin"!"
He backed off down the road, followed by Redstock, rifles c.o.c.ked.
"An" ye"ll bear me out," he shouted, "that there"s them wha" hear these words now shall meet their weirds ere a hunter"s moon is wasted!"
He laughed his insane laugh and, throwing his rifle over his shoulder, halted, facing us.
"Hae ye no heard o" Catrine Montour?" he jeered. "She"ll come in the night, Andrew Bowman! Losh, mon, but she"s a grewsome carlin", wi" the witch-locks hangin" to her neck an" her twa een blazin"!"
"You drive us out to-night!" shouted Redstock. "We"ll remember it when Brant is in the hills!"
"The wolf-yelp! Clan o" the wolf!" screamed McCraw. "Woe! Woe to Broadalbane! "Tis the pibroch o" Glencoe shall wake ye to the woods afire! Be warned! Be warned, for ye stand knee-deep in ye"re shrouds!"
In the ruddy dusk their dark forms turned to shadows and were gone.
Van Horn stirred in his saddle, then shook his shoulders as though freeing them from a weight.
"Now you have it, you Broadalbin men," he said, grimly. "Go to the forts while there"s time."
In the darkness around us children began to whimper; a woman broke down, sobbing.
"Silence!" cried Bowman, sternly. And to Dorothy, who sat quietly on her horse beside him, "Say to the patroon that we know our enemies. And you, Peter Van Horn, on whichever side you stand, we men of the Bush thank you and this young lady for your coming."
And that was all. In silence we wheeled our horses northward, Van Horn riding ahead, and pa.s.sed out of that dim hamlet which lay already in the shadows of an unknown terror.
Behind us, as we looked back, one or two candles flickered in cabin windows, pitiful, dim lights in the vast, dark ocean of the forest.
Above us the stars grew clearer. A vesper-sparrow sang its pensive song.
Tranquil, sweet, the serene notes floated into silver echoes never-ending, till it seemed as if the starlight all around us quivered into song.
I touched Dorothy, riding beside me, white as a spirit in the pale radiance, and she turned her sweet, fearless face to mine.
"There is a sound," I whispered, "very far away."
She laid her hand in mine and drew bridle, listening. Van Horn, too, had halted.
Far in the forest the sound stirred the silence; soft, stealthy, nearer, nearer, till it grew into a patter. Suddenly Van Horn"s horse reared.