Having at length been a.s.sured beyond peradventure that his suspicions were true, a desire for vengeance upon Simon Halpen sprang to life in Enoch"s heart. He forgot the momentous matter which had filled his mind before the appearance of Crow Wing the evening before. He thought only of his father"s murderer, the man who had tried to injure them all, even to the point of destroying their home and attempting to shoot himself.
As he tramped back to the house with the haunch of venison on his shoulder, he determined to tell n.o.body there of the finding of the moose hoofs which explained the mystery of his father"s death. The hoofs he saved to show Bolderwood, and for evidence against Simon Halpen if the opportunity ever arose to punish that villain. It was easy to see with this evidence before him, how the awful deed had been accomplished. With the moose hoofs strapped upon his feet the Yorker had crept through the forest on the trail of the unconscious Jonas Harding; had seen him shoot the doe; and then falling upon him suddenly had beaten him to the earth with his clubbed rifle and had bruised and mangled him so terribly that the neighbors, at first glance, p.r.o.nounced the poor man killed by a mad buck. Hurrying from the vicinity, dress and hands covered with blood as Crow Wing had seen him, Halpen had hidden the deer hoofs in the hollow of the tree, and escaped to Albany, his vengeance accomplished.
"But he shall suffer for this yet," thought the youth, with compressed lips. "G.o.d will punish him if the courts do not. And sometime he may be delivered into my hand, and if he is----"
The implied threat frightened him, and he did not follow it even in his thoughts, but by again turning his attention to the matter which Ethan Allen"s visit the day before had suggested, he strove to bring his mind into better tone before meeting his mother. He feared that the expression on his features would betray something of his horror and determination to her sharp eyes. When he reached home, however, he found the family so greatly excited that n.o.body thought to either ask questions or to notice his behavior. A drill had been called at Bennington and Enoch was forced to saddle the horse and hurry away at once. Under the present conditions it was thought best for Bryce to remain at home, for if the Green Mountain Boys marched upon Ticonderoga the younger Harding could not be spared to accompany the expedition.
The Council was in session and the leaders of the Green Mountain Boys remained in Bennington for more than a week. Couriers had arrived from the south and east and it was known that the British were rapidly being shut up in Boston. The Ma.s.sachusetts Colony was afire with wrath because of the Lexington ma.s.sacre. The Grants people were quite as rebellious against the King"s authority, with the sad affair at Westminster fresh in their minds. The proposal to capture the British strongholds on the lake met with favor everywhere. Small bodies of armed men began to come in and a camp was planned at Castleton. It was said that a large body of troops was to march from Western Ma.s.sachusetts and Connecticut to aid the expedition. When Ethan Allen returned and heard of these reinforcements he immediately desired to bring in more of his own people for the work proposed.
"This is our work," he declared. "We have planned to lead this campaign and lead it we shall. We must show the southerners that we are one in heart and intention and therefore every able-bodied man in the Grants must come in. It isn"t enough for us to have some men; we must have the most men and thereby control the expedition. We want the honor of it!"
"You must lead us, Colonel!" exclaimed Warner, who, although he had no such following as did Allen, was sure of a goodly company of determined men to join the expedition. "We"ll follow you into Old Ti or anywhere else; but no stranger must command."
"Then I must have more men to my following than anybody else," declared Allen, vigorously. "I have seen a great many myself, but there are districts I haven"t been able to reach."
"We must send out a cross of fire to rouse the clans," Captain Warner said, with a smile. "But who shall go? Bolderwood?"
""Siah has reached his own land--where he"s let the light in upon some acres, I understand--near Old Ti. And he"s got his work cut out for him there. No; I have the chap in mind to send up along the Otter. There"s only one thing I fear. I understand that a plaguey Yorker has been seen about Manchester for a week past. Just what he"s so attentive to certain people for at this time bothers me, Seth."
"But if he"s only a surveyor, or speculator----"
"A Yorker means a King"s man these times," exclaimed Allen. "I got a sight of him--a lean, hook-nosed fellow with a face puckered like a walnut; but we didn"t pa.s.s the time o" day. I think he"s spying on us."
"If he is----" began Warner, wrathfully.
"I"m sorry for him, that"s all," declared the Green Mountain leader. "If I catch him and it"s proven against him, I"ll hang him to the highest limb in this neck of woods."
"But the person you will send out with the warning, Colonel?" cried Warner. "Whom have you in your mind?"
"I see him coming now," declared the leader, laughing. "I sent word to him last evening. He should have been to Castleton ere this; but the widow----"
"It"s young Harding!" cried Captain Warner. "I recognize him. And, Colonel, from what I have seen of the young man, he"ll bear out your confidence in him."
Enoch had approached near enough to hear this last and he flushed deeply. "I was told you wanted to see me, Colonel Allen," he said, saluting awkwardly.
"I do indeed," said Allen. "You"re ready for campaigning, I see. Leave your traps--even to your blanket and gun--with Master Fay here. You"ll want to travel light where I send you," and he proceeded to explain the mission he wished the youth to perform.
"I am ready, Colonel," declared Enoch, throwing off his knapsack.
"Good! Away with you at once. Use yonder horse till you get to Manchester. Beyond that there will scarcely be bridle paths, so a horse will be in your way. Take the word around that the time has come to strike. And have them rendezvous at Castleton. Be off, my boy, and may success go with you!"
The horse in question was a fine steed that Allen had ridden into town that very morning. The youth sprang into the saddle and, understanding that haste and cautiousness were the two things most desired of him, trotted the animal easily out of the town and then put the spurs to him along the road to Manchester. He spared neither the horse nor himself until he reached the latter place and had left the steed in the keeping of a loyal man to be returned at the first opportunity to Colonel Allen.
Of course, all the men in this section of the Grants had been warned of the proposed expedition against the fortresses on Champlain; it was those who dwelt deeper in the wilderness to whom young Enoch Harding had been sent.
He knew what was expected of him. And he knew, too, how most of the Grants people would receive the news. Colonel Allen was beloved by them as were few leaders. This Connecticut giant who had given up his desire for a college education and a life among books because duty called him to the work of supporting his family, who had been by turn a farmer, an iron forger, had tried mining and other toilsome industries, but who nearly always worked with a book in his hand or beside him where he could read and study--this man with his free, jovial air and utterly reckless courage, was become as one of the heroes of old to the people of Vermont. The men on his side of the controversy in which Allen had taken such a deep interest, loved him devotedly; those who espoused the New York cause hated him quite as dearly, for they feared him.
So when Enoch set out from Manchester to go from farmstead to farmstead and from clearing to clearing, he was not in much doubt as to whom he should send to Castleton and whom he should pa.s.s by without speaking to regarding the proposed expedition. There would be no doubtful settlers.
The line between Tories and Whigs was drawn too sharply; and every Whig stood by Ethan Allen.
Enoch had learned something of the paths and runways of this part of the Grants. It had been near here that Lot Breckenridge and himself, with Crow Wing, had spent a winter trapping. Lot had now gone, so he had heard, to Boston as he said he should if fighting began. He had gone to help Israel Putnam and the other New England leaders pen the British into the city and aid in that series of maneuvres which finally drove the red-coats into their ships. As for himself, Enoch was only eager to be one of those who should storm the walls of Ticonderoga, and glad as he was to have been singled out for this present duty, he was determined to husband his strength so as to get back to Castleton before the army gathering there should move against the British fortifications.
He walked rapidly; more often he ran. In the pouch at his belt he carried parched corn, like an Indian on the warpath. Occasionally at a clearing, where some hardy borderer was scratching a living from the half-cleared soil, he would stop long enough to eat. But usually he halted only to give the good man of the house the message from Ethan Allen and, as he pa.s.sed on and entered the forest on the further side he looked back to see the settler, his gun on his shoulder, bidding his family good-bye preparatory to setting out for the rendezvous appointed for the American troops.
But nature revolts when a certain point of exhaustion is reached.
Refusing to remain the night at one kindly settler"s home, Enoch finally found himself in the forest a goodly distance from any other house. The path could be followed quite easily, the woods being open; but he was footsore and thoroughly wearied. He shrank from lying down beside the trail, however, for more reasons than one. On several occasions that afternoon he had heard of the presence of another traveler in the vicinity, and the ident.i.ty of this man he could not learn. The settlers who had mentioned him, however, declared they believed him to be a New York agent, or a spy from the British across the lake, who was going through the region to discover just how the people felt regarding the rising trouble between the Colonials and the mother country. Such, at least, had been the trend of his conversation with the loyal Americans to whom he had been unwise enough to speak.
The appearance of the man, too, rather troubled Enoch. He was said to be tall and lean, with a very black face, a huge nose and fiery eyes. The youth remembered how Simon Halpen looked a few weeks before when he saw him at Westminster, and this pretty well described the scoundrel. Halpen was in the Grants--or had been recently. Perhaps he had dared come across the mountains toward the lake on some errand for the Tory party, and the thought that the man who had murdered his father and who had tried to take his own life, might be within rifle shot, troubled the youth exceedingly. He could not drive away this thought and when finally he was forced to stop for rest he trembled to think that perhaps the light of his campfire would attract an enemy more to be feared than either the wolves or catamounts.
But he built his fire, broiled a piece of meat which the last settler he spoke to had given him, ate his supper, and then prepared to sleep for a few hours. The moon would rise late, and he desired to set forward on his journey again as soon as it was light enough in the forest. Just at present the darkness shrouded all objects. But when he lay down with his feet toward the blaze and his head upon a heap of moss for a pillow, he could not sleep, tired though he was. His nerves were all alive. His limbs twitched so that he could not keep them still. Every sound of the forest smote upon his ear with insistence. Although his muscles were wearied his eyes would not close.
Who was the Yorker that had crossed his path so many times during the past few hours? What did he desire here in the Otter country? Was he a spy for the British? or was he upon his own business? And, above all, was he, Nuck Harding, in danger? The stranger might be roaming the forest even then, hunting for the messenger of the Green Mountain chieftain. He had likely heard that Nuck was going from farmer to farmer, as Nuck had heard of his presence, and the man might contemplate stopping him. It would be easy for him to creep upon and shoot the defenseless youth as he lay before the fire.
Nuck"s only weapons were his knife and the hatchet stuck in his belt.
Lying there within the circle of light cast by the flames he would be an easy mark for any enemy. As minute after minute pa.s.sed it seemed utterly impossible for him to quench this fear and he finally rose to his feet and got out of the fire light. He stood in the deep shadow of a tree trunk and cast searching glances around the tiny clearing in which he had established his camp. Not a living thing did he observe.
But if there was an enemy on his trail, and he should come near the camp and see it deserted he would suspect a trap at once. Either he would circle about so as to finally find Enoch, or he would fly from the ambush at once. "I expect I am very foolish,--losing good sleep that I need, too!" muttered the young fellow. "But still----"
He could not explain the strange unrest that possessed him. He was not of a particularly nervous temperament; therefore his present mood troubled him the more. There was danger menacing him; he felt it, if he could not see nor understand it. The only possibility of peril which reason suggested was through the agency of that stranger. "I must have things here so that he will not suspect that I am on my guard," the youth muttered.
Forthwith he dragged a piece of a broken tree-trunk to the fire, wrapped his coat about it and placed his cap at the end of the stick farthest from the blaze. He was careful to place the rude dummy far enough away from the fire so that its flickering light should not be cast upon it too strongly. It really looked, when he was through, as though some person lay there asleep. He did not feed the flames too generously, but left burning some hardwood sticks, the glowing coals of which would lend but little light to the scene. Then he retired again to the shadow of the tree where, crouching between two huge exposed roots, he waited with sleepless eyes for that which was, perhaps, merely the phantom of his fears.
CHAPTER XIX
THE RISING OF THE CLANS
As still as the shadow of the tree itself, Enoch lay with his face toward the camp. Truly, had the forest not been so dark outside the radiance of the fire, he would have set out again upon his journey, and left this spot which seemed to his troubled mind the lurking place of some serious danger. The minutes grew to an hour, however, without a suspicious sound reaching his ears. The usual noises of the forest--the hooting of the owl, the wolf"s cry, the whimper of the wild-cat--were all that disturbed the repose of the wilderness.
But suddenly a dry twig snapped somewhere near him. The sound went through the anxious youth like a shock of electricity. Its direction he could not fathom; yet he was sure that the branch had crackled under the pressure of a foot. Somebody--or something--was approaching his fire, which now threw a dull red light across the forest glade. Enoch"s eyes were fastened first upon one blot of shadow and then another.
Occasionally, too, he darted a glance over his shoulder, that the approaching enemy might not come upon him unawares. Just at that time Enoch would have given much for his rifle. Its presence would have inspired him with a deal of courage. The very fact that the danger, which intuition rather than reason a.s.sured him was threatening, came from an unknown source, increased his fears. Perhaps Simon Halpen was not within a hundred miles of that identical spot. He who was visiting the Tories and New York sympathizers of this region was possibly nothing worse than the agent of a land speculator. The youthful Green Mountain Boy might be the only human being within five miles.
But suddenly that happened which shattered this fallacious web of thought in an instant. In the deep shadow of a thick clump of brush upon the other side of the fire, the youth observed a movement--rather, a flash or glint of light. The fire, increasing unexpectedly by the falling apart of one of the logs, had sent a penetrating ray of light into the thicket and there it glittered upon some polished piece of metal. Nothing else could have sent forth this answering gleam; it was not a pair of eyes; Enoch was confident of that.
"He is there!" whispered the youth, and he crouched lower between the roots. His eyes, sharp as they were, could not penetrate the gloom of the brush clump, and the glittering metal had now disappeared. But he was sure that the intruder was still there, reconnoitering the camp.
Would he suspect the ruse? Would he observe that the body lying by the fire was simply a dummy? The youth was glad to see that the log with his jacket and cap upon it lay almost entirely in the shadow and that one coat-sleeve was stretched out upon the ground in a very natural manner indeed.
The moments that pa.s.sed then were really terrible to young Harding. He knew himself to be in no immediate danger from this mysterious individual who had crept near his camp. Surely, the man could not see him where he lay shrouded in the darkness. Yet the thought that he was being dogged by a deadly enemy possessed him, and the doubt as to what the unknown would do next, brought the sweat to his brow and limbs and set him trembling like one with an ague. Not a breath disturbed the bushes, yet he felt that the man was there--there across the opening in the forest with his eyes fixed upon the supine figure near the fire. Had he not been warned by that mysterious feeling which had kept his eyes open and his nerves alert he, Enoch Harding, might now be lying unconscious with a deadly weapon trained upon him!
And then the shot was fired! Enoch expected it, yet the explosion almost betrayed him to the enemy. A gasp of terror left his lips. Incidental with the explosion he heard the thud of the ball as it penetrated the log, and the shock of the impact actually stirred the dummy. It leaped upon the uneven ground!
This fact was an awful accessory to the attempted murder. The inanimate object had moved as a human being would if suddenly shot through a vital part. Perhaps the very gasp of horror Enoch had uttered reached the ears of him who had fired from ambush. At least the enemy did not seek to come nearer. Indeed, the youth heard a crash in the brush and then the retreat of rapid footsteps. Having done, as he supposed, the awful deed, the murderer fled from the spot. Enoch had half risen to his feet. Now he sank upon his knees, clasped his hands, and thanked G.o.d for his preservation.
But he did not leave the sanctuary of the forest"s shadow until he was fully convinced that the villain who had made the attempt upon his life was far away. Then, still shaking from the nervous terror inspired by the incident, he crept to the dying fire, secured his cap and coat, and went back to the roots of the tree again until the growing glow above the tree-tops announced the rising of the moon. The sky grew bright rapidly and soon the moonbeams wandered among the straight, handsome trees and lay calmly upon the earth. He could once more see objects about him with almost the clearness of full daylight.