Cardigan

I was fighting for time now. If I could keep on until dark I had no fear for the morrow. To tell the truth, I had no actual fear then; it seemed so impossible that these Johnstown yokels really meant to take my life, even if they caught me – this ass of a Toby Tice whom I had tipped for holding my stirrup more than once. And Wraxall, the red-headed barber sot, who had shaved me in the guard-house! How many times had he snatched off his greasy cap to me, as he loafed in tavern doors, sweating malt like a hop-vat!

But the nearness of Walter Butler was a very different affair. Even when I was but a toddling child at Mistress Molly's knee the sight of Walter Butler ever sent me fearfully hiding behind the first apron I could snatch at. Year by year my distrust and aversion deepened, until I had come to look forward serenely to that mortal struggle between us which I knew must come. But I had never expected it to come like this.

As I crept once more into the forest my hatred for this man gave me new strength, and I staggered on, searching for a vantage coign where I might take another shot at the grotesque crew. Up and up I crawled, faintly alarmed at my increasing weakness, for now, when a vine tripped me, I could scarce make out to rise again. In vain I whipped and spurred my lagging strength with stinging memories of all the scores I should wipe out with one clean bullet through Butler's head; it was nigh useless; I could barely move, and how was I to shoot with my brier-torn hands shaking so I could neither hold them still nor close my swollen fingers on the trigger? I needed rest; an hour would have sufficed to steady the palsy of exhaustion. If only the night would come quickly! But there were two hours of daylight yet, two long hours of light in which to track my every step.

I caught a distant glimpse of them far below me, searching the ravine and river-bank. How they had been lured off to the river I know not, but it gave me a brief chance for breath, though not for a shot; and I rested my face on my rifle-stock and closed my eyes.

I had been kneeling behind a granite rock in a bare waste of blueberry-scrub, close to the edge of the woods; and presently as I attempted to rise I fell down, and began to claw around like a blind kitten. Stand up I could not, and worst of all, I had little inclination to attempt it, the bed of rough bushes was so soothing, and the granite rock invited my heavy head. All over me a sweet numbness tingled; I tried to think, I strove to rouse. In vain I heard a sing-song drowsing in my ears: "They will kill you! They will kill you!" but there was no terror in it. What would it be, I wondered – a hatchet? – a knife at the throat like the deer's coup-de-grâce? Maybe a blow with a rifle-stock. What did I care? Sleep was sweet.

Then a quiver swept through me like an icy wind; with a pang I remembered my mission and the wampum pledges, the boast and the vow to Sir William. Darkness crowded me down; my head reeled, yet I rose again to my knees, swaying and clutching at the rock which I could barely see. All around a thick night seemed to hem me in; I groped through a chilly void for my rifle; it was gone. Panic-stricken I staggered up, drenched with dew, and I saw the moon staring at me over a mountain's ghostly wall.

Slowly I realized that I had slept; that death had passed me where I lay unconscious in the open moorland. But how far had death gone? – and would he not return by moonlight, stealthily, casting no shadow? Ay, what was that under the tree there, that shape watching me? – moving, too, – a man!

As I shrank back my heel struck my rifle. In an instant I was down behind the rock to prime with dry powder, but to my horror I found flint missing, charge drawn, pan raised, and ramrod sticking helplessly out of the barrel. The shock stunned me for a moment; then I snatched at knife and hatchet only to find an empty belt dangling to my ankles.

In the impulse of fury and despair, I crouched flat with clinched fists, trembling for a spring; and at the same instant a tall figure rose from the bushes at my elbow, laughing coolly.

"Greeting, friend," he said; "God save our country!"

Speechless and dazed, I turned to face him, but he only leaned quietly on a long rifle and pinched his chin and chuckled.

"There are some gentlemen yonder looking for you, young man," he said. "I sent them south, for somehow I thought you might not be looking for them."

Weakness had dulled my wits, but I found speech presently to ask for my knife and hatchet.

He laid his head on one side and contemplated me in mock admiration.

"Now! Now! Let us go slow, friend," he said. "Let us converse on several subjects before you begin bawling for your playthings. In the first place your manners need polish. I said to you, 'Greeting, friend; God save our country!' and you make me no polite reply."

Something in the big fellow's impudence and careless good-humour struck me as familiar. I had heard that voice before, and under pleasant circumstances, it seemed to me; somewhere I had seen him standing as he was standing now, in his stringy buckskins and his coon-skin cap, with the fluffy tail falling like a queue.

"If you please," I said, weakly, "give me my hatchet and knife and receive my thanks. Come, my good fellow, you detain me, and I have far to travel."

"Well, of all impudence!" he sneered. "Wait a bit, my young cock o' the woods. I don't know you yet, but I mean to ere you go out strutting o' moonlight nights."

"Will you give me my hatchet?" I asked, sharply, edging towards him.

Before the words left my lips he snatched my rifle from me and stepped back, putting the rock between us.

"Now," he said, grimly, "you come into camp and take supper with me, or I'll knock your head off and drag you in by the heels!"

Aching with fatigue and mortification, I stood there so perfectly helpless that the great oaf fell a-laughing again, and, with a shrug of good-humoured contempt, handed me back my rifle as though I were an infant.

"Don't grind your teeth at me," he chuckled. "Come to the camp, lad. I mean no harm to you. If I did, there's men yonder who'd slit your pipes for the pleasure, I warrant."

He took a step up the slope, looked around in the moonlight encouragingly, then abruptly returned to my side and passed his great arm around me.

"I'm dog-tired," I said, weakly, making an effort to walk; but my knees had no strength in them, and I must have fallen except for his support.

Up, up, up we passed through the foggy moonlight, he almost dragging me, and my feet a-trail behind. However, when we reached the plateau, I made out to stumble along with his aid, though I let him relieve me of my rifle, which he shouldered with his own.

After a minute or two I smelled the camp-fire, but could not see it. Even in the darkest night a fire amid great trees is not visible at any considerable distance.

My big companion, striding along beside me, had been constantly muttering under his breath, and presently I distinguished the words he was singing:

– "One shoe off, one shoe on,
Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John – "

"I know you," I said, abruptly.

He dropped his song and glanced around at me.

"Oh, you do, eh? Well, I mean to know you, too, so don't worry, young man."

"I won't," said I, scarcely able to speak.

Presently I saw a single tree in the darkness, all gleaming red, and in a moment we entered a ruddy ring of light, in the centre of which great logs burned and crackled in a little sea of whistling flames.

I was prepared to encounter the other coureur-de-bois, and there he was, ferret-face peering and sniffing at us as we approached. However, beyond a grunt, he paid me no attention, and presently fell to stirring something in a camp-pot which hung from cross-sticks over a separate bed of coals.

There was a third figure there, seated at the base of a gigantic pine tree; a little Hebrew man, gathering his knees in his arms and peeping up at me with watery, red-rimmed eyes; Saul Shemuel! – though I was too weary to bother my head as to how he came there. As I passed him he looked up, but he did not appear to know me, though he came every spring to Sir William for his peddling license, and sometimes sold us children gaffs and ferret-muzzles and gilt chains for pet dogs.

He bade me good-evening in an uncertain voice, and peered up at me continually; and although I doubted that even Sir William could have recognized me now, I feared this Jew.

The big man brought me a bowl of broth and spread a blanket for me close to the blaze. I do not recollect drinking the broth, but I must have done so, for shortly a delicious warmth enveloped me within and without, and that is the last I remembered that night.

CHAPTER X

It was still dark when I awoke; the fire had become a pyramid of coals. By the dull glow I saw two figures moving; one of them presently crossed the dim, crimson circle and sat down beside me, fists clasped under his massive chin, rifle balanced on his knees.

"I am awake," I whispered. "Is there any trouble?"

Without moving a muscle of his huge frame, the forest runner said: "Don't come into the fire-ring. There's a man been prowling yonder, a-sniffing our fire, for the last four hours."

I drew myself farther into the darkness, looking about me, shivering and rubbing my stiffened limbs.

"How do you feel?" he asked, without turning his head.

I told him I felt rested, and thanked him so earnestly for his great kindness to me that he began to laugh and chuckle all to himself and drag his great chin to and fro across his knuckles.

"Consider yourself fortunate, eh?" he repeated, rising to come into the thicket and squat on his haunches beside me.

"Yes," said I, wondering what he found so droll in the situation.

"Ever hear of Catamount Jack?" he inquired, after a moment.

"Yes; you mean Jack Mount, the highwayman? But you are mistaken; the man who follows me is not Jack Mount," I replied, smiling.

"Sure?"