Cardigan

"It hurts fearful," replied the Weasel, looking up at me hopefully.

"You had a lovely wife, didn't you, Cade?" inquired Mount, sympathetically.

"Yes – oh yes. And a baby girl, Jack – don't forget the baby girl," sniffed the Weasel, trotting beside me.

"The baby must be nigh fifteen years old now, eh, Cade?" suggested Mount.

"Sixteen, nigh sixteen, Jack. The cunning little thing."

"What became of her?" I asked, gently.

"Nobody knows, nobody knows," murmured the Weasel. "My wife left me and took my baby girl. Some say she went with one of Sir Peter Warren's captains, some say it was an admiral who charmed her. I don't know. She was gone and the fleet was gone when they told me."

He laid his hard little hand on my arm and looked up with bright eyes.

"Since that," he said, "I've been a little queer in my head. You may have noticed it. Oh yes, I've been a little mad, haven't I, Jack?"

"A little," said Mount, tenderly.

"I have not noticed it," said I.

"Oh, but I have," he insisted. "I talk with my baby in the woods; don't I, Jack? And I see her, too," he added, triumphantly. "That proves me a little mad; doesn't it, Jack?"

"The Weasel was once a gentleman," said Mount, in my ear. "He had a fine mansion near Boston."

"I hear you!" piped the Weasel. "I hear you, Jack. You are quite right, too. I was a gentleman. I have ridden to hounds, Mr. Cardigan, many a covert I've drawn, many a brush fell to me. I was master of fox-hounds, Mr. Cardigan. None rode harder than I. I kept a good cellar, too, and an open house – ah, yes, an open house, sir. And that was where ruin came in, finding the door open – and the fleet in the downs."

"And you came home and your dear wife had run away with an officer from Sir Peter Warren's ships – eh, Cade, old friend?" said Mount, affectionately.

"And took our baby – don't forget the baby, Jack," piped the Weasel.

"And if you could only find the man you'd slit his gullet, wouldn't you, Cade?" inquired Mount, dropping one great arm over the Weasel's shoulder.

"Oh, dear, yes," replied the Weasel, amiably.

I had been looking ahead along the line of wagons, where a lanthorn was glimmering. The convoy had halted, and presently Mount, Cade Renard, and I walked on along the ranks of resting troops and loaded wains until we came to where the light shone on a group of militia officers and riflemen. Cresap was there, wrapped in his heavy cloak; and when he perceived me he called me.

As I approached, followed naïvely by Mount and Renard, I was surprised to see a tall Indian standing beside Cresap, muffled to the chin in a dark blanket.

"Cardigan," said Cresap, "my scouts found this Indian walking ahead in the trail all alone. He made no resistance, and they brought him in. He seems to be foolish or simple-minded. I can't make him out. You see he is unarmed. What is he?"

I glanced at the tall, silent Indian; a glance was enough.

"This man is a Cayuga and a chief," I said, in a low voice.

"Speak to him," said Cresap; "he appears not to understand me. I speak only Tuscarora, and that badly."

I looked at the silent Cayuga and made the sign of brotherhood. His dull eyes regarded me steadily.

"Brother," I said, "by the cinders on your brow you mourn for the dead."

"I mourn," he replied, simply.

"A son?"

"A family. I am Logan."

Shocked, I gazed in pity on the stern, noble visage. So this was Logan, the wretched man bereft of all his loved ones by Greathouse!

I turned quietly to Cresap.

"This is the great Cayuga chief, Logan, whose children were murdered," I said.

Cresap turned a troubled face on the mute savage.

"Ask him where he journeys."

"Where do you journey, brother?" I asked, gently.

"I go to Fort Pitt," he answered, without emotion.

"To ask justice?"

"To ask it."

"God grant you justice," I said, gravely.

To Cresap I said, "He seeks justice at Fort Pitt from Lord Dunmore."

"Bid him come with us," replied Cresap, soberly. "He may not get justice at Fort Pitt, but there is a higher Judge than the Earl of Dunmore. To Him I also look for the justice that men shall deny me on earth."

I took Logan by the hand and led him into a space behind the wagons. Here we waited in silence until the slow convoy moved, and then we followed as mourners follow a casket to the grave of all their hopes.

Hour after hour we journeyed unmolested; the stars faded, but it was not yet dawn when a far voice cried in the darkness and a light moved, and we knew that the warders of the fortress were hailing our vanguard at the gates of Pittsburg.

CHAPTER XIII

I awoke in a flood of brightest sunshine which poured over the walls of my chamber and bathed the sweet lavender-scented sheets on my bed.

The water in the washing-bowl reflected the sunlight, and the white ceiling above me wavered with golden-netted ripples. A gentle wind moved the curtains to and fro, a brisk breeze, yet saturated with the disquieting taint of unknown odours, odours of a town whose streets are thronged with strange people. Those bred within the strip which runs along the borders of a wilderness find the air of towns confusing, as a keen hound, running perdu, enters a vast runway where a thousand pungent trails recross.

Reconnoitring the room from my sunny couch, I poked my sun-warmed muzzle out of the sheets, sniffing and inspecting the unfamiliar surroundings. Then I cautiously stretched my limbs, and finding myself supple and sound, leaped lightly onto the rag-carpet in my bare feet and stood looking out of the window.

This lodging whither Mount and Renard had piloted me when our convoy passed the ramparts of Fortress Pitt, was an inn called the "Virginia Arms," a most clean and respectable hostelry, though sometimes suspected as a trysting-place for rebels. James Rolfe, a Boston man, was our host, a thin-edged, mottled, shrewd-eyed fellow, whose nasal voice sounded continually through the house from tap-room to garret, in sarcastic comment on his servants. I heard him now as I stood at the window:

"Oh, Hiram, yew dinged sack o' shucks, the gentleman in 27 is knocking on the floor! Jonas! A pot o' small-beer for the gentleman in 17! Land o' Goshen, yew run like a frost-nipped spider! The gentleman in 6 is waiting for his wig! What's that? Waal, yew go right 'round tew the hairdresser's and tell him tew bring that wig! Hey? Yes, the wig dressed a-lar-Francy! Don't set there rubbing yewr chin like a dumned chipimunk, Simon, while Mister Patrick Henry is waiting for them queue ribbons from Corwin's. Eh? You fetched 'em? Well, why in the name o' Virginy can't you say so? Clean them buckles for the gentleman in 20, yew darned clam!"

His penetrating, half-fretful, half-humorous voice died away towards the stables in the rear, and I parted the dainty curtains and peeped out into the streets of Pittsburg. Our inn stood on the corner of the town square, opposite the village green. Across the square rose some well-made barracks, painted white; I could see red-coated sentinels posted at the gates and walking their beats along the west stockade. A few handsome mansions faced the square, two churches and a public house completed the north side of the quadrangle. East and west shops and smaller houses lined the streets; the green bush hung in the sunshine, the barber's basin swung and glittered among a forest of gayly painted sign-boards.