The Reckoning

"Captain Renault! Captain Renault!" called out a militiaman, as I turned from the log rampart.

The man came hastening toward me, firelock trailing, pack and sack bouncing and flopping.

"My wife has news of your lady," he said, pointing to a slim, pale young woman who stood in the doorway, a shawl over her wind-blown hair.

I turned as she advanced, looking me earnestly in the face.

"Your lady was in the fort late last night, sir," she began. A fit of coughing choked her; overhead the dreadful clangor of the bell dinned and dinned.

Dumb, stunned, I waited while she fumbled in her soiled apron, and at last drew out a crumpled letter.

"I'll tell you what I know," she said weakly. "We had been to the Hall; the sky was all afire. My little boy grew frightened, and she—your sweet lady—she lifted him and carried him for me—I was that sick and weak from fright, sir–"

A fit of coughing shook her. She handed me the letter, unable to continue.

And there, brain reeling, ears stunned by the iron din of the bell which had never ceased, I read her last words to me:

"Carus, my darling, I don't know where you are. Please God, you are not at Oswaya, where they tell me the Indians have appeared above Varicks. Dearest lad, your Oneida came with your letter. I could not reply, for there were no expresses to go to you. Colonel Willett had news of the enemy toward Fort Hunter, and marched the next day. We hoped he might head them, but last night there was an alarm, and we all went out into the street. People were hastening to the Hall, and I went, too, being anxious, now that you are out there alone somewhere in the darkness.

"Oh, Carus, the sky was all red and fiery behind Tribes Hill; and women were crying and children sobbing all around me. I asked the Ranger, Mount, if he had news of you, and he was gentle and kind, and strove to comfort me, but he went away with his company on a run, and I saw the militia assembling where the drummers stood beating their drums in the torchlight.

"Somebody—a woman—said: 'It's hatchet and scalping again, and we women will catch it now.'

"And then a child screamed, and its mother was too weak to carry it, so I took it back for her to the jail.

"I sat in the jailer's room, thinking and thinking. Outside the barred window I heard a woman telling how Butler's men had already slain a whole family at Caughnawaga—an express having arrived with news of horrors unspeakable.

"Dearest, it came to me like a flash of light what I must do—what God meant me to do. Can you not understand, my darling? We are utterly helpless here. I must go back to this man—to this man who is riding hither with death on his right hand, and on his left hand, death!

"Oh, Carus! Carus! my sin has found me out! It is written that man should not put asunder those joined together. I have defied Him! Yet He repays, mercifully, offering me my last chance.

"Sweetheart, I must take it. Can you not understand? This man is my lawful husband; and as his wife, I dare resist him; I have the right to demand that his Indians and soldiers spare the aged and helpless. I must go to him, meet him, and confront him, and insist that mercy be shown to these poor, terrified people. And I must pay the price!

"Oh, Carus! Carus! I love you so! Pray for me. God keep you! I must go ere it is too late. My horse is at Burke's. I leave this for you. Dear, I am striving to mend a shattered life with sacrifice of self—the sacrifice you taught me. I can not help loving you as I do; but I can strive to be worthy of the man I love. This is the only way!

"Elsin Grey."

The woman had begun to speak again. I raised my eyes.

"Your sweet lady gave me the letter—I waited while she wrote it in the warden's room—and she was crying, sir. God knows what she has written you!—but she kissed me and my little one, and went out into the yard. I have not seen her since, Mr. Renault."

Would the din of that hellish bell never cease its torture? Would sound never again give my aching brain a moment's respite? The tumult, men's sharp voices, the coughing of the sick woman, the dull, stupid blows of sound were driving me mad! And now more noises broke out—the measured crash of volleys; cheers from the militia on the parapet; an uproar swelling all around me. I heard some one shout, "Willett has entered the town!" and the next instant the smashing roll of drums broke out in the street, echoing back from façade and palisade, and I heard the fifes and hunting-horns playing "Soldiers' Joy!" and the long double-shuffling of infantry on the run.

The icy current of desperation flowed back into every vein. My mind cleared; I passed a steady hand over my eyes, looked around me, and, drawing the ranger's whistle from my belt, set it to my lips.

The clear, mellow call dominated the tumult. A man in deerskin dropped from the rifle-platform, another descended the ladder, others came running from the log bastions, all flocking around me like brown deer herding to the leader's call.

"Fall in!" I scarce knew my own voice.

The eager throng of riflemen fell away into a long rank, stringing out across the jail yard.

"Shoulder arms! Right dress! Right face! Call off!"

The quick responses ran along the ranks: "Right! left! right! left!–"

"Right double!" I called. Then, as order followed order, the left platoon stepped forward, halted, and dressed.

"Take care to form column by platoons right, right front. To the right—face! March!"

The gates were flung wide as we passed through, and, wheeling, swung straight into the streets of Johnstown with a solid hurrah!

A battalion of Massachusetts infantry was passing St. John's Church, filling William Street with the racket of their drums. White cross-belts and rifles shining, the black-gaitered column plodded past, mounted officers leading. Then a field-piece, harness and chains clanking, came by, breasting the hill at a gallop, amid a tempest of cheers from my riflemen. And now the Tryon County men were passing in dusty ranks, and more riflemen came running up, falling in behind my company.

"There's Tim Murphy!" cried Elerson joyously. "He has your horse, Captain!"

Down the hill from Burke's Inn came Murphy on a run, leading my horse; behind him sped the Weasel and a rifleman named Sammons, and Burke himself, flourishing a rifle, all greeted lustily by the brown ranks behind me, amid shouts of laughter as Jimmy Burke, in cap and fluttering forest-dress, fell in with the others.

"Captain Renault, sorr—" I turned. Murphy touched his raccoon cap.

"Sorr, I hov f'r to repoort thot ye're sweet lady, sorr, is wid Butler at Johnson Hall."

"Safe?" My lips scarcely moved.

"Safe so far, sorr. She rides wid their Major, Ross, an' the shtaff-officers in gold an' green."

I sprang to the saddle, raised my rifle and shook it, A shrill, wolfish yelling burst from the Rangers.

"Forward!" And "Forward! forward!" echoed the sergeants, as we swung into a quick step.

The rifles on the hill by the Hall were speaking faster and faster now. A white cloud hid the Hall and the trees, thickening and spreading as a volley of musketry sent its smoke gushing into the bushes. Then, in the dun-colored fog, a red flame darted out, splitting the air with a deafening crash, and the thunder-clap of the cannon-shot shook the earth under our hurrying feet.

We were close to the Hall now. Behind a hedge fence running east our militia lay, firing very coolly into the wavering mists, through which twinkled the ruddy rifle-flames of the enemy. The roar of the firing was swelling, dominated by the tremendous concussions of the field-piece. I saw officers riding like mounted phantoms through the smoke; dead men in green, dead men in scarlet, and here and there a dead Mohawk lay in the hedge. A wounded officer of Massachusetts infantry passed us, borne away to the village by Schoharic militia.

As we started for the hedge on a double, suddenly, through the smoke, the other side of the hedge swarmed with men. They were everywhere, crashing through the thicket, climbing the fence, pouring forward with shouts and hurrahs. Then the naked form of an Indian appeared; another, another; the militia, disconcerted and surprised, struck at them with their gunstocks, wavered, turned, and ran toward us.

I had already deployed my right into line; the panic-stricken militia came heading on as we opened to let them through; then we closed up; a sheet of flame poured out into the very faces of Butler's Rangers; another, another!

Bolt upright in the stirrups, I lifted my smoking rifle: "Rangers! Charge!"

Beneath my plunging horse a soldier in green went down screaming; an Indian darted past, falling to death under a dozen clubbed rifles; then a yelling mass of green-coated soldiers, forced and crushed back into the hedge, turned at bay; and into this writhing throng leaped my riflemen, hatchets flashing.

"Hold that hedge, Captain Renault!" came a calm voice near me, and I saw Colonel Willett at my elbow, struggling with his frantic horse.

A mounted officer near him cried: "The rest of the militia on the right are wavering, Colonel!"

"Then stop them, Captain Zielie!" said Willett, dragging his horse to a stand. His voice was lost in the swelling roar of the fusillade where my Rangers were holding the hedge. On the extreme right, through an open field, I saw the militia scattering, darting about wildly. There came a flash, a roar, and the scene was blotted out in a huge fountain of flame and smoke.

"They've blown up the ammunition-wagon! Butler's men have taken our cannon!" yelled a soldier, swinging his arms frantically. "Oh, my God! the militia are running from the field!"

It was true. One of those dreadful and unaccountable panics had seized the militia. Nothing could stop them. I saw Colonel Willett spur forward, sword flashing; officers rode into the retreating lines, begging and imploring them to stand. The pressure on my riflemen was enormous, and I ordered them to fall back by squads in circles to the fringe of woods. They obeyed very coolly and in perfect order, retiring step by step, shot by shot.

Massachusetts infantry were holding the same woods; a few Tryon militia rallied to us, and Colonel Gray took command. "For God's sake, Renault, go and help Willett stop the militia!" he begged. "I'll hold this corner till you can bring us aid!"

I peered about me through the smoke, gathered bridle, wheeled through the bushes into the open field, and hurled my horse forward along the line of retreat.

Never had I believed brave men could show such terror. Nobody heeded me, nobody listened. At my voice they only ran the faster, I galloping alongside, beseeching them, and looking for Willett.

Straight into the streets of Johnstown fled the militia, crowding the town in mad and shameless panic, carrying with them their mounted officers, as a torrent hurls chips into a whirlpool.

"Halt! In Heaven's name, what is the matter? Why, you had them on the run, you men of Tryon, you Ulster men!" cried Colonel Willett.

A seething mass of fugitives was blocked at the old stone church. Into them plunged the officers, cursing, threatening, imploring, I among them, my horse almost swept from his legs in the rushing panic.

"Don't run, lads," I said; "don't put us all to this shame! Why, what are you afraid of? I saw nothing to scare a child on the hill. And this is my first battle. I thought war was something to scare a man. But this is nothing. You wouldn't leave the Rangers there all alone, would you? They're up there drilling holes in the Indians who came to murder your wives and children. Come on, boys! You didn't mean it. We can't let those yagers and Greens take a cannon as easily as that!"

They were listening to Willett, too; here and there a sergeant took up the pleading. I found an exhausted drummer-boy sitting on the steps of the church, and induced him to stand up and beat the assembly. Officer after officer struggled through the mob, leading out handfuls of men; lines formed; I snatched a flag from an ensign and displayed it; a company, at shoulder arms, headed by a drummer, emerged from the chaos, marching in fair alignment; another followed more steadily; line after line fell in and paraded; the fifes began to squeal, and the shrill quickstep set company after company in motion.

"It's all right, lads!" cried Willett cheerily, as he galloped forward. "We are going back for that cannon we lost by mistake. Come on, you Tryon County men! Don't let the Rangers laugh at you!"

Then the first cheer broke out; mounted officers rode up, baring their swords, surrounding the Colonel. He gave me a calm and whimsical look, almost a smile:

"Scared, Carus?"

"No, sir."

"D'ye hear that firing to the left? Well, that's Rowley's flanking column of levies and the Massachusetts men. Hark! Listen to that rifle music! Now we'll drive them! Now we've got them at last!"

I caught him by the sleeve, and bent forward from my saddle:

"Do you know that the woman I am to marry is with the enemy?" I demanded hoarsely.

"No. Good God, Carus! Have they got her?"

His shocked face paled; he laid his hand on my shoulder, riding in silence as I told him what I knew.

"By Heaven!" he said, striking his gloved hands together, "we'll get her yet, Carus; I tell you, we'll get her safe and sound. Do you think I mean to let these mad wolves slink off this time and skulk away unpunished? Do you suppose I don't know that the time has come to purge this frontier for good and all of Walter Butler? You need not worry, Carus. It is true that God alone could have foreseen the strange panic that started these militiamen on a run, as though they had never smelled powder—as though they had not answered a hundred alarms from Oriskany to Currietown. I could not foresee that, but, by God, we've stopped it! And now I tell you we are going to deal Walter Butler a blow that will end his murdering career forever! Look sharp!"

A racket of rifle-fire broke out ahead; two men dropped.

We were in the smoke now. Indians rose from every thicket and leaped away in retreat; the column broke into a run, mounted officers trotting forward, pistol and sword in hand.

"Why, there's our cannon, boys!" cried Colonel Lewis excitedly.

A roar greeted the black Colonel's words; the entire line sprang forward; a file of Oneidas sped along our flanks, rifles a-trail.

Through the smoke I saw the Hall now, and in a field to the east of it a cannon which some Highlanders and soldiers in green uniforms were attempting to drag off.

At the view the yelling onset was loosed; the kilted troops and the green-coated soldiers took to their legs, and I saw our militia swarming around the field-piece, hugging it, patting it, embracing it, while from the woods beyond my Rangers cheered and cheered. Ah! now the militia were in it again; the hedge fence was carried with a rush, and all around us in the red sunset light shouting militia, Royal Greens, and naked, yelling Indians were locked in a death struggle, hatchet, knife, and rifle-butt playing their silent and awful part.

An officer in a scarlet coat galloped at me full tilt, snapped his pistol as he passed, wheeled, and attempted to ride me down at his sword's point, but Colonel Willett pistoled him as I parried his thrust with my rifle-barrel; and I saw his maddened horse bearing him away, he swaying horridly in his saddle, falling sidewise, and striking the ground, one spurred heel entangled in his stirrup.

Sickened, I turned away, and presently sounded the rally for my Rangers. For full twenty minutes militia and riflemen poured sheets of bullets into the Royal Greens from the hedge fence; their flank doubled, wavered, and broke as the roaring fire of Rowley's men drew nearer. Twilight fell; redder and redder leaped the rifle-flames through the smoky dusk. Suddenly their whole line gave way, and we broke through—riflemen, militia, Massachusetts men—broke through with a terrific yell. And before us fled Indian and Tory, yager and renegade, Greens, Rangers, Highlanders, officers galloping madly, baggage-wagons smashed, horses down, camp trampled to tatters and splinters as the vengeance of Tryon County passed in a tornado of fury that cleansed the land forever of Walter Butler and his demons of the North!

In that furious onslaught through the darkness and smoke, where prisoners were being taken, Indians and Greens chased and shot down, a steady flicker of rifle-fire marked the course of the disastrous rout, and the frenzied vengeance following—an awful vengeance now, for, in the blackness, a new and dreadful sound broke—the fiercely melancholy scalp-yell of my Oneidas!

Galloping across a swampy field, where the dead and scalped lay in the ooze, I shouted the Wolf Clan challenge; and a lone cry answered me, coming nearer, nearer, until in the smoke-shot darkness I saw the terrific painted shape of an Indian looming, saluting me with uplifted and reeking hatchet.

"Brother! brother!" I groaned, "by the Wolf whose sign we wear, and by the sign of Tharon, follow her who is to be my wife—follow by night, by day, through the haunts of men, through the still places! Go swiftly, O my brother the Otter—swiftly as hound on trail! I charge you by that life you owe, by that clan tie which breaks not when nations break, by the sign of Tharon, that floats among the stars forever, find me this woman whom I am to wed! Your life for hers, O brother! Go!"

CHAPTER XV

BUTLER'S FORD

For four breathless days the broad, raw trail of a thousand men in headlong flight was the trampled path we traveled. Smashing straight through the northern wilderness, our enemy with horses, wagons, batmen, soldiers, Indians burst into the forest, tearing saplings, thickets, underbrush aside in their mad northward rush for the safety of the Canadas and the shelter denied them here. Threescore Oneida hatchets glittered in their rear; four hundred rifles followed; for the Red Beast was in flight at last, stricken, turning now and again to snarl when the tireless, stern-faced trackers drew too near, then running on again, growling, impotent. And the Red Beast must be done to death.

What fitter place to end him than here in the wild twilight of shaggy depths, unlighted by the sun or moon?—here where the cold, brawling streams smoked in the rank air; where black crags crouched, watching the hunting—here in these awful deeps, shunned by the deer, unhaunted by wolf and panther—depths fit only for the monstrous terror that came out of them, and now, wounded, and cold heart pulsing terror, was scrambling back again into the dense and dreadful twilight of eternal shadow-land.

One by one their pack-laden horses fell out exhausted; and we found them, heads hanging, quivering and panting beside the reeking trail; one by one their gaunt cattle, mired in bog and swamp, entangled in windfalls, greeted us, bellowing piteously as we passed. The forest itself fought for us, reaching out to jerk wheels from axle, bringing wagon and team down crashing. Their dead lay everywhere uncared for, even unscalped and unrobbed in the bruised and trampled path of flight; clothing, arms, provisions were scattered pell-mell on every side; and now at length, hour after hour, as we headed them back from trail and highway, and blocked them from their boats at Oneida Lake, driving, forcing, scourging them straight into the black jaws of a hungry wilderness, we began to pass their wounded—ghastly, bloody, ragged things, scarce animate, save for the dying brilliancy of their hollowed eyes.

On, on, hotfoot through the rain along the smoking trail; twilight by day, depthless darkness by night, where we lay panting in starless obscurity, listening to the giant winds of the wilderness—vast, resistless, illimitable winds flowing steadily through the unseen and naked crests of forests, colder and ever colder they blew, heralding the trampling blasts of winter, charging us from the north.

On the fifth day it began to snow at dawn. Little ragged flakes winnowed through the clusters of scarlet maple-leaves, sifted among the black pines, coming faster and thicker, driving in slanting, whirling flight across the trail. In an hour the moss was white; crimson sprays of moose-bush bent, weighted with snow and scarlet berries; the hurrying streams ran dark and somber in their channels between dead-white banks; swamps turned blacker for the silvery setting; the flakes grew larger, pelting in steady, thickening torrents from the clouds as we came into a clearing called Jerseyfield, on the north side of Canada Creek; and here at last we were met by a crackling roar from a hundred rifles.

The Red Beast was at bay!

Up and down, through the dense snowy veil descending, the orange-tinted rifle-flames flashed and sparkled and flickered; all around us a shower of twigs and branches descended in a steady rain. Then our brown rifles blazed their deadly answer. Splash! spatter! splash! their dead dropped into the stream; and, following, dying and living took to the dark water, thrashing across through snowy obscurity. I heard their horses wallowing through the fords, iron hoofs frantically battering the rocky, shelving banks for foothold; I heard them shriek when the Oneida tigers leaped upon them; I heard their wounded battling and screaming as they drowned in the swollen waters!

We lay and fired at their phantom lines, now attempting to retreat at a dog-trot in single file; and as we knocked man after man from the plodding rank the others leaped over their writhing, fallen comrades, neither turning nor pausing in their dogged flight. The snow slackened, falling more thinly to the west; and, as the dazzling curtain grew transparent, a mass of men in green suddenly rose from the whitened hemlock-scrub and fired at our riflemen arriving in column.

Then ensued a scene nigh indescribable. With one yelling bound, Ranger and Oneida were on them, shooting, stabbing, dragging them down; and, as they broke cover, their mounted officers, dashing out of the thicket, wheeled northward into galloping flight; and among them at last I saw my enemy, and knew him.

A dozen Oneidas were after him. His horse, spurred to a gallop, crashed through the brush, and was in the water at a leap; and he turned in midstream and shook his pistol at them insultingly.

By Heaven, he rode superbly as the swollen waters of the ford boiled to his horse's straining shoulders, while the bullets clipped the gilded cocked-hat from his head and struck his raised pistol from his hand.

"Head him!" shouted Elerson; "don't let that man get clear!" Indians and Rangers raced madly along the bank of the creek, pacing the fugitive as he galloped.

"Take him alive!" I cried, as Butler swung his horse with a crash straight into the willow thickets on the north. We lost him to view as I spoke; and I sounded the rally-whistle, and ran up the bank of the creek, leading my horse at a trot behind me.

The snowfall had ceased; the sun glimmered, then blazed out in the clearing, flooding the whitened ground with a dazzling radiance. Running, stumbling, falling, struggling through brush and brake and brier-choked marsh, I saw ahead of me three Oneida Indians swiftly cross my path to the creek's edge and crouch, scanning the opposite shore. Almost immediately the Rangers Murphy, Renard, and Elerson emerged from the snowy bushes beside them; and at the same instant I saw Walter Butler ride up on the opposite side of the creek, glance backward, then calmly draw bridle in plain sight. He was fey; I knew it. His doom was upon him. He flung himself from his horse close to the ford where, set in the rock, a living spring of water mirrored the sun; then he knelt down, drew his tin cup from his belt, bent over, and looked into the placid silver pool. What he saw reflected there Christ alone knows, for he sprang back, passed his hand across his eyes, and reached out his cup blindly, plunging it deep into the water.

Never, never shall I forget that instant picture as it broke upon my view; my deadly enemy kneeling by the spring, black hair disheveled, the sunshine striking his tin cup as he raised it to his lips; the three naked Oneidas, in their glistening scarlet paint, eagerly raising their rifles, while the merciless weapons of Murphy and Elerson slowly fell to the same level, focused on that kneeling figure across the dark waters of the stream.

A second only, then, God knows why, I could not endure to witness a justice so close allied with murder, and sprang forward, crying out: "Cease fire! Take him alive!" But, with the words half-sped, flame after flame parted from those leveled muzzles; and through the whirling smoke I saw Walter Butler fall, roll over and over, his body and limbs contracting with agony; then on all fours again, on his knees, only to sink back in a sitting posture, his head resting on his hand, blood pouring between his fingers.