The Little Red Foot

"Yes, sir."

Had it been any man I would have put a bullet in him; and could have easily marked him where I pleased. Never had I been in colder rage; never had I felt so helpless. And every moment I was afeard the crazy girl would ride on.

"Will you parley?" I shouted.

"Parley?" she repeated. "How so, young soldier?"

"In this manner, then: I engage my honour not to seize your bridle or touch you or my horse if you will sit still till I come up with you."

She sat looking at me across the fallow field in silence.

"I shall not use violence," said I. "I shall try only to find some way to serve you, and yet to do my own duty, too."

"Soldier," she replied in a troubled voice, "is this the very truth you speak?"

"Have I not engaged my honour?" I retorted sharply.

She made no reply, but she did not stir as I advanced, though her brown eyes watched my every step.

When I stood at her stirrup she looked down at me intently, and I saw she was younger even than I had thought, and was made more like a smooth, slim boy than a woman.

"You are Penelope Grant, of Caughnawaga," I said.

"Yes, sir."

"Do you know who I am?"

"No, sir."

I named myself, saying with a smile that none of my name had ever broken faith in word or deed.

"Now," I continued, "that bell calls me to duty as surely as drum or trumpet ever summoned soldier since there were wars on earth. I must go to Stoner's; I can not guide you to Caughnawaga through the woods or take you thither by road or trail. And yet, if I do not, you mean to take my horse."

"I must."

"And risk a Mohawk war party on the way?"

"I – must."

"That is very brave," said I, curbing my impatience, "but not wise. There are others of his kin to care for old Douw Fonda if war has truly come upon us here in Tryon County."

"Soldier," said she in her still voice, which I once thought had been made strange by fear, but now knew otherwise – "my honour, too, is engaged. Mr. Fonda, whom I serve, has made of me more than a servant. He uses me as a daughter; offers to adopt me; trusts his age and feebleness to me; looks to me for every need, every ministration…

"Soldier, I came to Dries Bowman's last night with his consent, and gave him my word to return within a week. I came to Fonda's Bush because Mr. Fonda desired me to visit the only family in America with whom I have the slightest tie of kinship – the Bowmans.

"But if war has come to us here in County Tryon, then instantly my duty is to this brave old gentleman who lives all alone in his house at Caughnawaga, and nobody except servants and black slaves to protect him if danger comes to the door."

What the girl said touched me; nor could I discern in her anything of the coquetry which Nick Stoner's story of her knitting and her ring of gallants had pictured for me.

Surely here was no rustic coquette to be flattered and courted and bedeviled by her betters – no country suck-thumb to sit a-giggling at her knitting, surfeited with honeyed words that meant destruction; – no wench to hang her head and twiddle apron while some pup of quality whispered in her ear temptations.

I said: "This is the better way. Listen. Ride my mare to Mayfield by the highway. If you learn there that the Lower Castle Indians have painted for war, there is no hope of winning through to Cayadutta Lodge. And of what use to Mr. Fonda would be a dead girl?"

"That is true," she whispered.

"Very well. And if the Mohawks are loose along the river, then you shall remain at the Block House until it becomes possible to go on. There is no other way. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you engage to do this thing? And to place my horse in safety at the Mayfield fort?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then," said I, "in my turn I promise to send aid to you at Mayfield, or come myself and take you to Cayadutta Lodge as soon as that proves possible. And I promise more; I shall endeavour to get word through to Mr. Fonda concerning your situation."

She thanked me in that odd, still voice of hers. Her eyes had the starry look of a child's – or of unshed tears.

"My mare will carry two," said I cheerfully. "Let me mount behind you and set you on the Mayfield road."

She made no reply. I mounted behind her, took the bridle from her chilled fingers, and spoke to Kaya very gaily. And so we rode across my sunlit glebe and across the sugar-bush, where the moist trail, full of ferns, stretched away toward Mayfield as straight as the bee flies.

I do not know whether it was because the wench was now fulfilling her duty, as she deemed it, and therefore had become contented in a measure, but when I dismounted she took the bridle with a glance that seemed near to a faint smile. But maybe it was her mouth that I thought fashioned in pleasant lines.

"Will you remember, soldier?" she asked, looking down at me from the saddle. "I shall wait some news of you at the Mayfield fort."

"I shall not let you remain there long abandoned," said I cheerily. "Be kind to Kaya. She has a tender mouth and an ear more sensitive still to a harsh word."

The girl laid a hand flat on my mare's neck and looked at me, the shy caress in her gesture and in her eyes.

Both were meant for my horse; and a quick kindness for this Scotch girl came into my heart.

"Take shelter at the Mayfield fort," said I, "and be very certain I shall not forget you. You may gallop all the way on this soft wood-road. Will you care for Kaya at the fort when she is unsaddled?"

A smile suddenly curved her lips.

"Yes, John Drogue," she answered, looking me in the eyes. And the next moment she was off at a gallop, her yellow hair loosened with the first bound of the horse, and flying all about her face and shoulders now, like sunshine flashing across windblown golden-rod.

Then, in her saddle, the girl turned and looked back at me, and sat so, still galloping, until she was out of sight.

And, as I stood there alone in the woodland road, I began to understand what Nick Stoner meant when he called this Scotch girl a disturber of men's minds and a mistress – all unconscious, perhaps – of a very deadly art.

CHAPTER VIII

SHEEP AND GOATS

Now, as I came again to the forest's edge and hastened along the wide logging road, to make up for moments wasted, I caught sight of two neighbors, John Putman and Herman Salisbury, walking ahead of me.

They wore the regimentals of our Mohawk Regiment of district militia, carried rifles and packs; and I smelled the tobacco from their pipes, which seemed pleasant though I had never learned to smoke.