Cardigan

Mount was now contemplating the warrant in deep admiration. He held it out at arm's-length, cocking his head on one side; he held it upside down; he turned it over; he scanned it sideways.

"Oh, Cade!" he called out, cheerily. "'Tis the same old valentine! Gad, Captain Butler, we have seen them in every one o' the thirteen colonies – my friend yonder, and I!"

"You are doubtless a sheriff, sir," observed Butler, patiently.

"No," said Mount; "no, not exactly what you could call a sheriff, Captain Butler; but I have had much business with sheriffs. I owe them more than I can ever repay," he added, sentimentally.

"Then you will understand, sir, the necessity of aiding the law," suggested Butler, holding out his hand for the warrant.

But Mount quietly pocketed the paper and began to whistle and reprime his rifle.

"May I trouble you for that paper?" asked Butler, with his chilling, sinister politeness.

There was a pause. Butler's eyes stole around the camp-fire, but only the little Hebrew was now visible, for I lay in the shadow and the Weasel had ominously vanished.

"You do not mean to retain this warrant, sir?" demanded Butler, raising his sneering voice, and searching the thickets for some sign of the ambushed Weasel.

"Oh, Captain Butler," said Mount, with a gigantic simper, "how can I resist you? Pray tell me who this bad young Michael Cardigan may be, and what he has done to get his name on this valentine?"

"It is a matter of treason," retorted Butler, sharply. "Come, my good man, have done with silly chatter and aid me to my duty in the King's name!"

Mount burst into a shout of laughter. "That's it! In the King's name! I've heard that, too, – oh yes, I've heard that o' moonlight nights!"

Butler observed him in astonishment, but Mount held his sides and roared in his mirth: "Comes friend Butler with his warrant, tripping it through the woods, and singing of the King like a titmouse on a stump. Ay, singing to me to help him take a stout fellow in the King's name! Ha! Ha! Ha! This funny Mr. Sheriff Butler!" Then, in a flash, he wheeled on Butler, snarling, every tooth bared: "Damn you, sir, do you take me for your lackey or the King's hangman? To hell with you, sir! To hell with your King, sir! Did you hear me? I said, to hell with your King!"

Butler's face paled in the waning fire-light. Presently he said, in his slow, even tones: "I shall take care that your good wishes reach the King's ears. Pray, sir, honour me with your name and quality, though I may perhaps guess both."

"No need to guess," cut in the big fellow, cheerfully. "I'm Jack Mount; I burned the Gaspee, I helped dump his Majesty's tea into Boston harbour, and I should be pleased to do as much for the King himself. Tell him so, Captain Butler; tell my Lord Dunmore he can have a ducking, too, at his lordship's polite convenience."

Butler glared at him, but Mount raised his coon-skin cap and bowed mockingly. "Charmed, sir, charmed," he simpered. "Pray, permit me to present my comrade, Sir Cade Renard, of the backwood aristocracy, sometimes called the Weasel. He's so shy, sir. Friend Weasel, come out from behind that stump and bring your rifle; step up beside me and make a very fine bow to his Majesty's deputy-sheriff. Tell the kind gentleman what good men we are, Cade, and how proud we feel to entertain him."

The Weasel sauntered up and performed a slow, wriggling bow.

"Minions of the moon, sir," he said; "and so charmed to receive you, or anything you have of value. Your scalp, now, might bring five shillings at Baton Rouge, or is that but a scratch wig you wear, sir?"

"Will you deliver me my warrant and my prisoner?" demanded Butler, with a ghastly smile.

"No!" said Mount, abruptly changing his manner. "Make a new trail, you Tory hangman! March!" And he gave him a prod with his rifle.

Never had I seen such ferocity expressed on any human face as I saw now on Mr. Butler's.

He backed out into the brush, at the point of Mount's long rifle; then the red fire-glow left him, and he was gone into the darkness of early morning. Presently the Weasel stole after him.

Mount came swaggering back, pausing to drop the warrant on the hot coals as he passed. Renard returned in a few minutes, took his rifle, and squatted briskly down just beyond the fire-light.

As Mount came up to me, I rose and thanked him for the protection he had given so generously, and he laughed and laid one padded fist on my shoulder.

"Hark ye, friend," he said; "take your Indian belts and your pack and go in peace, for if Dunmore is after you, the sooner you start north the better. Go, lad; I'm not your enemy!"

"I go south," I replied, cautiously.

"Oh, you do, eh?" said Mount, fumbling in his pockets for the flint he had taken from my rifle. "Are you bound for Cresap's camp, too?"

"Are you?" I asked, reddening.

He rubbed his chin, watching me with sulky eyes.

"You answer ever with a question!" he complained, fretfully. "I ask you this and you ask me that – tom tiddle! tiddle tom! – and I be no wiser now for all I have heard your name."

"I know Michael Cardigan," observed the Weasel, quietly coming up, buckling on his pack.

"It's an honourable name," I began, in desperation, striving to stop him, but the Weasel ignored me and addressed himself to Mount.

"He's one of Sir William Johnson's household. That accounts for those peace-belts of wampum. Shemuel, yonder, knows the lad."

"Oho!" exclaimed Mount, staring at me. "So you come on Sir William's business to the Cayugas? Ha! Now I begin to grasp this pretty game. Sir William wishes his Cayugas to sit tight while Cresap builds forts – "

"Hush, for God's sake!" I pleaded, seeing that he had guessed all.

"Oh, I'll hush," he replied, eying me with frank curiosity. "I am no enemy to Sir William. A fairer and more honest gentleman lives not in these colonies, be he Tory or patriot! Oh, I'll hush, but every one knows Sir William will not have the Indians take sides in this same war that's coming so fast upon us. It's no secret, lad; every pot-house, every tavern tap-room is full o' gossip that Butler means to rouse the Indians against us, and that Sir William will not have it!"

"Since when have you come from Johnstown?" I asked, astonished.

"Oh, a week after you left," replied the Weasel. "We saw your tracks, but we went another way after the first week. You lost too much time."

Mount had now hoisted his pack to his shoulders and stood watching Shemuel, the Hebrew peddler, strapping up his dingy boxes, tucking in bits of lace and ribbon and cheap finery.

"Come on, Shemmy, you pigeon-toed woodchuck!" growled Mount, cracking a fresh lump of spruce-gum in his glistening teeth.

The little Jew looked up at me slyly, his grimy fists buried in the bowels of his gewgaws.

"Perhaps the gendleman cares to look at som goots?" he observed, interrogatively. "I haff chains, buckles, pins, needles, buttons, laces, knifes, ribbons for queue and gollarettes – "

Mount, with the toe of his moccasin, gently reversed Shemuel into one of his own boxes, then warning him to pack up if he valued his scalp, took my arm in friendly fashion and moved out into the gray woods.

"Touching this mission of yours to the Cayugas," he said, frankly, "I see no good to come of it, and I say this with all respect to Sir William. By-the-bye, Sir William has much to trouble him these days."

"I know that," said I, sadly.

"Oh no, you don't," smiled Mount. "There have been strange doings in Johnstown since you left: a change has come in a single week, lad; neighbours no longer speak; the town is three parts Tory to one part patriot; even brothers hate each other. Two taverns known to be the meeting-places of patriots have been set afire and shot into; and old John Butler is gone north, where, they say, he is raising a bloody crew of cut-throats, rangers, half-breeds, and young Mohawks. Sir William is holding long talks with Brant and Red Jacket at the upper castle. Oh, the sands begin to run faster now, and men must soon take one side or t'other, for there's more troops going to Boston, and that means the end of King George!"

I did not perhaps realize the importance of all he said; I had seen too little of the rebels themselves to credit the seriousness of the situation. But here was an opportunity to sound Mount on the Cresap affair, and I began earnestly.

"Can you not see that Colonel Cresap is driving the Cayugas into the King's ranks?"

"What do we care for the Cayugas?" replied Mount, contemptuously; and it was in vain I wasted argument on this man who had been born a woodsman, but who knew the savages only from the outside. I could not make him see the foolish uselessness of angering the Six Nations. He was one of that kind who detested all Indians, who professed to hold them in scorn, and who had passed his life in killing all he could.

"What are we to do?" he demanded, sarcastically. "Give up the frontier and go back to Virginia with tails between our legs?"