Vine. "Oh! how I ache to know how those fellows captured 'em! There isn't any better scout than an Indian, but both of 'em are reg'lar scalpers."
They might be. They looked like it. They were unsurpassed specimens of out and out red and black savagery, with the added advantage, or disadvantage, of paleface piratical training and experience by sea and land. The very room they were now in was a kind of memorial of old-time barbarisms, and it might again become a fort – a block-house, at least – almost any day.
All the farm-houses of Westchester County, New York, not far away, if not already burned or deserted, had become even as so many "block-houses," so to speak. They were to be held desperately, now and then, against the lawless attacks of the Cowboys and Skinners who were carrying on guerilla warfare over what was sarcastically termed "the neutral ground" between the British and American outposts.
The huge fireplace, before which Mrs. Ten Eyck and Rachel Tarns began at once to prepare breakfast for their hungry friends, had an iron bar crossing it, a few feet up. This was to prevent Pequots, Narragansetts, or other night visitors from bringing their knives and tomahawks into the house by way of the chimney. Upon the deerhorn hooks above the mantel hung no less than three long-barrelled, bell-mouthed fowling pieces, such as had hurled slugs and buckshot among the melting columns of the British regulars in front of the breastwork on Bunker Hill, or, more correctly, Breed's Hill. A sabre hung beside them, and a long-shafted whaling lance rested in the nearest corner at the right, with a harpoon for a companion.
All these things had been taken in at a glance by the two foragers, or scouts, or spies, or whatever duty they had been performing most of recently.
"Keep still, Guert," commanded his mother. "Let the chief tell."
Gravely, slowly, in very plain and not badly cut up English, with now and then a word or so in Dutch, Up-na-tan told his story, aided, or otherwise, by sundry sharply rebuked interjections from Coco. The first thing which seemed to be noteworthy was that the British on Manhattan Island considered the rebel cause hopeless. Its armed forces, moreover, were so broken up or so far away that the vicinity of New York was but carelessly patrolled. There had been hardly any obstacle to hinder the going in or the coming out of a white-headed old slave and a wandering Indian. The red men of New York, for that matter, were supposed to be all more or less friendly to their British Great Father George across the ocean. All black men, too, were understood to be not unwillingly released from rebel masters, provided they were not set at work again for anybody else.
Up-na-tan's greatest interest appeared to cling to the forts and to the cannon in them, but he answered Rachel Tarns quite clearly concerning the conditions of the American soldiers held as prisoners. All the large churches were full of them, he said, packed almost to suffocation. One or more old hulks of warships, anchored in the harbor, were as horribly crowded. The worst of these was the old sixty-four gun ship, Jersey, lying in Wallabout Bay, near the Long Island shore. Up-na-tan and Coco had rowed around her in a stolen boat and had been fired upon by her deck guard, and they had seen a dozen at least of dead rebels thrown overboard, to be carried out to sea by the tide.
"Redcoat kill 'em all, some day," said the Indian. "Kill men in ole church. Bury 'em somewhere." He seemed to have an idea that the doomed Americans did not perish by disease or suffocation altogether. He believed that their captors selected about so many of them every day, to be dealt with after the Iroquois or Algonquin fashion. This was strictly an Indian notion of the customary usages of war. It did not stir his sensibilities, if he had any, as it did those of the warm-hearted Quaker woman and Mrs. Ten Eyck. Guert listened with a terribly vindictive feeling, such as was sadly increasing among all the people of the colonies. It was to account for, though not to excuse, many a deed of ruthless retaliation during the remainder of the war. In skirmish after skirmish, raid after raid, battle after battle, the innocent were to suffer for the guilty. Brave and right-minded servants and soldiers of Great Britain were to perish miserably, because of these evil dealings with prisoners of war in and about Manhattan Island.
"Thy scouting among the forts and camps hath small value," said Rachel Tarns, thoughtfully. "If Washington knew all, he hath not wherewith to attack the king's forces."
"No, no!" exclaimed the Indian. "Not now. Washington come again, some day. Kill all lobster. Take back island. Up-na-tan help him. Coco no talk. Ole chief tell more."
Aided by expressive gestures and by an occasional question from Mrs. Ten Eyck, he made the remainder of his story both clear and interesting. He and Coco had crossed the Harlem, homeward bound, in an old dugout canoe. They had worked their way out through the British lines by keeping under the cover of woods, to a point not far from the White Plains battle-field. Here, one evening, they had discovered a Hessian foraging party in a deserted farm-house. The soldiers were having a grand carouse, thinking themselves out of all danger.
"Musket all 'tack up in front of house," said Up-na-tan. "One Hess'n walk up an' down, sentry, till he tumble. Fall on face. Coco find sled in barn. Find pony. Up-na-tan take all musket. Pile 'em on sled. Harness pony, all pretty good. Come away."
"Didn't you go into the house?" asked Guert, excitedly. "Didn't any of 'em know what you were doing? How'd you get your cloak?"
"Boy shut mouth," said Up-na-tan. "Ole chief want cloak. Coco, too, want more musket, pistol, powder. Hate Hess'n. All in house go sleep hard. No wake up. Lie still. Pony pull sled to New London."
Mrs. Ten Eyck's face was very pale and so was that of Rachel Tarns. They believed that they understood only too well why the Manhattan warrior and the grim Ashantee who had been his comrade in this affair, preferred to say no more concerning the undisturbable slumber of that unfortunate detail of Hessians.
"Guert," said his mother, "go in and get your breakfast. The chief and Coco have had theirs. Rachel, you and I must have a talk with Captain Avery."
CHAPTER II
MORE POWDER
"Captain Watts, I must say it. I don't a bit like this tryin' to run in without a convoy."
"Nor I either, mate," said the captain, with an upward glance at the rigging and a side squint across the sea. "'Tisn't any fault o' mine. I protested."
"I heard ye," replied the mate. "They only laughed at us. They said the king's cruisers'd swep' these waters as clean as the Channel. Glad ye know 'em."
"Know 'em?" laughed Captain Watts. "I'm a Massachusetts man. I know 'em like a book. Don't need any pilot."
"How 'bout Hell Gate, when we get there? We've lost a ship or two – "
"Brackett, man," interrupted the skipper, more seriously, "that's a long reach ahead, yet. I know Hell Gate channel when we get there. Our risks'll be in the sound. The rebels haven't any reg'lar cruisers. What we've to look out for is the Long Island whaleboat men. Tough customers. They say nigh half on 'em are redskins, – Indian scalpers."
"Well! As to them," said the mate, "we can beat 'em off. Our four-pounder popguns'd be good against whaleboats but not for anything bigger."
"Six on 'em," said Captain Watts. "We can handle 'em, too."
"I'd rather 'twas a frigate," said the mate. "Our crew's none too strong, and half of 'em are 'pressed men. No fight in 'em."
"Oh, yes, they'll have to fight," was responded. "Fight or hang, perhaps. I hate a 'pressed man. Anyhow, it'll take a better wind than this to show us Hell Gate channel before day after to-morrow. We'll be tackin' about in the sound, to-night."
"It's a'most a calm! Bitter cold, too."
He was a very intelligent looking British sailor,
