“Louisburg was farther, sir, when you went against it with William Pepperell,” Matt countered. “I’ve heard it said that that war was fought over the rights of who should have the taking of fish on the Grand Banks. You’ve never been a fisherman, sir, so I doubt if you went on the expedition with that worry in mind. I always believed you fought because you thought the French were infringing on the Americans.”
His father was silent for a long moment, then he picked up his pipe and checked the dottle it contained in the bowl. He smiled suddenly and turned warm eyes on his son.
“I think I understand what you mean,” he said simply.
In the gathering room, with the young twins underfoot, so that he tripped over them a dozen times in five minutes, Matt arranged his kit, rolling most of his small needs in his blanket.
Already a large group of townspeople had gathered in the yard, and when Matt glanced through the window he saw Shad talking to his father. Then he looked again, surprised. Harry Curry, dressed in a new deerskin shirt, tight-fitting pants and polished jack boots, stood a little aside from the others. A pack and blanket roll were at his feet, a musket in his hand. He seemed to be waiting with a bored, self-contained air.
“Well,” Matt murmured. “What of that now?”
He gathered up his gear and, with a final promise to young Smite that he would do his best to bring him back a St. Francis scalp, he left the house to cross the yard. Harry turned his head and nodded casually at him.
Matt smiled warmly as he approached Harry. “Why, Harry,” he said, “what makes you want to go?”
“It’s my country too,” Harry answered shortly.
Shad was now having an argument with Tammy’s father. Tammy stood back slightly with a red lowered face, and shuffled his feet in the dirt.
“But me no buts!” the old Scot cried angrily. “I don’t fancy to my laddy fighting for the English! And more, I’ll tell ye, I don’t take lightly to his dying for them!”
“Dyin’ for ’em!” Shad cried, and contrived to look aghast. “Why, Mr. Ferguson, we ain’t gonna fight them Frenchies! What ever give you that idea? Say, them frog-eaters is gonna take one look at Colonel Washington’s thousand or so militia and volunteers, and they’re gonna roll up their eyes in dismay and cry, ‘Oh, qui-qui, thees American fellas is some hotsy stuff! Queek, Pierre, turn you foolish self about and let us run, may-qui!’ Naw, we ain’t gonna have no fighting.”
But the old man remained unconvinced. “Who might this Colonel Washington be?” he asked sourly.
“Who is he?” Shad gasped, and he slapped a palm to his forehead as though amazed at Mr. Ferguson’s ignorance. “Why, he’s the soldier that old Dumwiddie thinks the sun rises and sets on. Dumwiddie says give him ten officers like Washington and he’ll have every frog-eatin’, snail-boilin’ Frenchy back whittling clay pipes in Canada within two weeks! That’s who Colonel Washington is!”
“Jim,” Matt’s father said kindly, laying a hand on the old Scot’s brittle shoulder, “it isn’t a question of fighting for the English. That’s something a lot of us are overlooking. These boys want to fight for us, for our land. Washington’s an American like Shad; like you and Tammy are, Jim.”
The old man was silent. He sniffed and stared at the ground, then looked up at the silent ring of intent faces watching him.
“Get the claymore, Tammy,” he muttered.
Tammy’s face brightened with a sudden spasm, and he ran to the west wall of the house, where a blanket roll and a heavy old sword leaned in its frayed scabbard. The boy fetched the sword back to his father and watched him with an expectant eye.
Mr. Ferguson stared at the sword in his hands as though recalling the glory of thousands of long-gone Scotsmen charging across a moor with nothing but blades in their hands, against the slamming English cannons. Then he gave Matt’s father a surreptitious look.
“I but brought it along just in case I decided to lei the laddy go,” he mumbled in half-apology. “Here, Tammy, I have no musket to give ye, but this old claymore was good enough for my father, and good enough for me when it came to a hackin’ ruddy battle. It will have to do ye.”
Then, as the crowd cheered and as the youths were given many hearty backslaps, Shad bent over with a grunt and rooted through his pack. He came up with a silver-plated gorget, the sort of doodad that English officers wear at their necks. He gave it a polish on his sleeve and placed it over his head so that it hung right over his fat throat. Then he picked up his pack and musket and grinned at Matt.
“All right, Matty?” he asked. “Ready to get on?”
Matt nodded. “Ready.”
Shad in the lead, the five youths swung out through the gate and started down the pike. For a moment Matt felt rather absurd, what with all his friends cheering and waving them off.
Then, because the day was clear and bright and the fields green and rippling, and because Shad was striding along like a great war lord, muttering—Hup! Hup! Hup!—he suddenly felt that it was glorious, and he lifted his head and stared straight ahead.
It seemed that somewhere he could hear a lonesome drum calling.
4
TO THE FORKS OF
THE OHIO
There was the creek and there was the forest, both as old as time itself. Then there was the clearing and the storehouse, but they were only youngsters. The clearing had been cleared by workmen for the Ohio Company, and these men had built the storehouse for that company, and all in the name of trade. But now the scene had changed; now Wills Creek had become an animated camp for warfare.
Shad Holly led his little troop through the forest and into camp. There they paused and looked around with the bright fervent eye of youth.
Next to the storehouse was a small office building, and they were the only two constructions that looked permanent, or even habitable. There was a stretch of hutments—half-formed log cabins chinked with mud and roofed with canvas, and some of them had stubby chimneys made of sticks and mud and some didn’t. Then there was a collection of baggy-looking old tents. And a small artillery park; Matt counted a dozen light cannons, swivel guns mostly.
There were wagons and unmatched teams and profane-mouthed teamsters and greedy-eyed sutlers; soldiers—militia for the most part, backwoodsmen, scouts; here and there your eye would catch a bright dab of blue faced with scarlet—the blue-coated militia officers. And Indians, a spattering of them, feathered, unpainted, inscrutable spectators wondering what the enigmatical white men were up to. Men drilling, sergeants swearing, wagons rolling, riders coming, going . . .
It was a lusty place! Matt loved it. But Harry was not impressed. He grounded his musket and leaned on the barrel, staring at the camp activity with cool detachment.
“There you are,” he said quietly. “Washington’s warriors: illiterate backwoodsmen, as ragged as Falstaff’s army. Trash.”
Anger ignited in Matt’s head and he opened his mouth to admonish Harry, when a blue-coated ensign stepped from the office building and gave them a
