In the Days of Poor Richard

by Irving Bacheller

CHAPTER II

SOWING THE DRAGON'S TEETH

Solomon Binkus in his talk with Colonel Hare had signalized the arrival of a new type of man born of new conditions. When Lord Howe and General Abercrombie got to Albany with regiments of fine, high-bred, young fellows from London, Manchester and Liverpool, out for a holiday and magnificent in their uniforms of scarlet and gold, each with his beautiful and abundant hair done up in a queue, Mr. Binkus laughed and said they looked "terrible pert." He told the virile and profane Captain Lee of Howe's staff, that the first thing to do was to "make a haystack o' their hair an' give 'em men's clothes."

"A cart-load o' hair was mowed off," to quote again from Solomon, and all their splendor shorn away for a reason apparent to them before they had gone far on their ill-fated expedition. Hair-dressing and fine millinery and drawing-room clothes were not for the bush.

An inherited sense of old wrongs was the mental background of this new type of man. Life in the bush had strengthened his arm, his will and his courage. His words fell as forcefully as his ax under provocation. He was deliberate as became one whose scalp was often in danger; trained to think of the common welfare of his neighborhood and rather careless about the look of his coat and trousers.

John Irons and Solomon Binkus were differing examples of the new man. Of large stature, Irons had a reputation of being the strongest man in the New Hampshire grants. No name was better known or respected in all the western valleys. His father, a man of some means, had left him a reasonable competence.

Certain old records of Cumberland County speak of his unusual gifts, the best of which was, perhaps, modesty. He had once entertained Sir William Johnson at his house and had moved west, when the French and Indian War began, on the invitation of the governor, bringing his horses with him. For years he had been breeding and training saddle horses for the markets in New England. On moving he had turned his stock into Sir William's pasture and built a log house at the fort and served as an aid and counselor of the great man. Meanwhile his wife and children had lived in Albany. When the back country was thought safe to live in, at the urgent solicitation of Sir Jeffrey Amherst, he had gone to the northern valley with his herd, and prospered there.

Albany had one wide street which ran along the river-front. It ended at the gate of a big, common pasture some four hundred yards south of the landing which was near the center of the little city. In the north it ran into "the great road" beyond the ample grounds of Colonel Schuyler. The fort and hospital stood on the top of the big hill. Close to the shore was a fringe of elms, some of them tall and stately, their columns feathered with wild grape-vines. A wide space between the trees and the street had been turned into well-kept gardens, and their verdure was a pleasant thing to see. The town lay along the foot of a steep hill, and, midway, a huddle of buildings climbed a few rods up the slope. At the top was the English Church and below it were the Town Hall, the market and the Dutch Meeting-House. Other thoroughfares west of the main one were being laid out and settled.

John Irons was well known to Colonel Schuyler. The good man gave the newcomers a hearty welcome and was able to sell them a house ready furnished--the same having been lately vacated by an officer summoned to England. So it happened that John Irons and his family were quickly and comfortably settled in their new home and the children at work in school. He soon bought some land, partly cleared, a mile or so down the river and began to improve it.

"You've had lonesome days enough, mother," he said to his wife. "We'll live here in the village. I'll buy some good, young niggers if I can, and build a house for 'em, and go back and forth in the saddle."

The best families had negro slaves which were, in the main, like Abraham's servants, each having been born in the house of his master. They were regarded with affection.

It was a peaceful, happy, mutually helpful, God-fearing community in which the affairs of each were the concern of all. Every summer day, emigrants were passing and stopping, on their way west, towing bateaux for use in the upper waters of the Mohawk. These were mostly Irish and German people seeking cheap land, and seeing not the danger in wars to come.

There is an old letter from John Irons to his sister in Braintree which says that Jack, of whom he had a great pride, was getting on famously in school. "But he shows no favor to any of the girls, having lost his heart to a young English maid whom he helped to rescue from the Indians. We think it lucky that she should be far away so that he may better keep his resolution to be educated and his composure in the task."

The arrival of the mail was an event in Albany those days. Letters had come to be regarded there as common property. They were passed from hand to hand and read in neighborhood assemblies. Often they told of great hardship and stirring adventures in the wilderness and of events beyond the sea.

Every week the mail brought papers from the three big cities, which were read eagerly and loaned or exchanged until their contents had traveled through every street. Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette came to John Irons, and having been read aloud by the fireside was given to Simon Grover in exchange for Rivington's New York Weekly.

Jack was in a coasting party on Gallows Hill when his father brought him a fat letter from England. He went home at once to read it. The letter was from Margaret Hare--a love-letter which proposed a rather difficult problem. It is now a bit of paper so brittle with age it has to be delicately handled. Its neatly drawn chirography is faded to a light yellow, but how alive it is with youthful ardor:

"I think of you and pray for you very often," it says. "I hope you have not forgotten me or must I look for another to help me enjoy that happy fortune of which you have heard? Please tell me truly. My father has met Doctor Franklin who told of the night he spent at your home and that he thought you were a noble and promising lad. What a pleasure it was to hear him say that! We are much alarmed by events in America. My mother and I stand up for Americans, but my father has changed his views since we came down the Mohawk together. You must remember that he is a friend of the King. I hope that you and your father will be patient and take no part in the riots and house burnings. You have English blood in your veins and old England ought to be dear to you. She really loves America very much, indeed, if not as much as I love you. Can you not endure the wrongs for her sake and mine in the hope that they will soon be righted? Whatever happens I shall not cease to love you, but the fear comes to me that, if you turn against England, I shall love in vain. There are days when the future looks dark and I hope that your answer will break the clouds that hang over it."

So ran a part of the letter, colored somewhat by the diplomacy of a shrewd mother, one would say who read it carefully. The neighbors had heard of its arrival and many of them dropped in that evening, but they went home none the wiser. After the company had gone, Jack showed the letter to his father and mother.

"My boy, it is a time to stand firm," said his father.

"I think so, too," the boy answered.

"Are you still in love with her?" his mother asked.

The boy blushed as he looked down into the fire and did not answer.

"She is a pretty miss," the woman went on. "But if you have to choose between her and liberty, what will you say?"

"I can answer for Jack," said John Irons. "He will say that we in America will give up father and mother and home and life and everything we hold dear for the love of liberty."

"Of course I could not be a Tory," Jack declared. The boy had studiously read the books which Doctor Franklin had sent to him--Pilgrim's Progress, Plutarch's Lives, and a number of the works of Daniel Defoe. He had discussed them with his father and at the latter's suggestion had set down his impressions. His father had assured him that it was well done, but had said to Mrs. Irons that it showed "a remarkable rightness of mind and temper and unexpected aptitude in the art of expression."

It is likely that the boy wrote many letters which Miss Margaret never saw before his arguments were set down in the firm, gentle and winning tone which satisfied his spirit. Having finished his letter, at last, he read it aloud to his father and mother one evening as they sat together, by the fireside, after the rest of the family had gone to bed. Tears of pride came to the eyes of the man and woman when the long letter was finished.

"I love old England," it said, "because it is your home and because it was the home of my fathers. But I am sure it is not old England which made the laws we hate and sent soldiers to Boston. Is it not another England which the King and his ministers invented? I ask you to be true to old England which, my father has told me, stood for justice and human rights.

"But after all, what has politics to do with you and me as a pair of human beings? Our love is a thing above that. The acts of the King or my fellow countrymen can not affect my love for you, and to know that you are of the same mind holds me above despair. I would think it a great hardship if either King or colony had the power to put a tax on you--a tax which demanded my principles. Can not your father differ with me in politics--although when you were here I made sure that he agreed with us--and keep his faith in me as a gentleman? I can not believe that he would like me if I had a character so small and so easily shifted about that I would change it to please him. I am sure, too, that if there is anything in me you love, it is my character. Therefore, if I were to change it I should lose your love and his respect also. Is that not true?"

This was part of the letter which Jack had written.

"My boy, it is a good letter and they will have to like you the better for it," said John Irons.

Old Solomon Binkus was often at the Irons home those days. He had gone back in the bush, since the war ended, and, that winter, his traps were on many streams and ponds between Albany and Lake Champlain. He came down over the hills for a night with his friends when he reached the southern end of his beat. It was probably because the boy had loved the tales of the trapper and the trapper had found in the boy something which his life had missed, that an affection began to grow up between them. Solomon was a childless widower.

"My wife! I tell ye, sir, she had the eyes an' feet o' the young doe an' her cheeks were like the wild, red rose," the scout was wont to say on occasion. "I orto have knowed better. Yes, sir, I orto. We lived way back in the bush an' the child come 'fore we 'spected it one night. I done what I could but suthin' went wrong. They tuk the high trail, both on 'em. I rigged up a sled an' drawed their poor remains into a settlement. That were a hard walk--you hear to me. No, sir, I couldn't never marry no other womern--not if she was a queen covered with dimon's--never. I 'member her so. Some folks it's easy to fergit an' some it ain't. That's the way o' it."

Mr. and Mrs. Irons respected the scout, pitying his lonely plight and loving his cheerful company. He never spoke of his troubles unless some thoughtless person had put him to it.

2

That winter the Irons family and Solomon Binkus went often to the meetings of the Sons of Liberty. One purpose of this organization was to induce people to manufacture their own necessities and thus avoid buying the products of Great Britain. Factories were busy making looms and spinning-wheels; skilled men and women taught the arts of spinning, weaving and tailoring. The slogan "Home Made or Nothing," traveled far and wide.

Late in February, Jack Irons and Solomon Binkus went east as delegates to a large meeting of the Sons of Liberty in Springfield. They traveled on snowshoes and by stage, finding the bitterness of the people growing more intense as they proceeded. They found many women using thorns instead of pins and knitting one pair of stockings with the ravelings of another. They were also flossing out their silk gowns and spinning the floss into gloves with cotton. All this was to avoid buying goods sent over from Great Britain.

Jack tells in a letter to his mother of overtaking a young man with a pack on his back and an ax in his hand on his way to Harvard College. He was planning to work in a mill to pay his board and tuition.

"We hear in every house we enter the stories and maxims of Poor Richard," the boy wrote in his letter. "A number of them were quoted in the meeting. Doctor Franklin is everywhere these days."

The meeting over, Jack and Solomon went on by stage to Boston for a look at the big city.

They arrived there on the fifth of March a little after dark. The moon was shining. A snow flurry had whitened the streets. The air was still and cold. They had their suppers at The Ship and Anchor. While they were eating they heard that a company of British soldiers who were encamped near the Presbyterian Meeting-House had beaten their drums on Sunday so that no worshiper could hear the preaching.

"And the worst of it is we are compelled to furnish them food and quarters while they insult and annoy us," said a minister who sat at the table.

After supper Jack and Solomon went out for a walk. They heard violent talk among people gathered at the street corners. They soon overtook a noisy crowd of boys and young men carrying clubs. In front of Murray's Barracks where the Twenty-Ninth Regiment was quartered, there was a chattering crowd of men and boys. Some of them were hooting and cursing at two sentinels. The streets were lighted by oil lamps and by candles in the windows of the houses.

In Cornhill they came upon a larger and more violent assemblage of the same kind. They made their way through it and saw beyond, a captain, a corporal and six private soldiers standing, face to face, with the crowd. Men were jeering at them; boys hurling abusive epithets. The boys, as they are apt to do, reflected, with some exaggeration, the passions of their elders. It was a crowd of rough fellows--mostly wharfmen and sailors. Solomon sensed the danger in the situation. He and Jack moved out of the jeering mob. Then suddenly a thing happened which may have saved one or both of their lives. The Captain drew his sword and flashed a dark light upon Solomon and called, out:

"Hello, Binkus! What the hell do you want?"

"Who be ye?" Solomon asked.

"Preston."

"Preston! Cat's blood an' gunpowder! What's the matter?"

Preston, an old comrade of Solomon, said to him:

"Go around to headquarters and tell them we are cut off by a mob and in a bad mess. I'm a little scared. I don't want to get hurt or do any hurting."

Jack and Solomon passed through the guard and hurried on. Then there were hisses and cries of "Tories! Rotten Tories!" As the two went on they heard missiles falling behind them and among the soldiers.

"They's goin' to be bad trouble thar," said Solomon.

"Them lads ain't to blame. They're only doin' as they're commanded. It's the dam' King that orto be hetchelled."

They were hurrying on, as he spoke, and the words were scarcely out of his mouth when they heard the command to fire and a rifle volley--then loud cries of pain and shrill curses and running feet. They turned and started back. People were rushing out of their houses, some with guns in their hands. In a moment the street was full.

"The soldiers are slaying people," a man shouted. "Men of Boston, we must arm ourselves and fight."

[Illustration: "The soldiers are slaying people," a man shouted.]

It was a scene of wild confusion. They could get no farther on Cornhill. The crowd began to pour into side-streets. Rumors were flying about that many had been killed and wounded. An hour or so later Jack and Solomon were seized by a group of ruffians.

"Here are the damn Tories!" one of them shouted.

"Friends o' murderers!" was the cry of another.

"Le's hang 'em!"

Solomon immediately knocked the man down who had called them Tories and seized another and tossed him so far in the crowd as to give it pause.

"I don't mind bein' hung," he shouted, "not if it's done proper, but no man kin call me a Tory lessen my hands are tied, without gittin' hurt. An' if my hands was tied I'd do some hollerin', now you hear to me."

A man back in the crowd let out a laugh as loud as the braying of an ass. Others followed his example. The danger was passed. Solomon shouted:

"I used to know Preston when I were a scout in Amherst's army fightin' Injuns an' Frenchmen, which they's more'n twenty notches on the stock o' my rifle an' fourteen on my pelt, an' my name is Solomon Binkus from Albany, New York, an' if you'll excuse us, we'll put fer hum as soon as we kin git erway convenient."

They started for The Ship and Anchor with a number of men and boys following and trying to talk with them.

"I'll tell ye, Jack, they's trouble ahead," said Solomon as they made their way through the crowded streets.

Many were saying that there could be no more peace with England.

In the morning they learned that three men had been killed and five others wounded by the soldiers. Squads of men and boys with loaded muskets were marching into town from the country.

Jack and Solomon attended the town meeting that day in the old South Meeting-House. It was a quiet and orderly crowd that listened to the speeches of Josiah Quincy, John Hancock and Samuel Adams, demanding calmly but firmly that the soldiers be forthwith removed from the city. The famous John Hancock cut a great figure in Boston those days. It is not surprising that Jack was impressed by his grandeur for he had entered the meeting-house in a scarlet velvet cap and a blue damask gown lined with velvet and strode to the platform with a dignity even above his garments. As he faced about the boy did not fail to notice and admire the white satin waistcoat and white silk stockings and red morocco slippers. Mr. Quincy made a statement which stuck like a bur in Jack Irons' memory of that day and perhaps all the faster because he did not quite understand it. The speaker said: "The dragon's teeth have been sown."

The chairman asked if there was any citizen present who had been on the scene at or about the time of the shooting. Solomon Binkus arose and held up his hand and was asked to go to the minister's room and confer with the committee.

Mr. John Adams called at the inn that evening and announced that he was to defend Captain Preston and would require the help of Jack and Solomon as witnesses. For that reason they were detained some days in Boston and released finally on the promise to return when their services were required.

They left Boston by stage and one evening in early April, traveling afoot, they saw the familiar boneheads around the pasture lands above Albany where the farmers had crowned their fence stakes with the skeleton heads of deer, moose, sheep and cattle in which birds had the habit of building their nests. It had been thawing for days, but the night had fallen clear and cold. They had stopped at the house of a settler some miles northeast of Albany to get a sled load of Solomon's pelts which had been stretched and hung there. Weary of the brittle snow, they took to the river a mile or so above the little city, Solomon hauling his sled. Jack had put on the new skates which he had bought in Bennington where they had gone for a visit with old friends. They were out on the clear ice, far from either shore, when they heard an alarming peal of "river thunder"--a name which Binkus applied to a curious phenomenon often accompanied by great danger to those on the rotted roof of the Hudson. The hidden water had been swelling.

Suddenly it had made a rip in the great ice vault a mile long with a noise like the explosion of a barrel of powder. The rip ran north and south about mid-stream. They were on the west sheet and felt it waver and subside till it had found a bearing on the river surface.

"We must git off o' here quick," said Binkus. "She's goin' to break up."

"Let me have the sled and as soon as I get going, you hop on," said Jack.

The boy began skating straight toward the shore, drawing the sled and its load, Solomon kicking out behind with his spiked boots until they were well under way. They heard the east sheet breaking up before they had made half the distance to safe footing. Then their own began to crack into sections as big "as a ten-acre lot," Mr. Binkus said, "an' the noise was like a battle, but Jack kept a-goin' an' me settin' light an' my mind a-pushin' like a scairt deer." Water was flooding over the ice which had broken near shore, but the skater jumped the crack before it was wider than a man's hand and took the sled with him. They reached the river's edge before the ice began heaving and there the sloped snow had been wet and frozen to rocks and bushes, so they were able to make their way through it.

"Now, we're even," said Solomon when they had hauled the sled up the river bank while he looked back at the ice now breaking and beginning to pile up, "I done you a favor an' you've done me one. It's my turn next."

This was the third in the remarkable series of adventures which came to these men.

They had a hearty welcome at the little house near The King's Arms, where they sat until midnight telling of their adventures. In the midst of it, Jack said to his father:

"I heard a speaker say in Boston that the dragon's teeth had been sown. What does that mean?"

"It means that war is coming," said John Irons. "We might as well get ready for it."

These words, coming from his father, gave him a shock of surprise. He began to think of the effect of war on his own fortunes.

3

Solomon sent his furs to market and went to work on the farm of John Irons and lived with the family. The boy returned to school. After the hay had been cut and stacked in mid-summer, they were summoned to Boston to testify in the trial of Preston. They left in September taking with them a drove of horses.

"It will be good for Jack," John Irons had said to his wife. "He'll be the better prepared for his work in Philadelphia next fall."

Two important letters had arrived that summer. One from Benjamin Franklin to John Irons, offering Jack a chance to learn the printer's trade in his Philadelphia shop and board and lodging in his home. "If the boy is disposed to make a wise improvement of his time," the great man had written, "I shall see that he has an opportunity to take a course at our Academy. I am sure he would be a help and comfort to Mrs. Franklin. She, I think, will love to mother him. Do not be afraid to send him away from home. It will help him along toward manhood. I was much impressed by his letter to Miss Margaret Hare, which her mother had the goodness to show me. He has a fine spirit and a rare gift for expressing it. She and the girl were convinced by its argument, but the Colonel himself is an obdurate Tory--he being a favorite of the King. The girl, now very charming and much admired, is, I happen to know, deeply in love with your son. I have promised her that, if she will wait for him, I will bring him over in good time and act as your vicar at the wedding. This, she and her mother are the more ready to do because of their superstition that God has clearly indicated him as the man who would bring her happiness and good fortune. I find that many European women are apt to entertain and enjoy superstition and to believe in omens--not the only drop of old pagan blood that lingers in their veins. I am sending, by this boat, some more books for Jack to read."

The other letter was from Margaret Hare to the boy, in which she had said that they were glad to learn that he and Mr. Binkus were friends of Captain Preston and inclined to help him in his trouble. "Since I read your letter I am more in love with you than ever," she had written. "My father was pleased with it. He thinks that all cause of complaint will be removed. Until it is, I do not ask you to be a Tory, but only to be patient."

Jack and Solomon were the whole day getting their horses across Van Deusen's ferry and headed eastward in the rough road. Mr. Binkus wore his hanger--an old Damascus blade inherited from his father--and carried his long musket and an abundant store of ammunition; Jack wore his two pistols, in the use of which he had become most expert.

When the horses had "got the kinks worked out," as Solomon put it, and were a trifle tired, they browsed along quietly with the man and boy riding before and behind them. By and by they struck into the twenty-mile bush beyond the valley farms. In the second day of their travel they passed an Albany trader going east with small kegs of rum on a pack of horses and toward evening came to an Indian village. They were both at the head of the herd.

"Stop," said Solomon as they saw the smoke of the fires ahead. "We got to behave proper."

He put his hands to his mouth and shouted a loud halloo, which was quickly answered. Then two old men came out to him and the talk which followed in the Mohawk dialect was thus reported by the scout to his companion:

"We wish to see the chief," said Solomon. "We have gifts for him."

"Come with us," said one of the old men as they led Solomon to the Stranger's House. The old men went from hut to hut announcing the newcomers. Victuals and pipes and tobacco were sent to the Stranger's House for them. This structure looked like a small barn and was made of rived spruce. Inside, the chief sat on a pile of unthrashed wheat. He had a head and face which reminded Jack of the old Roman emperors shown in the Historical Collections. There was remarkable dignity in his deep-lined face. His name was Thunder Tongue. The house had no windows. Many skins hung from its one cross-beam above their heads.

Mr. Binkus presented beaver skins and a handsome belt. Then the chief sent out some women to watch the horses and to bring Jack into the village. Near by were small fields of wheat and maize. The two travelers sat down with the chief, who talked freely to Solomon Binkus.

"If white man comes to our village cold, we warm him; wet, we dry him; hungry, we feed him," he said. "When Injun man goes to Albany and asks for food, they say, 'Where's your money? Get out, you Injun dog!' The white man he comes with scaura and trades it for skins. It steals away the wisdom of the young braves. It bends my neck with trouble. It is bad."

They noted this just feeling of resentment in the old chief and expressed their sympathy. Soon the Albany trader came with his pack of rum. The chief greeted him cheerfully and asked for scaura.

"I have enough to make a hundred men happy," the trader answered.

"Bring it to me, for I have a sad heart," said Thunder Tongue.

When the Dutch trader went to his horse for the kegs, Solomon said to the chief:

"Why do you let him bring trouble to your village and steal away the wisdom of your warriors?"

"Tell me why the creek flows to the great river and I will answer you," said the chief.

He began drinking as soon as the trader came with the kegs, while the young warriors gathered about the door, each with skins on his arm. Soon every male Indian was staggering and whooping and the squaws with the children had started into the thickets.

Solomon nudged Jack and left the hut, followed by the boy.

"Come on. Let's git out o' here. The squaws an' the young 'uns are sneakin'. You hear to me--thar'll be hell to pay here soon."

So while the braves were gathered about the trader and were draining cups of fire-water, the travelers made haste to mount and get around the village and back into their trail with the herd. They traveled some miles in the long twilight and stopped at the Stony Brook Ford, where there were good water and sufficient grazing.

"Here's whar the ol' Green Mountain Trail comes down from the north an' crosses the one we're on," said Solomon.

They dismounted and Solomon hobbled a number of horses while Jack was building a fire. The scout, returning from the wild meadow, began to examine some tracks he had found at the trail crossing. Suddenly he gave a whistle of surprise and knelt on the ground.

"Look 'ere, Jack," he called.

The boy ran to his side.

"Now this 'ere is suthin' cur'user than the right hoof o' the devil," said Solomon Binkus, as he pointed with his forefinger at a print in the soft dirt.

Jack saw the print of the wooden stump with the iron ring around its base which the boy had not forgotten. Near it were a number of moccasin tracks.

"What does this mean?" he asked.

"Wall, sir, I cocalate it means that ol' Mike Harpe has been chased out o' the Ohio country an' has come down the big river an' into Lake Champlain with some o' his band an' gone to cuttin' up an' been obleeged to take to the bush. They've robbed somebody an' are puttin' fer salt water. They'll hire a boat an' go south an' then p'int fer the 'Ganies. Ol' Red Snout shoved his leg in that 'ere gravel sometime this forenoon prob'ly."

They brewed tea to wet their buttered biscuit and jerked venison.

Solomon looked as if he were sighting on a gun barrel when he said:

"Now ye see what's the matter with this 'ere Injun business. They're jest a lot o' childern scattered all over the bush an' they don't have to look fer deviltry. Deviltry is lookin' fer them an' when they git together thar's trouble."

Solomon stopped, now and then, to peer off into the bush as he talked while the dusk was falling. Suddenly he put his finger to his lips. His keen eyes had detected a movement in the shadowy trail.

"Hide an' horns o' the devil!" he exclaimed in a low tone. "This 'ere may be suthin' neevarious. Shove ol' Marier this way an' grab yer pistols an' set still."

He crept on his hands and knees with the strap of his rifle in his teeth to the edge of the bush, where he sat for a moment looking and listening. Suddenly Solomon arose and went back in the trail, indicating with a movement of his hand that the boy was not to follow. About fifteen rods from their camp-fire he found an Indian maiden sitting on the ground with bowed head. A low moan came from her lips. Her skin was of a light copper color. There was a wreath of wild flowers in her hair.

"My purty maid, are your people near?" Solomon asked in the Mohawk tongue.

She looked up at him, her beautiful dark eyes full of tears, and sorrowfully shook her head.

"My father was a great white chief," she said. "Always a little bird tells me to love the white man. The beautiful young pale face on a red horse took my heart with him. I go, too."

"You must go back to your people," said Solomon.

Again she shook her head, and, pointing up the trail, whispered:

"They will burn the Little White Birch. No more will I go in the trail of the red man. It is like climbing a thorn tree."

He touched her brow tenderly and she seized his hand and held it against her cheek.

"I follow the beautiful pale face," she whispered.

Solomon observed that her lips were shapely and her teeth white.

"What is your name?" he asked.

"They call me the Little White Birch."

Solomon told her to sit still and that he would bring food to her.

"It's jest only a little squaw," he said to Jack when he returned to the camp-fire. "Follered us from that 'ere Injun village. I guess she were skeered o' them drunken braves. I'm goin' to take some meat an' bread an' tea to her. No, you better stay here. She's as skeery as a wild deer."

After Solomon had given her food he made her take his coat for a blanket and left her alone.

Next morning she was still there. Solomon gave her food again and when they resumed their journey they saw her following.

"She'll go to the end o' the road, I guess," said Solomon. "I'll tell ye what we'll do. We'll leave her at Mr. Wheelock's School."

Their trail bore no further signs of Harpe and his followers.

"I'll bet ye a pint o' powder an' a fish hook they was p'intin' south," said Solomon.

They reached the Indian school about noon. A kindly old Mohawk squaw who worked there was sent back in the trail to find the maiden. In a few minutes the squaw came in with her. Solomon left money with the good master and promised to send more.

When the travelers went on that afternoon the Little White Birch stood by the door looking down the road at them.

"She has a coat o' red on her skin, but the heart o' the white man," said Solomon.

In a moment Jack heard him muttering, "It's a damn wicked thing to do--which there ain't no mistake."

They had come to wagon roads improving as they approached towns and villages, in the first of which they began selling the drove. When they reached Boston, nearly a week later, they had only the two horses which they rode.

The trial had just begun. Being ardent Whigs, their testimony made an impression. Jack's letter to his father says that Mr. Adams complimented them when they left the stand.

There is an old letter of Solomon Binkus which briefly describes the journey. He speaks of the "pompy" men who examined them. "They grinned at me all the time an' the ol' big wig Jedge in the womern's dress got mad if I tried to crack a joke," he wrote in his letter. "He looked like he had paid too much fer his whistle an' thought I had sold it to him. Thought he were goin' to box my ears. John Addums is erbout as sharp as a razor. Took a likin' to Jack an' me. I tol' him he were smart 'nough to be a trapper."

The two came back in the saddle and reached Albany late in October.