The Frenchman looked puzzled, then, “By Gar you look de good look. I let um go. I tink you pretty good fellow, parbleu!”
So Rolf marched away with half the furs and four days later he was back and paid the pale-faced but happy Frenchman the one hundred and fifty dollars he had received from Van Cortlandt, with other bills making one hundred and ninety-five dollars and with groceries and tobacco enough to satisfy the trapper. The Frenchman proved a most amiable character. He and Rolf took to each other greatly, and when they shook hands at parting, it was in the hope of an early and happier meeting.
Francois la Colle turned bravely for the ninety-mile tramp over the snow to his home, while Rolf went south with the furs that were to prove a most profitable investment, shaping his life in several ways, and indirectly indeed of saving it on one occasion.
Chapter 68. War
Eighteen hundred and twelve had passed away. President Madison, driven by wrongs to his countrymen and indignities that no nation should meekly accept, had in the midsummer declared war on Great Britain. Unfitted to cope with the situation and surrounded by unfit counsellors, his little army of heroic men led by unfit commanders had suffered one reverse after another.
The loss of Fort Mackinaw, Chicago, Detroit, Brownstown, and the total destruction of the American army that attacked Queenstown were but poorly offset by the victory at Niagara and the successful defence of Ogdensburg.
Rolf and Quonab had repaired to Albany as arranged, but they left it as United States scouts, not as guides to the four young sportsmen who wished to hark back to the primitive.
Their first commission had been the bearing of despatches to Plattsburg.
With a selected light canoe and a minimum of baggage they reached Ticonderoga in two days, and there renewed their acquaintance with General Hampton, who was fussing about, and digging useless entrenchments as though he expected a mighty siege. Rolf was called before him to receive other despatches for Colonel Pike at Plattsburg. He got the papers and learned their destination, then immediately made a sad mistake. “Excuse me, sir,” he began, “if I meet with—”