To a hidden observer, the sight of this gay cavalier, alone in the wilds of Vermont, would have suggested great wonder. How came he there, and what was he doing? In those early days of the Revolutionary struggle, rags and bare feet were the rule, brilliant uniforms the few exceptions. There was no corps of hussars in the Continental service, and the Hessians, on the English side, wore green, not pale blue. Besides, the uniform of the hussar officer was distinctively Prussian, the black eagle being worked on his horse’s housings.
Whatever he was, he seemed to be quite at home in the woods, for his blue eye was calm and fearless, and the long fair mustache that drooped over his chin covered as resolute a mouth as ever closed firmly over shut teeth.
Having allowed his beast to drink, the young cavalier urged him through the water to the other side, and trotted briskly up the lonely road between the arches of the wood, till he had stopped opposite the ridge, and beheld before him another valley and more hills.
The ridge on which he stood happened to command an extensive view; reining up, he scanned it with a practiced eye.
“By heavens!” he exclaimed to himself, in a low tone, after a long and searching look; “there is some one living on the haunted hill, where even the Indians would not dare to go. I must investigate that.”
So saying, he shook his rein, and galloped down the hillside, in the direction of a mountain, the largest of any in sight, from the side of which a thin column of smoke curled up in the air.
Nothing very strange in that it may be said; but the young officer knew better.
He was passing through a country in which there was no settlements in the path he was riding, till he came to Derry field. The mountain before him was well-known by the name of “Haunted Hill” to the whites, and had the reputation of being haunted by a demon, who frightened away all the Indians who ventured near it. This was well known to the young cavalier who, being free from superstition, had chosen that way to escape any danger from the outlying Indians of Burgoyne’s army, then lying between Ticonderoga and Albany, slowly advancing. The young officer himself was on the staff of General Schuyler, who was then retreating before his formidable foe, and who had sent the aid-de-camp on a secret mission on which he was now proceeding.
The sight of smoke on the side of the Haunted Hill excited the curiosity of the young officer. Smoke meant settled habitation. No Indian could be there, he felt certain, on account of their superstitious fears of the mountain demon. If any one else were there, might he not prove to be in some way connected with the mystery of the demon? Full of curiosity, and for the moment forgetting his mission the young aid-de-camp crossed the valley, and commenced to toil up the sides of Haunted Hill.
He was not aware, keen as was his glance, that one still keener was watching him. Hardly had he gained the foot of the mountain, than an Indian warrior looked out of the cover he had quitted, and giving a rapid signal to some one behind, plunged down the hillside, skirting the road and keeping the cover, followed at a loping trot by at least a dozen more, in full war-paint.