"No need of command," answered Woodchuck; "scouts don't like to be commanded; and if they don't help with a good will, better not help at all. Just tell them what I'm about, let them know that a young man's life is at stake, and they'll work well for me if they're worth a penny. And now, my lord, you call up that man Proctor and send him off to Prevost's house. Call him up here! call him up here! I've got this large powder horn I want to send back, though it's a doubt whether the man can muster words enough to tell who it comes from, and I must get him to do so, one way or another."
"I can take it to-morrow myself," said Lord H----; but Woodchuck shook his head.
"That won't do," he said, with a shrewd look. "The runner must take it. He'll tell Prevost before some of his negroes, and the negroes will tell any Ingians that are prowling about; and so it will get round that I've left the hunting grounds for good, and I shall slip in the more easily. Always think of everything you can; and if you can't do that, think of as much as possible. A hunter's life makes one mighty cautious. I'm as careful as an old raccoon, who always looks nine ways before he puts his nose out of his hole."
Lord H---- called up the runner; and into his hands was delivered the powder horn for Mr. Prevost, with Woodchuck's message repeated over and over again, with manifold injunctions not to forget it.
"Tell him I took it that unlucky day I shot the Ingian," said Woodchuck, "and I don't like to keep what's not my own. It's nearly as good as stealing, if not quite. There, Mr. Proctor, you can get up words enough to say that, can't you?"
The man nodded his head and then turned to the door, without any further reply, beginning his peculiar sort of trot before he reached the top of the stairs, and never ceasing it till he arrived at the door of Mr. Prevost's house.
In the meanwhile, Lord H---- made Captain Brooks stay to partake of his own very frugal dinner, while the scouts were being collected and brought to the fort. They came about two o'clock, ready prepared, at least in part, for what was to follow; for in the little town of Albany, such an adventure as had befallen Walter Prevost was a matter of too much interest not to spread to every house, and to be told at every fireside. Most of the men, accustomed to continual action and enterprise of various kinds, were very willing to go, with the prospect of a fair reward before them. Life was so often periled with them, dangers and difficulties so often encountered, that existence without activity was rather a burden than otherwise. Each probably had his selfishness of some kind; but only one, in whom it took the form of covetousness, thought fit to inquire what was to be his recompense beyond the mere pay, for this uncovenanted service.
"Your recompense will be nothing at all," answered Woodchuck at once, without waiting for Lord H---- to speak; "I won't have you with me. The man who can try to drive a bargain when a brave boy's life is at stake is not fit to have a share with us. There, go along and knit petticoats; you may get a dollar apiece for them. That's the sort of winter work fit for you."
The man shrunk sullenly out of the room, and all other matters were soon settled with his companions. The method of their entrance into the Oneida territory, the different routes they were to take, and the points where they were to halt till called upon, were all arranged by Woodchuck, with a sort of natural military skill, which was more than once displayed by the American people during after wars. The part of the nobleman who was present was merely to listen, and give some letters to officers commanding different posts; but he listened, well pleased, and attentively; for his was a mind always eager to acquire information and direction from the experience of others, and the insight which he gained into the habits of the new people amongst whom he was might have been highly serviceable to others as well as himself, had not a sort of pedantry prevailed amongst the older officers in the British army at that time, and for many succeeding years, which prevented them from adapting their tactics to the new situations in which they were placed. Wolfe was a splendid exception, but Wolfe was a young man, coming in the dawning of a better day; and even had he not been so, it is probable that his genius, like that of Wellington, would have shown him that he was now to make rules, rather than to observe them.
As soon as the scouts were gone, Woodchuck rose to take his leave; and as Lord H---- shook him very warmly by the hand the good man said, in a tone of strong feeling: "Thank you, my lord, for all your kindness. You'll be glad to know that I feel very happy, and I'll tell you why. I'm doing something, and I'm doing my duty."