The old man made no reply until I had repeated the question, and then he said, slowly:
"If there was any show of bein' able to work the trick, you could count on me to the end; but if he has fallen into their clutches, unless some wonderfully big turn of affairs comes in our path, we would be only throwin' away the lives of both without chance of helpin' him. I've heard long-tongued boasters tellin' how they'd rescued a prisoner from an Indian camp, but I never believed anything of the kind, for it ain't to be done more'n one time in a thousand, an' then you'd have to find a lot of red-skinned idjuts to work on."
Sergeant Corney had used a good many words in replying to my short question, and I believed he had done so to the end that I might not fully understand what he meant.
As I made it out, however, he would turn his back on poor Jacob in case the savages had him in their power, and I asked myself again and again what course I should pursue in such a situation.
We made a long détour around the battle-field in order to avoid as much as possible the danger of stumbling upon the enemy's scouts, and, when the afternoon was half-spent, had come, as nearly as we could guess, to a point due south from Thayendanega's camp.
"How far do you reckon we are from St. Leger's force?" I asked, when Sergeant Corney threw himself on the ground within shelter of a clump of bushes, as if for a long halt.
"Three miles or more from their lines of sentinels, if they've got any out, an' we're none too far away, 'cordin' to my figgerin'. After sunset we'll work in toward 'em; but there needn't be any hurry, for I'm reckonin' that we don't want to do much work till after midnight. If Jacob is still free to do as he pleases, there's little danger he'll come to grief 'twixt now an' mornin'."
"Unless he should see them torturin' his father, an' then it's certain he'd make a fight, no matter how great the odds against him," I suggested, thinking of what I would be tempted to do under similar circumstances.
"In that case we're better off where we are. I don't allow that a lad has any right to deliberately throw away his own life, an' that's what Jacob would be doin' if he showed himself when the villains had his father at the stake."
"He couldn't stand still an' see it done."