“I’ll bet I know him,” saying which, Rodney ran out and, as he suspected, found Conrad stolidly waiting for him.
“Where’s little Louis, Conrad?”
“He vould stay mit der priest at Detroit. He say he a medicine man be himself.”
As Rodney wrote the letter Conrad was to take back through the hundreds of miles of forest to the son of Richard Ralston, he thought what a pity the boy’s father died without seeing him. The son should know, however, that he was loved and that his father had been a brave man and that, if he but chose to return to England, he might come into his inheritance. What would he choose, the life of the missionary with all its dangers and sacrifices, or that of a country gentleman,––rather what would his advisers choose for him?
Weeks lengthened into months and months into years, slowly so far as concerned the progress of the war, but swiftly with regard to the growth of the country. Notwithstanding Continental money was becoming almost worthless, bountiful crops were raised and the greater part of the population were engaged in work.
The surrender of Burgoyne had proved the success necessary to enable that wise old man, Benjamin Franklin, to secure recognition of the United States by France. A French fleet hovered along the coast 276 and annoyed the British without accomplishing anything decisive. The American people seemed less inclined to make great effort, relying on French aid to secure independence for them. Corruption,––depriving the army of supplies and money,––the weakness of Congress,––unable to do more than suggest and leave to the several states to respond or not as they chose,––all served to delay the war. But for Washington, patient and wise, standing as a tower of strength about which the patriotic people might rally, the end of it all might well have been in doubt. The people of the country, however, did not doubt. The great majority of them believed their cause invincible.
Washington’s army had chased Clinton’s British troops from Philadelphia back to New York, and would have inflicted serious punishment upon them but for the treachery of General Charles Lee. As it was, Washington saw the hand of Providence in the fact that, after two years, his and the British army were back in their old positions with the British less confident and powerful. General Howe on returning to England had remarked: “Things go ill and will not go better.”
The Wyoming massacre, perpetrated by Indians and Tories, sent a thrill of horror over the land, and the man who had been thinking the war would be ended without further assistance from him burned to fight the foe. The successes of Clark in capturing British posts west of the Alleghanies, and so laying the foundation 277 of our claim to that vast territory, increased Rodney’s restlessness.
“Zeb,” he said to his friend on hearing the report, “I’m beginning to long to go West again.”
“You ought to know what is thought of a man as fools with fire after havin’ his fingers burned once.”