In Hostile Red

by Joseph A. Altsheler

"Then you mean to give us some work, I take it," said Marcel.

"Not much to-day," replied the partisan, "as I operate best in the dark; so shall I wait until sun-down, but I hope that we shall then get through with a fair night's work."

Wildfoot's men seem to trust him absolutely. They never asked him where they were going or what they were expected to do, but followed cheerfully wherever he led. The partisan himself continued in the great good humor that had marked him when we entered Philadelphia. He sang a bit under his breath and smiled frequently. Whether he was happy over deeds achieved or others to come, I could not tell. But I saw that our duties were to be of a scouting nature, as was indicated clearly by the character of the force under his command.

We rode for a while in the track of the British army, a huge trail made by the passage of sixteen thousand troops, and a camp train twelve miles long. Many Tories, too, not fortunate enough to secure passage on the ships down the river, had followed the army, filled with panic and dreading retaliation from the triumphant patriots whom some of their kind had persecuted cruelly in the days when our fortunes were lower.

It was easy enough for us to overtake the British army, which was dragging itself painfully over the hills and across the fields. A body of fifteen or twenty thousand men can move but slowly in the best of times, and in the terrible heat which had suddenly settled down, the British forces merely crept towards New York. Soon we saw their red coats and shining arms through the trees, and heard the murmur of the thousands. However we bore off to one side, passing out of sight, and made a wide curve, apparently for the purpose of examining the country, and to see whether the British had sent out skirmishing or foraging parties. But we saw neither, and shortly after sunset our curve brought us back to the enemy's army, which had gone into camp for the night, their fires flaring redly against the background of the darkness. We stopped upon the crest of a little hill, from which we could see the camp very well and sat there for a few minutes, watching. Being in the darkness we were invisible, but many blazing heaps of wood shed their light over the hostile army.

"They seem to be taking their ease," said Wildfoot. "It ought not to be allowed, but we will not disturb them for the present."

Then he withdrew our men about a mile, and, halting them in a thick wood, ordered them to eat of the food in their knapsacks. But Marcel and me he summoned to go with him on a little journey that he purposed to take.

"We shall not be gone more than an hour or two," he said, "and we will find the men waiting for us here when we come back."

We curved again as we rode away. In truth, we had been making so many curves that it was hard for me to retain any idea of direction. In a half hour we saw a light, and then the house from which it came, a low but rather large building of heavy logs, standing in a small clearing in the forest.