"Keep Sir William's Cayugas quiet if you can," he said. "I will watch Dunmore's agents that they do nothing to bring on war. I may fail, but I will do what I can. When do you speak to the Cayugas with belts?"
"At dawn," I replied, soberly.
"Poor devils," said Cresap, sadly, "poor, tricked, cheated, and plundered devils! This is their land. I should never have come had not Dunmore assured me the Cayugas had been paid for the country. And there is their great sachem, Logan, called 'The Friend of the White Man.' Greathouse has made a drunken sot of Logan, and all his family down to the tiny maid of ten. Ay, sir, I have seen Logan's children lying drunk in the road there by Greathouse's tavern—poor, little babies of twelve and ten, stark-naked, lying drunk in the rain!"
After a moment I asked why he had not expelled this fiend, Greathouse, and he replied that he had, but that Dunmore had sent him back under his special protection.
"What on earth can I do?" he repeated. "The Cayuga camp is rotten with whiskey. Their chiefs and sachems come to me and beg me to forbid the sale. I am powerless; for back of me stands Lord Dunmore in the shape of Greathouse. By God, sir, the man is a nightmare to me!"
"Why not twist his gullet?" observed Mount.
Cresap paid him no attention, and the big fellow pouted, muttering that it was a simple thing to exterminate vermin.
As we sat there, I heard the rain drumming against the horn panes in the window. The room had grown very dark.
Cresap rose, holding out his hand to me.
"Shall I administer the oath of fellowship, my friend?" he asked.