The Little Red Foot

by Robert W. Chambers

But in the forest he was a painted spectre; in battle a flame! He was a war chief: he never became Royaneh;[3] but he possessed the wisdom of Hendrik, the eloquence of Red Jacket, the terrific energy of Hiakatoo.

We, of Tryon, were aware of all these things. Our ears were listening for the dread wolf cry of the Iroquois in their paint; our eyes were turned in dumb expectation toward our Provincial Congress of New York; toward our dear General Schuyler in Albany; toward the Continental Congress now in solemn session; toward our new and distant hope shining clearer, brighter as each day ended—His Excellency the Virginian.

How long were Sir John and his people to be left here in County Tryon to terrorize all friends to liberty,—to fortify Johnstown, to stop us about our business on the King's highway, to intrigue with the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Cayugas, the Onondagas, the Senecas, the Tuscaroras?

Guy Johnson tampered with the River Indians at Poughkeepsie, and we knew it. He sent belts to the Shawanese, to the Wyandottes, to the Mohicans. We knew it. He met the Delaware Sachems at a mongrel fire—God knows where and by what authority, for the Federal Council never gave it!—and we stopped one of his runners in the Bush with his pouch full o' belts and strings; and we took every inch of wampum without leave of Sir John, and bade the runner tell him what we did.

We wrote to Albany; Albany made representations to Sir John, and the Baronet replied that his show of armed force at the Hall was solely for the reason that he had been warned that the Boston people were laying plans to invade Tryon and make of him a prisoner.

I think this silly lie was too much for Schuyler, for all now knew that war must come. Twelve Colonies, in Congress assembled, had announced that they had rather die as free people than continue to live as slaves. Very fine indeed! But what was of more interest to us at Fonda's Bush, this Congress commissioned George Washington as Commander in Chief of a Colonial Army of 20,000 men, and prepared to raise three millions on bills of credit for the prosecution of the war!

Now, at last, the cleavage had come. Now, at last, Sir John was forced into the open.

He swore by Almighty God that he had had no hand in intriguing against the plain people of Tryon: and while he was making this oath, Guy Johnson was raising the Iroquois against us at Oswego; he was plotting with Carleton and Haldimand at Montreal; he had arranged for the departure of Brant with the great bulk of the Mohawk nation, and, with them, the fighting men of the Iroquois Confederacy. Only the Western Gate Keepers remained,—the fierce Senecas.

And so, except for a few Tuscaroras, a few lukewarm Onondagas, a few of the Lenape, and perhaps half—possibly two-thirds of the Oneida nation, Guy Johnson already had swung the terrible Iroquois to the King.

And now, secretly, the rats began to leave for the North, where, behind the Canada border, savage hordes were gathering by clans, red and white alike.