He told us of wild and horrid doings, where solitary settlers and lone trappers had been murdered by Guy Carleton's outlying Iroquois, from Quebec to Crown Point.
Scores and scores of scalps had been taken; wretched prisoners had suffered at the Iroquois stake under tortures indescribable—the mere mention of which made Penelope turn sickly white and set Nick gnawing his knuckles.
But what most infuriated me was the thought that in the regiments of old John Butler and Sir John Johnson were scores of my old neighbors who now boasted that they were coming back to cut our throats on our own thresholds,—coming back with a thousand savages to murder women and children and ravage all with fire so that only a blackened desert should remain of the valleys and the humble homes we had made and loved.
Jessup said, puffing the acrid willow smoke from his clay: "Where I lay hidden near Oneida Lake, I saw a Seneca war party pass on the crust; and they had fresh scalps which dripped on the snow.
"And, near Niagara, I saw Butler's Rangers manœuvring on snow-shoes, with drums and curly bugle-horns."
"Did you know any among them?" I asked sombrely.
"Why, yes. There was Michael Reed, kin to Henry Stoner."
"My cousin, damn him!" quoth Nick, calmly.
"He was a drummer in the Rangers of John Butler," nodded Jessup. "And I saw Philip Helmer there in a green uniform, and Charles Cady, too, of Fonda's Bush."
"All I ask," says Nick, "is to get these two hands on them. I demand no weapons; I want only to feel my fingers closing on them." He sat staring into space with the blank glare of a panther. Then, "Were they painted?" he demanded.