"Yes, it is true. Fish House, Summer House, and Fonda's Bush are in ashes, Jimmy, and your late friend, Sir John, is at Buck Island with a thousand Indians, regulars, and Tories, and like to pay us a call before planting time."
"Oh, my God," says Burke, "the divil take Sir John an' the black heart of him av he comes back here to murther his old neighbors! Sorra the day we let him scape!—him an' Alex White, an' Toby Tice an' moody Wally Butler,—an' ould John, an' Indian Claus, an' Black Guy!—may the divil take the whole Tory ruck o' them!—--"
He checked himself; behind him, through the door, entered a Continental Captain; and I sat up in bed to do him courtesy.
As I suspected, here proved to be our Commandant come to learn of me my news; and it presently appeared that Nick had run to the jail with an account of how I lay here crippled.
Well, the Commandant was a simple, kindly man, whose present anxiety made little of military custom. And so he had come instantly to learn my news of me; and we talked there alone for an hour.
At his summons a servant fetched paper, ink, pen and sand; and, whilst he looked on, I wrote out my report to him.
Also, I made for him a drawing of the Drowned Lands from Fish House to Mayfield, marking all roads and paths and trails, and all canoe water, carries, and cleared land. For, as Brent-Meester, no man had more accurate knowledge of Tryon than had I; and it was all clearly in my mind, so that to make a map of it proved no task at all.
I asked him if I was to remain detached and with authority to raise a company of rangers—as had once been given me—or whether, perhaps, the Line lacked commissioned officers, saying that it was all one to me and that I wished only to serve where most needed.
He replied that, unless I went to Morgan's corps of Virginia Riflemen, concerning which detail he had heard some talk, my full value lay in my woodcraft and in my wide, personal knowledge of the wilderness.
"Who better than you, Mr. Drogue, could take a scout to this same Buck Island, where Sir John's hordes are gathering? Who better than yourself could undertake a swift and secret mission to any point within the confines of this vast desolation of mountain, lake, and forest, which promises soon to be the theatre of a most bloody struggle?