I close my carnet and strap it with a buckle.
I am on my way! Shad-bushes drop a million snowy petals in the soft May breeze; dogwood is in bloom; orchards are become great nosegays of pink and silver. Everywhere birds are singing.
And through this sweet Paradise I ride in my dingy regimentals; but my pistols are clean and my leathers; and my sword and spurs are bright, and chime gaily as I ride beside the great gray river northward, ever northward to my sweetheart and my home.
I baited at Tarrytown. The next night I was at Poughkeepsie, where the landlord was a low-Dutchman and a skinflint too.
I passed opposite to where Kingston lay in ashes, burned wantonly by a brute. And after that I advanced but slowly, for roads were bad and folk dour and suspicious—which state of mind I also shared and had no traffic with those I encountered, and chose to camp in the woods, too, rather than risk a night under the dubious roofs I saw, even though invited.
Only near the military posts in the Highlands did I feel truly secure until, one day at sunrise, I beheld the shining spires of Albany, and hundreds of gilded weather-cocks all shining me a welcome.
But in Albany streets I encountered silent people who looked upon me with no welcome in their haunted gaze; and everywhere I saw the same strange look,—pinched faces, brooding visages, a strained, intent gaze, yet vacant too, as though their eyes, which looked at me, saw nothing save some hidden vision within their secret minds.
I baited at the Half-Moon; and now I learned for the first what anxieties harassed these good burghers of the old Dutch city. For rumour had come the night before on the heels of a galloping light-horseman, that Sir John was expected to enter the Valley by the Sacandaga route; and that already strange Indians had been seen near Askalege.
How these same rumours originated nobody seemed to know. The light horseman had them from batteaux-men at Schenectady. But who carried such alarming news to the Queen's Fort nobody seemed to know, only that the garrison had become feverishly active, and three small scouts were preparing to start for Schoharie and Caughnawaga.