Bolderwood went back and found the surveyor prone upon the ground and weeping like a woman. “Get up, you great ca’f!” cried the ranger. “Nobody’ll kill you for your part in this matter though you desarve little mercy.... Was that Simon Halpen?”
“It was indeed–the demon!” gasped the fellow, dragged unceremoniously to his feet by the borderer.
“If he ever comes into this colony again I doubt but he’ll be hung as high as Haman,” Bolderwood declared. “And you were the surveyor, eh? One of Duane & Kempe’s men? Well, sir, your back will be well tickled, or my name’s not ’Siah Bolderwood! But bear up, man–’tis no killing punishment.”
“What, sir?” cried the fellow. “Do you think I weep because of your promised punishment? I fear you not–I am a leal subject of the King and peaceful. You cannot touch me. But I weep because of the work that dastard has done this day.”
“What do you mean?” cried Bolderwood, fiercely. “Where is the woman and her bairns?”
The surveyor pointed a shaking finger at the cabin, the smoking walls of which were now all that were standing. “They are there. Wait! let me tell you. I had nothing to do with the dreadful work. Nor, indeed, did Simon Halpen mean to destroy the house and the poor woman and children. They meant to burn the roof off to scare them out, and one man threw burning clods on it. But those inside tore off the flaming roof and it fell all around the cabin and set the walls afire. They dared not run out through that wall of flame and smothered to death they were–God pity them!” and he began to weep aloud again.
Bolderwood was speechless–well-nigh overcome, indeed, with the horror of this. He saw his friends appear from the wood on the other side of the house and he walked toward them like one in a dream. But still he clung to the surveyor’s arm and forced him to approach the cabin. The roof had, of course, been completely consumed, and the outside of the walls was blackened and still blazed fiercely at the corners. The window shutters and door were burned away and the interior of the place was badly demolished.
“Where’s the widder and the boys?” shouted one of the newcomers to Bolderwood. The old ranger did not answer, but his hand tightened upon the surveyor’s arm. Suddenly the latter shrieked and would have fallen to the ground had not the grasp upheld him. In the door of the burning cabin stood the figure of Enoch Harding, his face covered with smut and his clothing half burned off his back. For a moment the surveyor believed the dead had risen and he covered his face with his hands to shut out the sight of the boy.
“Are ye all alive, lad?” shouted Bolderwood, dropping the surveyor and running forward.
“We’re all right, but well-nigh smothered,” returned Enoch, hoarsely. “Bring–bring some water!”