But without further speech, or a glance behind him, the Indian brave strode away into the forest and was quickly lost to view.
CHAPTER XVIII
“THE CROSS OF FIRE”
Having at length been assured beyond peradventure that his suspicions were true, a desire for vengeance upon Simon Halpen sprang to life in Enoch’s heart. He forgot the momentous matter which had filled his mind before the appearance of Crow Wing the evening before. He thought only of his father’s murderer, the man who had tried to injure them all, even to the point of destroying their home and attempting to shoot himself.
As he tramped back to the house with the haunch of venison on his shoulder, he determined to tell nobody there of the finding of the moose hoofs which explained the mystery of his father’s death. The hoofs he saved to show Bolderwood, and for evidence against Simon Halpen if the opportunity ever arose to punish that villain. It was easy to see with this evidence before him, how the awful deed had been accomplished. With the moose hoofs strapped upon his feet the Yorker had crept through the forest on the trail of the unconscious Jonas Harding; had seen him shoot the doe; and then falling upon him suddenly had beaten him to the earth with his clubbed rifle and had bruised and mangled him so terribly that the neighbors, at first glance, pronounced the poor man killed by a mad buck. Hurrying from the vicinity, dress and hands covered with blood as Crow Wing had seen him, Halpen had hidden the deer hoofs in the hollow of the tree, and escaped to Albany, his vengeance accomplished.
“But he shall suffer for this yet,” thought the youth, with compressed lips. “God will punish him if the courts do not. And sometime he may be delivered into my hand, and if he is—”
The implied threat frightened him, and he did not follow it even in his thoughts, but by again turning his attention to the matter which Ethan Allen’s visit the day before had suggested, he strove to bring his mind into better tone before meeting his mother. He feared that the expression on his features would betray something of his horror and determination to her sharp eyes. When he reached home, however, he found the family so greatly excited that nobody thought to either ask questions or to notice his behavior. A drill had been called at Bennington and Enoch was forced to saddle the horse and hurry away at once. Under the present conditions it was thought best for Bryce to remain at home, for if the Green Mountain Boys marched upon Ticonderoga the younger Harding could not be spared to accompany the expedition.
The Council was in session and the leaders of the Green Mountain Boys remained in Bennington for more than a week. Couriers had arrived from the south and east and it was known that the British were rapidly being shut up in Boston. The Massachusetts Colony was afire with wrath because of the Lexington massacre. The Grants people were quite as rebellious against the King’s authority, with the sad affair at Westminster fresh in their minds. The proposal to capture the British strongholds on the lake met with favor everywhere. Small bodies of armed men began to come in and a camp was planned at Castleton. It was said that a large body of troops was to march from Western Massachusetts and Connecticut to aid the expedition. When Ethan Allen returned and heard of these reinforcements he immediately desired to bring in more of his own people for the work proposed.
“This is our work,” he declared. “We have planned to lead this campaign and lead it we shall. We must show the southerners that we are one in heart and intention and therefore every able-bodied man in the Grants must come in. It isn’t enough for us to have some men; we must have the most men and thereby control the expedition. We want the honor of it!”
“You must lead us, Colonel!” exclaimed Warner, who, although he had no such following as did Allen, was sure of a goodly company of determined men to join the expedition. “We’ll follow you into Old Ti or anywhere else; but no stranger must command.”