“You talk desp’rately against the King, Mr. Bolderwood!” exclaimed Enoch, looking askance at his companion.
“Nay–what is the King to me?” demanded the ranger, in disgust. “He would be lost in these woods, I warrant. We’re free people over here; why should we bother our heads about kings and parliament? They are no good to us.”
“You talk more boldly than Mr. Ethan Allen,” said the boy. “He was at our house once to talk with father. Father said he was a master bold man and feared neither the King nor the people.”
“And no man need fear either if he fear God,” declared the ranger, simply. “We are only seeing the beginnings of great trouble, Nuck. We may do battle to Yorkers now; perhaps we shall one day have to fight the King’s men for our farms and housel-stuff. The Governor of New York is a powerful man and is friendly to men high in the King’s councils, they say. This Sheriff Ten Eyck may bring real soldiers against us some day.”
“You don’t believe that, ’Siah?” cried the boy.
“Indeed and I do, lad,” returned the ranger, rising now with the carcass of the doe flayed and ready for hanging up.
“But we’ll fight for our lands!” cried Enoch. “My father fought Simon Halpen for our farm. I’ll fight him, too, if he comes here and tries to take it, now father is dead.”
“Mayhap this day’s work will settle it for all time, Nuck,” said the ranger, hopefully. “But do you shin up that sapling yonder, and bend it down. We wanter hang this carcass where no varmit–not even a catamount–can git it.”
The boy did as he was bade and soon the fruit of Enoch Harding’s early morning adventure was hanging from the top of a young tree, too small to be climbed by any wild-cat and far enough from the ground to be out of reach of the wolves and foxes. “Now we’ll git right out o’ here, lad,” Bolderwood said, picking up his rifle and starting for the ford. “We’ve got to hurry,” and Enoch, nothing loath, followed him across the creek and into the forest on the other bank.
“Do you r’ally think there’ll be fightin’, Master Bolderwood?” he asked.