“Come aboard here, ye young rascal!” exclaimed the woodsman, with a chuckle. “You’ll have that whole spatter of Tories arter us. Couldn’t you hide your clothes better ’n that? Might have left ’em ashore. If the old gentleman hadn’t been blinder’n a bat at midday, he’d seen ’em.”
“I didn’t think of that,” Enoch admitted, rather ruefully, climbing over the bow of the canoe and then passing the thong to ’Siah, who fastened it to the stern of the bateau. “I heard him say you couldn’t have both, and I thought it too bad. This canoe will hold a dozen men.”
“Wall, grab that sweep. Never mind your clothes just now. I warrant ye’ll keep warm enough till we git to the camp.”
The newly made captain of scouts and his young companion were by no means the first to reach the rendezvous on the shore opposite Ticonderoga. Nor is it to be supposed that the boats being there collected were brought boldly up in daylight. They were hidden in little coves near by, which could be reached by the scouts without attracting attention from the fort, to be brought after dark to the landing from which Ethan Allen expected to embark his troops. There were but two craft moored opposite the camp which Bolderwood and his companions had occupied for more than a week. Bolderwood held the title of a long strip of land along the lake shore, but he had never built a cabin. A shack, or hut, of branches was all the shelter the trio enjoyed.
Here the ranger and Enoch found several of their friends beside Smith and Brown in waiting. The shore of the lake on this side had been fairly scoured for bateaus. They dared not cross to the New York side to obtain boats, for by so doing they would be sure to excite suspicion. With those already obtained and some which their companions were now gone for, the expedition must be content. The one mistake of their bold leader might bring about failure to the enterprise; yet so confident were they in Ethan Allen’s ability that they firmly believed he would find some way to overcome the lack of transportation. The forced march of the scouts the day before, and for a good share of the night as well, had brought them to the lake long before the expedition itself could possibly reach the landing. Besides, the leaders would hold back until after dark. The attack upon the fortress must be accomplished under the cover of night. Bolderwood hoped, when he saw the meagre provision he was able to make for transportation, that the army would arrive early enough to allow of two, and even three, voyages to be made from shore to shore, that the entire force might take part in the attack.
To Enoch, however, there was another matter of grave interest to be attended to when he and his tall friend arrived at the temporary camp. He wished to see the spy whom Bolderwood had mentioned to Ethan Allen. The ranger, too, looked sharply about the camp for the man. “Where’s that slippery critter we captured the other night?” he asked. “If he gits away before Colonel Allen comes there’ll be trouble for some of us.”
“We’d better have hung him up and so saved his food,” grunted Brown, who, because the Yorkers had burned his house and driven his wife and children into the forest, had no love for anybody from the west side of the lake.
“You haven’t let him go?” demanded Bolderwood.
“Nay, ’Siah. He’s safe enough,” returned Smith. “He’s yonder behind the camp. He’d be an eel or a sarpint to wriggle out of them thongs.”
“A sarpint he is,” declared Bolderwood, and strode away to look at the prisoner. Enoch followed him. There, sitting with his back against a tree, his ankles fastened together and a strong deer thong wrapped about his body and about the tree itself, was Simon Halpen. When he saw the ranger he scowled. When he observed the boy, however, his eyes flashed and the blood rushed to his face. “I reckon he knows ye, Nuck,” said the ranger.