Part 17

Was the colonial hero received with the praise his great services deserved from England? Instead of praise he was harshly criticized for this or that trivial matter; though a few of the wiser men came forward to do him honor. Parliament would not vote him the money his colony needed; he had difficulty in finding enough money to pay his personal debts. Yet he kept on appealing for aid for Georgia, while the government took the same attitude it had taken toward so many of the other American colonies, and appeared of the opinion that the province across the Atlantic must look after itself. Fortunately for Georgia, Oglethorpe had so trained its soldiers, had so befriended its Indian neighbors, had so protected it by forts that the colony was now able to go its own way without English help.

In 1744 Oglethorpe married Elizabeth Wright, the heiress of Cranham Hall, a manor in Essex. He was also in that same year chosen as one of the officers to defend England from a threatened invasion by France. His services were not needed for that purpose; but in the next year he was given the rank of major-general and took part in the suppression of the rebellion of the "Young Pretender." This kept him in England, and he left the government of Georgia to the care of the men he had trained there. From time to time, however, he bestirred himself to send new colonists across the sea to Savannah.

When the rebellion was ended General Oglethorpe and his wife settled at Cranham Hall. Here he lived the life of a country gentleman, delighting in the peace and quiet after his many turbulent years in Georgia. He lived to see the American Revolution, though he took no part in it; he said "that he knew the people of America well; that they could never be subdued by arms, but their obedience could ever be secured by treating them justly;" he learned that his colony of Georgia, with twelve of her sisters, had succeeded in winning her independence from that mother-country he had served so long and on whose lists he was now the senior ranking general; and he seems to have harbored no ill-feeling against the colonists for forming a new nation.

Georgia and America owe a great debt of gratitude to General James Edward Oglethorpe. None of the colonies had a more unselfish founder and governor, none were more bravely defended from enemies, and in none was more devotion shown to making a few scattered settlements in the wilderness blossom into the safe homes of a contented people.

X

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS AND THE YORKERS

(_Vermont, 1774_)

I

A young fellow, raccoon skin cap on his head, with heavy homespun jacket, with breeches made of buckskin and tucked into the tops of light, supple doeskin boots, was running along the shore of a lake in the Green Mountain country on a winter afternoon in 1774. He went at a comfortable dog-trot, and every now and then he would slow up or stop and look about him with keen eyes. Some people would only have seen the lake, with thin, broken layers of ice floating out from the shore, the underbrush and woods to the other side, powdered with a light fall of snow, and heard only the crackling of frozen twigs and the occasional scrunch of loose ice against the bank. But this tall, slim boy saw and heard a great deal more. He caught the hoot of an owl way off through the forest, and listened intently to make certain that it was an owl and not a signal call of some Indian or trapper; he saw little footprints in the snow that told him a marten had gone hunting small game through the brush, and he spied the thatched roof of a beaver's house in a little scallop of the lake. Then he ran on up the shore of the lake, all his senses alert, his eyes constantly looking for other trails than the one he had made himself on his south-bound journey that morning.

The sun had been set a half-hour when he came to a place where the trail led inward a short distance from the shore. A few more yards brought him to a small log cabin. Other ears heard him coming and as he stopped a boy and a man looked out from the cabin doorway. "You made good time of it, Jack," said the boy at the door. "Did you really get to Dutton's?"

"Did I get there?" chuckled the runner. "I got there a good hour before noon."

"And what did they say there?" asked the man at the door.

"That the Yorkers mean to settle this land themselves. If they can," he added, with a grin. "That's what all the men said down at Dutton's, 'if they can,' and they shook their fists when they said it." Jack Sloan shook his fist in imitation of the men. "Not if the Green Mountain Boys can help it! Not by a jugful! No, sir!" he added.

The man grunted approvingly and stepped back into the cabin. The boy came out. "I got a silver fox to-day," he declared proudly. "The biggest one I ever saw, too."

"Did you, Sam? That's fine! I saw plenty of tracks, heard a bull-moose calling, too; but I didn't have time to stop. Gee, but my legs are tired now! I'm going to lie down by the fire and rest a bit."

He went inside, where the man was busy frying bacon and boiling coffee, and taking a blanket from a bed in the corner spread it out before the fire and stretched himself comfortably on it. "Dutton wanted to know when you'd be sending him some more skins, Peter," he said. "He wants to get 'em over to Albany early this year, in case there should be more trouble with the Yorkers."

"I can send him some next week," was the answer. "There's a dozen mink and a dozen otter out in the shed now, an' a lot o' beavers an' martens, and four fine foxes. Did they say anything about Ethan Allen, Jack?"

"They said he was down at Bennington. My, but that bacon smells good! They had corn-cake and molasses down at Dutton's, and I ate so much I didn't think I'd ever be hungry again, but I am all right now."

Peter Jones, the trapper, laughed. "I never saw the time when you and Sam wasn't ready for food."

Sam came in soon, like a bear-cub scenting food, and the three had supper and then made things snug for the night. The weather was growing colder. Peter, taking a squint at the sky, allowed that he thought the lake would be frozen clear across by morning. They brought in a good stock of wood and built up the fire, and then sat down in front of it to hear what Jack had to tell them of the news at Dutton's trading-post.

At that time, in 1774, there was a great dispute between the two colonies of New Hampshire and New York as to which owned the country of the Green Mountains. New York stretched way up on the west shore of Lake Champlain, and New Hampshire extended from the northern boundary of Massachusetts up along the eastern shore of the Connecticut River. Now Massachusetts reached as far west as a line drawn south from Lake Champlain, and the governor of New Hampshire claimed that his colony extended as far west as Massachusetts. He quoted his colony's grant from the king of England to prove his claim, and he sent word to Governor Clinton of New York that he meant to settle the great Green Mountain tract that lay between the Connecticut River and Lake Champlain.

Governor Clinton sent back word to Governor Wentworth of New Hampshire that the province of New York claimed all that land under the charter of King Charles II to his brother the Duke of York.

New Hampshire settlers, however, went into this debatable land and built homes and began to farm there. Governor Wentworth granted lands, known as the New Hampshire Grants, to any who would settle there, and a township was organized west of the Connecticut River, and was named Bennington. The country was very fertile, the woods and rivers were full of game, and it was a tempting land to take. But the New Yorkers looked on the land as greedily as did the men from New Hampshire, and soon both provinces were sending their sheriffs and other officers to enforce their own laws there.

New York appealed to the king of England to settle the dispute, and he declared that the western bank of the Connecticut River should be the boundary line, giving all the Green Mountain country to the province of New York. By this time, however, there were a great many people from New Hampshire living there, and they meant to keep their homes no matter what the New York governor might do. What he did was to order the settlers to give up their grants from New Hampshire and buy their lands over again from New York, which charged twenty times as much as New Hampshire had. A few settlers did this, but most of them refused. A meeting of the latter was held at Bennington, and they resolved, as they said, "to support their rights and property in the New Hampshire Grants against the usurpations and unjust claims of the governor and Council of New York by force, as law and justice were denied them."

The settlers began to resist all New York officers who came to arrest them or try to eject them from their homes. Surveyors who came to run new lines across lands already granted by New Hampshire were forced to stop. No matter how secretly a sheriff with a party of Yorkers, as the New York officers were called, came to a farm in the disputed land, there were sure to be settlers there to meet the Yorkers and drive them away. The settlers had scouts all through the country; every trading-post was a rallying-point.

A military force was organized, and chose Ethan Allen, a rugged, eloquent man, to be its colonel. The governor of New York declared that he would drive these men into the Green Mountains, and when they heard this Ethan Allen's followers took the name of Green Mountain Boys for themselves.

Peter Jones was a hunter and trapper. The two boys, Jack and Sam, were the sons of men who had moved into the country on New Hampshire grants and taken up farm land. The boys had wanted to learn more of the woods than they could on their fathers' farms, and so had joined Peter at his cabin. He had taught them woodcraft and Indian lore, how to paddle a canoe, how to shoot straight, how to track the animals they wanted. All three were ready at any time to go to the help of settlers who might be driven from their land by New York officers.

Jack told the news of Dutton's trading-post, and then the hunter and the boys went to bed. Outside the cabin the wind whistled and sang. By morning the wind had dropped, but the air was very cold. Peter was up soon after dawn, putting fresh wood on the fire. The boys followed him shortly, getting into warm clothes as quickly as they could. They ate breakfast, and went outdoors. The lake was a field of ice, the trees were stiff with frost, the cold air nipped and stung their faces viciously.

There was plenty of work to do. Soon Peter set out to visit a line of traps to the south, and the boys went through the woods northwest to look at other traps. They came to the frozen bed of a little stream and a couple of beaver traps. There were no animals there. Perhaps the night had been too cold to tempt them from their homes. "I shouldn't think any animals would have gone prowling round last night," said Sam.

"I know I wouldn't," said Jack, "if I was a beaver."

They pushed on through the woods until they came to an open pasture. They had started across it when they heard a crow calling overhead. "Must be a fox somewhere about," whispered Jack. "Let's see if we can find him, even if we haven't got our guns."

They went back to the edge of the woods, making as little noise as they could, for they knew that a fox depends more on his ears than on his eyes. They stopped behind the trees and after a few minutes saw a big gray fox trotting slowly along the edge of the woods. Dropping to their knees the boys crept forward to a hummock and hid back of it. The fox stood still, looked about, and then started at a slow gait across the meadow.

The fox was more than a hundred yards away from the boys when Jack began to squeak like a meadow-mouse. No Indian or hunter could have heard the sound at half that distance, but the air was very still and Jack knew the fox's big ears were very sharp. True enough, the fox did hear it, and stopping, looked around.

Again Jack gave the squeak of the meadow-mouse. The fox came leaping lightly over the frozen hassocks of the meadow toward the two hidden boys. Every few yards he would stop and cock his ears over the long grass to listen. Each time he did this Jack squeaked, lower and lower each time, and every time the fox came on again, more and more cautiously, as if he were afraid of frightening the game he was hunting.

The fox got within fifty yards, and from there the boys, crouching behind their hummock, were in plain view of him. The fox looked sharply, distrustingly at the hummock. Had either boy moved his head or arm the fraction of an inch the fox would have shot off like an arrow to the woods. Neither did move, however. Jack waited until he judged from the fox's attitude and the set of his ears that his suspicions were vanishing, and then he squeaked again, very faintly now. The fox bounded on, almost up to the hummock. Then he stopped short, and the boys could see from the look on his shrewd face that he judged something was wrong. Instead of coming on he circled round to the left, trusting to his nose rather than to his eyes.

Jack squeaked, but the fox went on circling; it was plain he meant to come no farther. "What's the matter, old boy?" said Jack softly.

At the sound of Jack's voice the fox sprang up into the air and then bounded away to the edge of the woods, where he stopped a minute to look back and then disappeared behind the trees.

"We could have had him easy," said Sam, getting up. "We could almost have caught him with our hands."

"I don't want to try catching a big fellow like that with my hands," said Jack, chuckling. "Give me a gun every time."

When they got back to the cabin they found that Peter had been more successful than they in his visit to the traps on the south, for the skins of an otter and a mink had been added to the store that hung on a line in the drying-shed. After dinner the hunter took from his pocket a piece of wood he had been working over for several days. "I'm going to see if I can't fool a pickerel with this," he announced, holding out the little decoy for the boys to look at. The wood was cut to represent a minnow, was weighted on the bottom with lead, and had fins and a tail made of tin. He had painted a red stripe on each side, a white belly, and a brilliant green back. A line fastened to the minnow would allow Peter to pull it about in the water as if it were swimming.

Armed with a long-shafted fish-spear and a hatchet Peter and the boys went out on the ice. Choosing a smooth place Peter cut a square of ice. Then through the open space the hunter dropped his wooden minnow and made it swim about in a very lively way. In his right hand he held the spear poised, ready to strike at any venturesome fish.

For some time they waited; then the long nose of a pickerel showed in the water; Peter jerked the minnow and struck with the spear. The pickerel, however, slipped away unharmed. They had to wait fifteen minutes before another appeared. This time the pickerel stopped motionless, and seemed to be carefully considering the lively red-striped minnow. Then the fish shot forward, Peter aimed his spear, and the shining pickerel was caught and thrown out on the ice. Peter caught two more fish before he let Sam have a try at it. Sam and Jack each caught a pickerel, and then they brought their five trophies back to the camp to cook for supper.

They had just sat down to supper when there came a rap on the door followed by the entrance of a tall man in a fur jacket with a gun slung across his back. He was John Snyder, a hunter from the country north of the lake, and he had met the three in the cabin several times before.

"H-mm," said he, "that fish smells mighty good. I haven't tasted fish for a month o' Sundays."

"Pitch right in," invited Peter, setting out another tin plate and pouring a cup of coffee for the new arrival.

Snyder pulled off his cap and gloves, and threw off his fur coat, showing a buckskin jacket underneath. He ate like a man who hadn't tasted food for a month. After a while he said, "They say up where I come from that thar's trouble down Bennington way. If the Yorkers want trouble I reckon we can supply 'em good and proper. I'm on my way to Dutton's, and thar's more of the Boys comin' on down through the woods. Why don't you come along with me in the morning?"

"We was planning to go when we'd got a few more skins," said Peter. "But we've got a fair-sized stock, an' I don't know but what we might go along with you."

"That's what the word is," said Snyder. "Green Mountain Boys to Bennington." He looked hardy and tough, a typical pioneer, quite as ready to fight as he was to hunt or farm.

That night the guest slept on the floor before the fire, rolled in a blanket, and soon after dawn next morning the four set out, pulling two heavy sleds to which the furs and skins were securely strapped.

All four of the party were used to long trips on foot, often carrying considerable baggage. There were few post-roads through that part of the country, and horses would have been little use in traveling through such rough and wooded stretches. So most of the new settlers, and particularly those who were hunters, copied the customs of the Indians and trained themselves to long journeys afoot, varied occasionally by canoeing when they reached open water. The party of four traveled fast, in spite of the heavy sleds. Peter Jones, not very tall but very wiry, all sinew and muscle, and Sam, red-haired, freckle-faced, and rather stocky, pulled one sled, and big, raw-boned, weather-beaten Snyder, and slim, Indian-like Jack the other.

Presently they left the lake and came into more open country, where they could see snow-powdered hills stretching away to the clear blue horizon. Now they made better time, for there was no underbrush to catch the sleds and stop them. On they went until they saw a number of cabins grouped about a larger frame building, then they broke into a run, and dashed up with a shout before Dutton's trading-post.

The shout brought three or four men out to see what was the matter. They called the newcomers by name, and "Big Bill" Dutton, seeing the sleds, told Peter Jones to bring his furs inside. Jack and Sam and Peter unstrapped the furs and carried them into the house, where they were spread out on a long counter, over which Dutton was accustomed to buy whatever farmers and hunters and trappers might have for sale, and in return to sell them provisions or clothing or guns or powder and shot or whatever he might have that they wanted.

There was always a great deal of haggling over the sale of furs. Peter had to point out what unusually fine skins of otter and beaver and mink, of marten and fox he had brought, and Dutton had to argue that this fur was rather scanty, that other one very much spotted. But at last they reached an agreement, Peter was paid in cash for the pelts, and they were carefully stowed away by the trader, to be sent at the first good opportunity over to Albany, from where they would go by boat down the river to New York.

Meantime Jack and Sam, outside the house, were listening to the stories of the men who had gathered at Dutton's. They were exciting stories of conflicts between Green Mountain settlers and the Yorkers or those who sided with them. One man told how a doctor, who had openly talked in favor of the Yorkers, had been swung in an armchair for two hours under the sign of the Green Mountain Tavern at Bennington, on which sign stood the stuffed hide of a great panther, a monster who showed his teeth at all enemies from New York. Most of the stories were of the exploits of Ethan Allen and his band of Green Mountain Boys. They said that Ethan Allen had caught a surveyor marking out claims for Yorkers, and had taken him prisoner and had ordered him out of the country on pain of death if they caught him there again. Then Allen had marched on to the First Falls of Otter Creek, where Yorkers had driven out some New Hampshire settlers who had built a sawmill. The Boys had sent the intruders flying at the point of their guns, and had burned their log houses and broken the stones of a gristmill the enemy had built. Then they had brought the original owners back and settled them again in possession of their houses and sawmill. All through that part of the country similar things were taking place. The men said they had word that Yorkers were planning to drive settlers off their farms not very far to the west of Dutton's. "If they do it," cried Snyder, striking his open palm with his great fist, "I want to be there to settle accounts with them!" So said all the rest; Ethan Allen and his men shouldn't have all the glory there was going.

"Big Bill" Dutton's frame house was tavern and post-office as well as trading-post and meeting-place for the settlers of the neighborhood. When Mrs. Dutton rang the dinner bell all the strangers trooped into the room back of the store and sat at the long table. Jack and Sam marched in with the others and ate their share of dinner while they listened to the talk of the men. Some of the latter were for setting out south toward Bennington immediately, in order to learn at first hand what was going on.

After dinner they all stood about the stove in the store, talking, talking, talking. Sam and Jack went outdoors and looked about the little group of cabins. A boy of near their own age came out from one of the houses and talked with them about hunting moose. As they were swapping yarns a man rode into the settlement from the southwest. At sight of the three he flung out his right arm. "Yorkers down to Beaver Falls!" he called out. "They're coming to drive our people out o' their homes! Are there any Green Mountain Boys hereabouts?"

"In there!" exclaimed Jack, pointing to the store. "Tell 'em about it in there!"

The horseman sprang from his saddle. "Fetch a blanket for my horse, will you?" said he. The boy who lived there ran indoors to get a covering. Meantime the rider strode up to Dutton's door and flung it open. He walked up to the group of men about the stove, announcing his news briefly. At his heels came Sam and Jack, and back of them came the boy from the log house opposite.

II

They started from Dutton's next morning, a troop of a dozen men and three boys, bound for Beaver Falls. "Big Bill" left his store in charge of his wife, and took command of the troop. They were all hardy and strong, and they covered the twenty miles to Beaver Falls by the middle of the afternoon.

Here there stood a sawmill on the river, with a score of log houses, and farms scattered through the neighborhood. The place looked perfectly quiet as the fifteen Green Mountain Boys trooped up to it. But they soon found there was plenty of excitement in the mill. There were gathered most of the men of the Falls, and they were very glad to see the reinforcements.

"Yorkers been found prowling round in the woods!" "Surveyors been caught in the act of staking claims!" "Jim Murdock found a paper stuck on his door, saying we'd better get out peaceful-like, and let the lawful owners have their land!" Such were some of the items of information given to Dutton's band.

"Let 'em come!" exclaimed Snyder, slapping his hand round the muzzle of his gun. "This is the law of the land we'll read to them!"

After a time Jack and Sam, having heard all there was to hear, struck out on a line of their own. They followed the bank of the river until they came to woods, and then skirted the forest southward. This brought them at length to a wide trail with frozen wheel ruts. Down this road they went, passing occasional cabins, until they came to a crossroad where they found a man looking perplexedly about him, as if undecided which road to take.