CHAPTER VII

IN WHICH A BUTTON BETRAYS ITS OWNER

"No, no, you will not die, father," cried Nathan. "It may not be a mortal wound. Where are you hit?" He looked wildly around, wringing his hands. "Can't something be done?" he added. "Bring water from the swamp, or send for a surgeon."

"I'm afraid it's no use, lad," said the lieutenant of the company. "If it was possible to help him--"

"No, I'm past human aid," groaned the wounded man. "My time has come, and I must answer the call. I'm shot in the breast, and my strength is nearly spent. Compose yourself, dear boy, and listen to me. Remember, it may soon be too late."

Nathan forced back the tears, and with a white, rigid face, he bent nearer his dying parent. "Speak, father," he replied, huskily. "I am listening."

Captain Stanbury nodded. "There are papers buried under the floor of my cabin up at Wyoming," he said in a voice that was broken with pain. "I have kept them all these years--for you. Get them, Nathan, and guard them carefully. You little know--how important they are."

"Yes, I will get them, father," promised Nathan.

"Barnabas will help you, lad. He is a trusty old friend--and neighbor."

"You kin count on me, Captain," declared Barnabas, as he wiped a tear from his eye with the palm of his horny hand. "An' what are you doin' here, Mister Redcoat?" he added sharply.

The last remark was addressed to Major Langdon. He had pushed into the group uninvited, and heard the American officer's words to his son. Now, as he peeped furtively at the wounded man from one side, his face was pale and bloodless under its bronzed skin, and in his black eyes was a strange and half-triumphant expression.

"Have you a prisoner there?" asked Captain Stanbury, catching a glimpse of the red uniform. "See that he is well treated, men. Oh, this pain!" he added, grasping at his breast. "Nathan--don't forget--the papers--they contain the secret--and the proofs of--" His head dropped back and his eyes closed, the secret that had been on his lips still untold.

Was the brave officer living or dead? There was no time to tell. As Nathan clasped his father's hands in a passion of grief, the straggling musketry-fire in front suddenly ceased, and back in full flight poured the Pennsylvania troops. On their right flank, sweeping along under the gathering shades of evening to cover the retreat of the British brigade, came a compact line of dragoons. A dozen voices yelled at Nathan, but he only shook his head.

"Take my father along," he cried, "and I will go."

Crack! crack! crack!--the rear ranks of the grenadiers had turned and were firing. The dragoons were galloping closer. A ball tore the lad's cap from his head, and he sprang to his feet, staring around him undecidedly. Then Barnabas Otter and Corporal Dubbs grasped him by each arm, and in spite of protest they dragged him rapidly along with the retreating regiment. In the rout Major Langdon was forgotten, and he seized the opportunity to drop into a clump of bushes, where he lay unseen until his own men came up.

The dragoons continued the pursuit almost to the edge of the woods, and there a hot fire from the rallied skirmishers, and a few shells from Knox's guns on the hillside, drove them back with severe loss to the British lines.

Night was now closing in, and with darkness the battle ended. The British had lost nearly a thousand; the Americans less than three hundred. But Washington was not satisfied. He issued orders to resume the attack at daylight, and after eating supper in ranks the weary troops slept upon their arms.

For Nathan the joy of victory was swallowed up in bitter grief. After the moon rose, with Barnabas Otter and a few other faithful comrades, he ventured out from the woods to recover his father's body. But it could not be found, though the spot where he had fallen was easily located. All around were dead and wounded, British and American, but no sign of Captain Stanbury.

"It's no use to look," said Nathan. "My father is not dead. He is alive, and a prisoner in the hands of the enemy."

"What makes you think so?" asked Barnabas.

"Because the British have left their own dead on the field," was the reply. "Would they have carried off an American officer, unless he was alive?"

"True fur that, lad," said Barnabas, "but it's a mighty queer disappearance just the same." His brow knitted as he remembered the strange and evil look on Major Langdon's face while he watched Captain Stanbury. "I wish that stuck-up British officer hadn't slipped away," he added angrily, little dreaming, as he spoke the words, of what the major's escape was to cost himself and others.

"We'd better be going back, my lad," said Corporal Dubbs. "Your father will be exchanged one of these days, if he is alive; and I don't doubt but he is. It's my belief the ball glanced from his ribs, or went in a bit sidewise, and whichever it was the pain and shock would be enough to make him faint."

Nathan brightened up at this opinion, and his mood was cheerful as he trudged back to the lines with the search party.

"What can those papers contain?" he asked himself. "I suppose they will reveal the secret of my father's early life, of which he would never speak. I will get them at the first chance, but I will never open them so long as there is a possibility of my father being alive. A dozen times in the past week I was tempted to tell him of the queer chap who inquired for him at the Indian Queen. I wish now I had done so, but it is too late for regrets."

Nathan's sleep that night was peaceful, but he awoke in the morning to share a great disappointment with the whole army. Under cover of darkness, the British had stolen off, cavalry, infantry, and batteries. They were already miles on the march to Middletown--too far away to be overtaken.

This discovery was followed immediately by a piece of news that proved of the deepest interest to Nathan and his friends. A courier rode into camp with a letter for Washington from the Board of War. It appeared that messengers had lately been sent to the Board by the Wyoming settlers, stating that their peaceful valley was threatened by the invasion of a large force of Tories and Seneca Indians under Colonel John Butler; that they were too few in number to hold their scattered forts with any hope of success, and begging for the immediate return of their able-bodied men who were serving in the American army. The letter concluded by urging that their request should be acceded to.

Washington lost not an hour's time, realizing that the intended attack was prompted by the knowledge that the greater part of the fighting men of the settlements were absent, and that it might even now be too late to save the almost defenseless women and children from Tory bullets and Indian tomahawks.

Ammunition and arms were distributed to the Wyoming men, and ere the sun was well up the little band--numbering less than ten-score--had started on their long march of nearly one hundred and fifty miles to the northwest, eager to save families and friends from massacre.

Nathan and Barnabas were naturally of the party, and while they shared the fears and resolves of the others, they were also determined to procure the papers that were buried under Captain Stanbury's cabin--the success of which mission depended on their reaching the valley before it should be seized and occupied by the enemy. General Washington had promised to do all in his power to procure the exchange of Nathan's father--if he was still alive--and this enabled the lad to set out on his journey with a comparatively light heart.

Barnabas Otter was a product of the early days of Pennsylvania colonization. One of the first settlers in the Wyoming Valley, his bravery and sterling qualities had there gained for him the honest liking of his neighbors. He was now nearly sixty years old, lean and rugged, with a physique like iron and limbs that never tired. He was a master of woodcraft, as many a wary Indian had learned, and his aim rarely missed. With the fearlessness of a lion and the stealth of a panther, he combined the vision of a hawk and the hearing of a deer. Altogether, he was such a friend as Nathan might well count worth having.

Many of the Wyoming men were weak and exhausted, and though the march was kept up at a fairly good speed, it was not fast enough to suit Barnabas. So, at noon of the third day, July 1st, when the party had halted for a brief rest in the lonely country, miles to the northwest of Trenton, the old woodsman suggested that himself and half a dozen others--naming those most capable of speed and endurance--should push on in advance of the main band. He urged as a reason the necessity for letting their imperiled friends know that aid was on the way, so that they might hold out with better spirit. The possession of Captain Stanbury's papers was purely a minor reason with Barnabas, as he frankly admitted to Nathan. "The first object of the journey is to save the settlements, lad," he said; "but of course we'll dig up these papers as soon as we git a chance."

The officers commanding the troops promptly recognized the wisdom of the suggested course. Barnabas chose Nathan--whose wind and strength well fitted him for the purpose--and five brave and hardy men of his own company. They started at once, taking plenty of ammunition and supplies for three days, and were a mile on their way when the main body which they left behind, began the afternoon's march.

The region stretching northwest to the Susquehanna at Wilkesbarre was wild and lonely, but Barnabas knew every foot of the way. He avoided the circuitous bridle-road, and led the party by narrow and direct trails of his own choosing--over rugged and dismal mountain passes, through forests where deer and bear, turkeys and pheasants abounded, and across streams that teemed with fish.

By the aid of an early moon they traveled until ten o'clock that night, and after sleeping soundly in the woods, and without camp-fires, they resumed their march at daybreak. About the middle of the morning, coming to an open glade by a spring, they made a startling discovery. Here a party of horsemen had plainly spent the previous night. The ground was trodden by hoofs and footmarks. The ashes of two fires were still warm, and close by were heaps of pine-boughs that had served for bedding.

"Who can they have been?" asked Nathan.

"I can't guess, lad," replied Barnabas, shaking his head, "an' it's hard to say where they're bound for. They ain't been gone long, an' from the looks of things they numbered nine or ten. We must have crossed their trail somewhere's back without seein' it. From here," stepping forward and pointing to the trodden grass, "they went almost due north. I reckon they're striking for the bridle-road yonder, which runs sort of parallel with the course we're making--"

He stopped suddenly as he spied a glittering object at his feet: "A Britisher's spur!" he exclaimed, picking it up. "An' the pattern the dragoons wear. What on earth does this mean?"

"It means a squad of the enemy's cavalry, Barnabas," declared Evan Jones.

"I believe you, man," said Barnabas, "who else but the cussed British would have cut limbs for bedding? An' the camp-fires show that they didn't reckon on any other travelers bein' in the neighborhood. I'm clean beat to know--"

"Here's something else," interrupted Nathan, handing Barnabas a large horn button of an odd color.

The old man looked at it intently. His eyes flashed, and his teeth showed behind his parted lips. "Simon Glass!" he cried.

"Simon Glass?" echoed three or four voices.

"Aye, Simon Glass, men," repeated Barnabas. "I'll swear to this button. It came off his buckskin coat, an' the inhuman fiend lost it here hisself."

"I've heard of Simon Glass," Nathan said curiously. "Who is he?"

"You don't want to meet him, lad," Barnabas answered grimly. "If ever there was a devil in human shape he's that same. He's a little squatty man, with one eye out; but the other's worth half a dozen. An' his face is a criss-cross of knife-scars.

"There ain't any crime too bad for the wretch," Barnabas continued earnestly. "Until eight years back he lived about Wyoming, an' every one was afraid of him. He shot two men what crossed him, an' robbed an' murdered another. Then he had to light out, an' the next heard of him was that he'd killed a man an' woman up at Niagara. When the war begun he turned Tory an' joined the British, an' since then they say he's killed a heap of Americans in cold blood. I have a score agin him, an' I won't forget it. An' as for this old buckskin coat--why, he's been wearin' it steady for fifteen years, an' he wore it on this very spot last night. I know the buttons."

"What can he be doing here?" asked a Scotchman named Collum McNicol.

"He may have some bloody work of his own on hand," replied Barnabas, "but it's more likely he's been hired to lead these dragoons up to join Butler's forces at Wyoming. An' yet it ain't natural for such a little handful of British to march a hundred and fifty miles up country from Clinton's army. Well, it's no use guessin'. We can't overtake the party, seein' they're mounted, and p'raps it's just as well. But if we do run across 'em--along the way or up at Wyoming, I'll have a bullet ready for Simon Glass. We've fooled too long, men--march on."

Rapidly, and with untiring speed, the little band of seven filed on through the forest paths, while the sun crept from horizon to horizon. Barnabas was in a sober and thoughtful mood, and his companions could not shake off a feeling of impending ill. Brave men though they were, the presence of Simon Glass in the vicinity was enough to unsteady their nerves. Eyes were keen and ears alert as they advanced.

About the middle of the afternoon footsteps were heard in front, and down dropped every man to cover. Seven musket barrels were in line with the stranger as he came in sight among the trees--a bearded settler in gray homespun.

"Hooray! Luke Shippen!" cried Barnabas, jumping up, and soon the whole party were shaking hands with an old friend and neighbor.

"Where's the rest of the troops?" was the new-comer's first question. "I've come to hurry them up."

"Are they needed sorely?" asked Barnabas.

"Aye, men," Shippen replied. "When I left Wilkesbarre night afore last Colonel John Butler was up above the valley at the mouth of the Lackawanna, with a force of Tories and Indians from Canada. He's holding off for reinforcements, but they may come any time. Our people are in the forts, but they won't be able to offer much resistance."

"God help them!" muttered Barnabas. "Push on, Luke. You'll find the Wyoming troops half a day's march behind. Bid them travel with all haste. Meanwhile, we'll let no grass grow under our feet."

"I'll trust you for that, man. I'm off."

"Wait," added Barnabas. "You met none on the way, Luke?"

"Not a soul. Why do you ask?"

"No matter," said Barnabas. "Good-bye."

"Good-bye, comrade," replied Shippen, and his long strides quickly carried him out of sight.

"Now for a hard march," said Barnabas to his men, "and God grant we arrive in time. We are sorely needed, few as we are."

Twilight came, and a brief interval of darkness, and then the glow of the rising moon. For mile after mile the little band pressed on, heedless of hunger and weariness, and it was close to midnight when their leader halted them on a far-stretching plateau high up among the mountains, sparsely timbered with pine and oak.

"Here we'll spend what little of the night is left, bein' as we're all done out," declared Barnabas. "I know the spot. Wyoming is but six or eight miles off, an' we'll make it afore to-morrow noon. Now for supper an' rest."

Rations were served out and eaten, and then Barnabas divided the night into three watches and assigned the men to duty. Reuben Atwood's turn came first, and the soft step of the sentry was the last sound the weary men heard as they fell asleep on the fragrant pine needles.

Nathan slumbered for hours, too fatigued even to dream, and then he suddenly opened his eyes and sat up, barely able to repress a cry. A small snake glided from his side, and he knew that the cold touch of the reptile on his hand had wakened him.

His companions were sleeping around him, but he saw nothing of the sentry. Looking further his eyes rested on an open glade, bathed in moonlight, that was twenty feet away among the trees. Cold perspiration started on his brow, and he trembled from head to foot. His breath came quick and hard. Was it a real or a ghostly visitant--that slim figure standing in the centre of the glade; that familiar face staring toward him, with its every feature clear in the moon's silver glow?